81 AN ENTERPRISE OF EXCELLENCE CHAPTER FOUR workflows for each service, but NISC will soon move toward an integrated system — everything on one map. That is an important conversation, says Huttegger. Too big for a stand-up meeting, it will form the basis for a Joint Application Devel- opment session that includes utility and telecom Members. telecom technicians use NISC’s mobile iVUE AppSuite™ product in the field. None of the people in these photographs work for NISC. But NISC works for them. “As we’re walking down the halls and through the different buildings, and we see those pictures, it is always top of mind for us why we do what we do and who it is we serve,” says Dosch. Most of NISC’s employees have never worked for an electric utility or telecom, so the 2017 Employee Learning Quarter, a series of employee education modules, focused on the Members’ perspective. Don Franklund, Co-General Manager of Innovative Energy Alliance, an NISC Member site, came to the first session to help employees understand just how vital their jobs are to Members. A former lineman, Franklund now co-manages four electric co-ops in southwestern North Dakota. NISC’s products are “enterprise-wide,” and that means they toucheveryfacetoftheMember’sorganization,fromcustomer billing to payroll to operations or outage management, in the case of electric utilities. Franklund described linemen trekking out at 2 a.m. in the middle of a blizzard with a laptop or a tablet, or a lineman checking the software to determine if a line is open and whether it is safe to close two switches together. “The guy who’s out there working on the line is depending upon your product,” says Franklund. “You are as vital to every distribution co-op out there as the pickup is that takes the guys to the outage.” Keeping that lineman safe requires fluid communication. NISC’s products are integrated to feel like a single piece of software. Or, as Michaela Addison, a Sr. Software Sales Specialist, titled her explanatory session at the 2016 Member Information Conference, “NISC Enterprise: Like Star Trek, But Better.” Information flows like the starship gliding through the galaxy. “Enter the data one time, and it passes through as it needs to,” Addison explained. NISC Research and Development staff (left to right) John Ferlisi, Patrick O’Brien and Paul Blessing review an issue on a tablet. continued on page 84