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NEWS photo Mike Wakefield

Identifying Mi

Darryl Craig Contributing Writer

NOW that you have decided that your busi- ness is at risk because of the Millennium Bug — what do you de?

The answer is to start an effective Year 2000 program before the Millennium Bug has a chance to strike.

As always the first step in any project is to understand

the size and scope of the problem. In short, you must start.

A Year 2000 inventory is not counting the bugs as much as it is counting the places the bugs could be. The goal in this first phase of a year 2000 project is to answer some fundamental questions: EB “How many of your orga- nization’s systems could be affected by Year 2000 prob- Jems?”

8 “To what extent are those

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USINESS HIGH TECH -

problems and systems interde- pendent?”

Some organizations will have systems that were devel- oped in-house while others will use only commercial products (like word proces- sors and spreadsheets). Each will have to be assessed in turn, In addition, it is impor- tant to grasp which of these systems are actively used in your organization and which are used only occasionally since this will affect the busi-

ness decisions that you make

later on.

To answer these questions, you must carry out the dual tasks of identification and dis-

covery,

Identify every system in your organization, and dis- cover how many of those sys-

tems are

by Year 2000 problems. During the Inventory phase, you do just that.

Your organization's sys- tems will include software

mpti ise buy

In-store TV to market product on the shelf

Robert Gaister News Reporter TWO West Vancouverites want to take advantage of something, most sports store patrons aimost invari- ably end up doing — waiting.

To that end Steve Boultbee and fohn Ryckman have founded finpulse “TV Nenvork and hope to provide waiting cus- tomers with something to look at.

“The ides is about 15 vears ald (but) the business itself’... we started with the business plan abour 18 months ago,” said Boulthee.

robert@nsnews.cam

A dramatic decrease in the price of

broadcast quality editing systems allowed the peo to finally proceed with the long: standing idea is. Sophisticated editing machines are still far from cheap.

“We both dumped in all of our savings and thar way gene in about a day,” said Boultbee with a laugh.

In order te secure additional financial resources they sold) a part-interest in the business, but have retained majority control.

Impulse TV Network produces pro- gramming for stores which end up plaving the spots on their in-store televisions. The difference is the store chooses which spots they most want. Existing policy has many outlets playing sports channels, but no con- trol over which products are being adver- tised — often the store won't even be carry: ing the items.

The business is stil in its infanev with eight paying advertisers on line, Fitty is the number they’re shooting tor, and with big-

ucket games The MasterCard and Blick Anicht already signed ony the rest should come rather easily,

“The idea is 30 seconds of high end enterLunment and: then an ad.” explained Bouwltbee adding the pattern can go on for up to 74 minutes. “les arguably the best place to advertise. “There is no other place where vou fave dhe dollars of tte buver and the product al! ia the same place.

“You put an adion the TV and you've gotd guy ana couch cating cheezies ... the message of the ad starts: decaying right aw.”

Within the next month Impulse TV will be seen in more than 100 Jocations. The result of the fast-found success is pandemo- nium in the offices.

“We're i a production crunch right now,” said Boultbee. “The last neo weeks have been midnight to 2 a.m. evenings but it has to be done.”

The result although stressful is a marked increase in job satisfaction.

“It's very exciting to be working for vourself) T thought [owas working, hard before — travelling a lot, working long hours — bur now Pm working much hard- er,” said Boultbee. “Hf this takes off like we expect it to there'll be a great pavott.”

Boulthee said the increase in’ staff turnover and the predominance of part-time employees has resulted in a dumbing down of employees who have a much stighter knowledge of the product lines in the stores.

“They (store owners) can’t rely on the retail staff anymore to deliver the message,” said Boultbee.

STEVE Boultbee (left) and John Ryckman have banded together to form Impulse TV Network, a pre-programmed line-up that combines advertise- ments and sports action sequences for show at sporting supply outlets across Canada. By the end of the month, the duo expects more thar 100 outlets to be signed up, including local Sport Mart locations.

lennium bug hidey-ho

likely to be affected controllers).

applications, operating sys- tems, computing hardware, communications hardware, third-party interfaces, and embedded systems (for exam- ple, E-PROMS, microcon- troller chips, PC BIOS, and so on used in fax machines, copiers, phones and process

Each item must be decu- niented in the inventory. Where possible you should discover the item’s manufac- turer, brand, version, model

es

and any other information thar seems relevant to unique- ly identifying the item. You must also document the dependencies of the system.

Or, in other werets, che places that it sends and receives information. For

y systems this will be very

simple (like a fax), for others very complex (like a distrib- uted payroll system). As well, in a large organization it will

See Best page 17

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