Oklahoma is seeing a climb in unemployment rates. In January, Oklahoma rose to 5.6 percent. Many companies are struggling with the decision of staff reduction challenges. Outsourcing has become big news across the country because white-collar jobs in areas such as telecommunications and information technology are being outsourced every day. Anything that makes hiring an employee more expensive discourages job creation. To keep our economy going, we must create jobs. Outsourcing can be a tool to job creation.

For employers, outsourcing can be a cost effective way to keep their projects going and profits up without the hiring and training cost of new employees. There are many Oklahoma businesses that outsource their workforce to other organizations who already carry the overhead insurance and training costs.

Are you considering outsourcing? First, define the mission of your business. Put your internal resources on focusing on your core business. Then, consider outsourcing the other operations that are not as strategic. Next, look for someone who is an “expert” in their field. This allows you to turn over parts of your operation to an expert and allows you to focus on critical needs and growth.

Before you ramp up your outsourcing services, learn these outsourcing ABCs from Kevin Gregson, chief executive officer of Sherwood Solutions, a business advisory firm.

Alignment: Is outsourcing the right move for your business?
Business case: Have you taken all costs into consideration?
Culture: Can you bridge the cultural difference between your company and the outsourcer?
Delivery: How will you define success?

It might take time to get right, but the benefits of outsourcing can be extremely beneficial to both parties.

Heath Clinton is president of Phase 2 Interactive. Phase 2 has been developing Web sites and online applications for some of the state’s largest and most recognized businesses. For more information on Phase 2’s product and services, visit www.phase2online.com or reach him now at heathc@phase2online.com.

Phase 2 Interactive gives back to the community by sponsoring and donating a portion of their services to a variety of charities across Oklahoma. Recently, Prevent Blindness Oklahoma and the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon launched their new redesigned websites.

Communications to various constituents across the State for Prevent Blindness is critical for their education program. The new website now makes it easy to view events, learn about Prevent Blindness programs and even make a donation online. Schools across Oklahoma can now go to the new website and download updated forms, packets and useful fact sheets they use every year.

“Prevent Blindness Oklahoma provides a wonderful service to our community,” said Heath Clinton, president and COO, Phase 2 Interactive. “They provide a crucial service to our communities and we were proud to partner with them. Our technology and custom solutions help deliver a friendly user experience for hundreds of users across Oklahoma.”

Prevent Blindness Oklahoma is the state’s leading volunteer eye health and safety organization dedicated to fighting blindness and saving sight. Established in 1965, Prevent Blindness Oklahoma is the only non-profit agency in Oklahoma dedicated exclusively to fighting blindness. You can view their new website at www.preventblindnessok.org.

The Memorial Marathon this year was sold out and a huge success. Phase 2 was proud to be a part of that success. The new site made it easy to get information about all of the events, register online, print maps and view the results for the marathon.

“We were proud to be a part of the Memorial Marathon Website redesign. Our custom solutions and cutting edge designs help organizations deliver content in a user-friendly environment. Phase 2 participated in the marathon relay this year and now we have several team members that are setting their goals on the half marathon and full marathon next year.

The Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon proceeds go to the Oklahoma City National Memorial Foundation. You can view the new website at www.okcmarathon.com.

Since 1998, Phase 2 Interactive has been developing Web sites and online applications for many of the state’s largest and most recognized businesses. For more information on Phase 2’s product and services, visit www.phase2online.com.

Resistance is nice and all, it’s easy to know what you’re dealing with when you have control of everything. Things like initial voltage, and expected voltage and an idea of the resistance you’re looking for. But when you’re given a device, and you’re told “I want this value, find out how to get it” you have to do a little searching with a lot of unknowns.

Of course I am talking about electronics, and more specifically, micro-controllers. A project I am working on needs to take a COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) item and do special things with it. What am I working with? It’s a temperature controller. Sure, you can see the temperature on the unit itself, but I want to see that in a database. That database is going to reside on a web server somewhere. And the only access I will have to that web server and database is on the computer on the other side of the room.

The answer? You got me. Just kidding, it’s micro-controllers. I am going to use an arduino (or a clone) and then use and xbee radio (on the zigbee protocol) and communicate the data to a similar setup that connects directly to the computer. Ahh, now you get it, resistance comes in the form of adversity and complications in moving the data. Nope, the resistance comes in the form of a set current being passed to the already installed temperature probe. That probe is placed wherever we need temperature, in this case a vat of beer, and the voltage returned from the probe is a value derived through the resistance. So I pass 5 volts in and depending on the temperature, I will get somewhere around 1.335 volts back with something like .0049 volt increments per degree.

That’s just an estimate. How did I find all this? Well, first you take the COTS temperature controller and google it. That gives you its good max and min ranges. But then you have to google the temperature probe as well because it can (and in this case does) have different ranges. Next you hook up a DMM (Digital Multi-Meter) and see what those voltages are because the white papers do not specifically list them. In our case its 0 – 5 volts which is excellent because that’s the exact range our micro-controller runs on.

In the googled white papers I got a list of the resistance, in ohms, returned by the probe for each degree from -40 to 100C but I don’t need the ohm, I need the voltage because I can’t measure resistance on the micro-controller. So now I have to either formulate the voltage based on known max and min values, or just set up a hash table. The first way sounds better and also more precise. The second way, well to me just seems like a cop out.

Currently I am working on making that first way happen. I have most of it ready to go but need to test with multiple temperature units, since we will be watching more than one vat of beer. So hopefully soon we can check out the current temps for our favorite beer at the local brewery and we can do it through a web interface from anywhere in the world!