Nothing But "Net"

ok. So the folks helping plan, organize, and deliver the meeting are awesome. If the product is no good, and the technical support is bad, then it is all a moot point. With SmartCity, that is not an issue. The SmartCity operations team is very good and top notch. Lead by Mohamed, Brandon, and Danny, SmartCity provided the College a well designed and supported solution and that enabled us to deliver a great educational experience to our attendees.

ACC09 was a terrific experience for the ACC NOC team. With 8 networks, 92 locations, and hundreds of computers delivered, setup, and installed within 5 days, SmartCity had their hands full. But they have a terrific process. More than 90% of the network drops were already installed and operational when we arrived. This is very good and I wish more convention and conference centers did it this way. What about the last 10%, where there are changes that occur with a meeting of this size, and there are also simple mistakes made by ACC or SmartCity. However we had great teamwork and when an issue came up, no one argued over it, we just worked on getting what needed to be done - done! It was great.

Below find Mohamed and Danny. Both great guys and we had a good time working with them and their entire team.


Mohamed Rashad


Danny Thomson

Its all about customer support @ OCCC

Word on the street is that ACC09 was very successful. Everything I saw confirms this. I heard attendees, faculty, and leadership were pleased with the meeting and our conference was well covered by the media. I read several news articles, viewed TV stories, and saw numerous web articles.

This is great for the ACC. We are here to provide education and everyone did a terrific job down in Orlando. A key reason we did so well is we had great support from the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) and two people in perticular - Frank Loyke and Sarah Merrill.

Frank is our main POC for SmartCity Networks (SCN) and SCN provides network, internet access, and telephones for the OCCC. We started working with Frank back in 2008 and worked out a comprehensive network design that would support our activities during the meeting. That ended up being 8 networks in 92 locations. Frank was terrific and instrumental for our success in the planning and implementation of everything. Frank is a great event coordinator for SCN and a terrific advocate for the center. We really enjoyed working with Frank.

Our meeting planners work many years in advance and have many of the relationships in place and know everyone. The NOC team rolls in about one year before the event and starts to figure things out and who does what at the center. These usually are at large meetings with 20-30 people present and we figure out who does what. At our last site visit before the meeting, we met Sarah.

Sarah is our main POC for the OCCC and is our hidden hero. Sarah knows everyone at the center. Not only does she know who to call, she called them and followed up to ensure that everything we needed was taken care of. And I mean everything, but particular the power team. We use alot of power all over the center and it needs to be well coordinated with the Internet guys @ SCN. Sarah was all over the place running around on her stand up scooter. All the while zooming around talking on a cell phone or radio. And smiling at the same time. Sarah did a terrific job, is an excellent advocate for the center, and we enjoyed working with her.

Both Frank and Sarah are fine examples of great customer service and finding out ways to get it all done and make the customer extreamly happy. We are very happy!