Technology is a critical, ever-changing component of the workplace. It’s safe to say that without certain technology, most companies wouldn’t have the reach and efficiencies that they do today. In the Bismark-Mandan area, plenty of forward-thinking, respectable work is being made to push the benchmarks and standards of IT, software, and other technology to heights unseen before.
This month, I had the pleasure to catch up with a small handful of the most forward-thinking technology companies making an impact and notable difference within the Bis-Man community and asked them about the tech that they use both within their own company and recommend to others.
Prominent
About Prominent
Prominent is an IT staffing and custom software development company. Established in 2009 as an IT consulting company by CEO Alan Peltz, Prominent provides tailor-made solutions that act as a long-term asset, allowing for increased productivity, efficiency, scalability, security, and fast-acting support.
“We have a unique and proven ability to get to the bottom of your needs, provide results-driven recommendations, and implement those to produce the results you need to succeed. Talented people join our team to participate in a stimulating community of skilled professionals. Our relationships and successes are built on integrity and trust. As a custom software development team, we typically build software that meets the exact need of our clients. When there isn’t an off-the-shelf solution that exists… we build it,” Sannon Norick, Business Development Manager at Prominent, said.
With deep roots in custom software development and IT staffing, Prominent aims to operate with integrity and build relationships on trust. Since its founding in 2009, Prominent has grown a wide-ranging client base and expertise in industries from the medical field to telecommunications, finance, and beyond. 14 years later, Prominent is making an impact as an IT staffing and custom software development company.
What They Use
Trello
Trello – Project Management
“Trello is the ultimate project management tool. Start up a board in seconds, automate tedious tasks, and collaborate anywhere, even on mobile. Trello is a visual tool that empowers your team to manage any type of project, workflow, or task tracking. Add files, checklists, or even automation: Customize it all for how your team works best.” -Trello Website
“Trello is a great application for tracking your projects. The user interface is easy and intuitive.” -Sannon Norick
As a software development firm, we use tools that increase our efficiency and allow us to do things with as little effort and energy as possible so that we can pass savings on to our customers.”
-Sannon Norick
Sannon Norick
Business Development Manager at Prominent
Meet Sannon Norick
“My role at Prominent is to develop our relationships. As the Business Development Manager, my job is to walk clients and potential clients through our discover, build, deploy, and maintain processes.”
Contact Prominent
Phone | (701) 390-9355
Website | goprominent.com
Email | [email protected]
Facebook | /GoProminent
Instagram | @go_prominent
Linkedin | /company/goprominent
Address | 1120 College Dr, Suite #105 Bismarck, ND 58501
Tracker
Tracker – ATS (Applicant Tracking System)
“One platform to manage your candidates, client contacts and leads, job and placement records, and everything in between. Everything is connected with seamless integration, making everyone’s job easier. Manage the entire recruitment workflow from candidate sourcing to submittal to placement and beyond with Tracker.
Eliminate time-consuming manual data entry and let your team move quickly through each step of the recruitment process. The power of Tracker is in the fact that every conceivable piece of information about your business and how this information relates to each other is held within a single application. Easily see what’s going on in your recruitment and sales pipelines, in one comprehensive system.” -Tracker Website
“Tracker is a tool we use on the staffing side of our business. As an applicant tracking system, it benefits our team to create a seamless flow of candidates for our clients.” -Sannon Norick
Harvest
Harvest – Timesheet
“Harvest is the application we use for all of our timekeeping and billing,” Sannon Norick says. Harvest time tracking makes it easy to gain insights from past projects and capture time. Furthermore, it can make a great way for employees to be properly billed and paid for their work. Through tracking time and expenses in Harvest, employers capture critical project data that allows the company to learn from its past, keep current projects on track, and better estimate the cost and time of projects moving forward.
Nexus Innovations
Jordan Pope
Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Nexus Innovations
Meet Jordan Pope
“As Chief Operating Officer, my goal is to serve our team by helping them find their sweet spot where their passion, skills, and value to customers meet, setting them up for success in the types of projects we say “yes” to taking on and assisting with any bumps in the road. My goal in serving our customers is to build solid relationships where we have mutual trust, mutual respect, and mutual appreciation. These types of relationships take time and must be earned— which is why our focus is always on what is best for the success of our customers. ”
About Nexus Innovations
Nexus Innovations is a strategic software consulting organization that strives to empower their clients for success through vision, leadership, and strategic software solutions. Nexus Innovations was first founded 23 years ago by Jordan’s parents, Bob and Lorie Pope, with the goal of being able to provide firstclass consulting to organizations within our region.
“Over the last 23 years, our goal and mission have remained the same, while we have worked to deepen our areas of expertise across the software development life cycle. Today, we have a team of 25 experts across North Dakota and South Dakota whose focus covers project management, business analysis, custom software development, Microsoft 365 platform development and consulting, business intelligence, and organizational culture/change consulting. Because we don’t have any salespeople, our next project is reliant upon us going above and beyond our current clients’ expectations,” Pope said.
Contact Nexus Innovations
Phone | (701) 258-7072
Website | nexusinnovations.com
Email | [email protected]
Facebook | /NexusInnovations
Address | 4204 Boulder Ridge Rd, Suite #160, Bismarck, ND 58503
What They Use
Microsoft Teams
“The Teams platform allows for file collaboration, chat and messaging, video conferencing, and secure audiences all within one toolset.” -Jordan Pope
As Microsoft Gold Partners, Nexus Innovations utilizes the full Microsoft suite of tools for both their team and their customers. According to Pope, “The Microsoft 365 platform has changed the game for efficient collaboration within an organization that no longer requires hardware and an IT team to manage everything internally.” Some of the highestvalue apps within M365 that Nexus Innovations both uses and recommends are:
Microsoft Sharepoint
“There’s a reason it has been around since 2003. It’s a great toolset for company intranets, information sharing, and document/records management.” -Jordan Pope
Microsoft Power BI (Business Intelligence)
“The Power BI toolset allows organizations to pull data from virtually any data source and develop real-time visualizations of KPIs across the organization.” -Jordan Pope
Microsoft Power Platform
“Power Apps and Power Automate are low code / no code development and workflow platforms that allow organizations to quickly develop apps and solutions without writing custom code.” -Jordan Pope
Microsoft Forms
“[This is] an out-of-the-box form and data-capturing toolset that allows you to target both internal and external audiences.” -Jordan Pope
Microsoft Planner
“This app allows you to quickly create and manage tasks within a project that can include both internal and external audiences, it’s a perfect “light” project management tool.” -Jordan Pope
Why they recommend these
“Because the toolsets all live on one platform, they integrate with each other, use the same back-end security and user logins, and require no back-end hardware or server management. They eliminate the need to be emailing copies of documents and reports and allow business users to do work that used to require IT involvement.”
Lucit
About Lucit
Lucit was co-founded in 2019 by Gina Gordon and Eric Kubischta. Since the launch of Lucit, the two co-founders have remained focused on developing software solutions that help power digital creatives in the out-of-home space, including roadside digital billboards. They formally launched in 2020 as the first application to connect automotive and real-estate inventory to digital billboards in real-time. Clients are able to manage their advertisements, automatically generated based on their current inventory, through an app on their cell phones. Capabilities include the creation of new ads, removal of inventory items not wished to advertise, control of ad frequency, review of stats, and much more.
Eric Kubischta
Co-Founder and CTO of Lucit
Meet Eric Kubischta
Kubischta architected custom data feed integration tools and software that managed assets and built AI solutions for end users. He is a former global account manager for Microsoft business in Asia and the Americas with Sykes Enterprises, as well as the former Technology Director of a large online marketplace.
Contact Lucit
Phone | (701) 415-3500
Website | lucit.cc
Facebook | /LucitTech
Instagram | @LucitTech
Linkedin | /company/lucit-tech
What They Use
While Lucit isn’t afraid to admit that they don’t rely heavily on custom software tailored to their specific needs, they’ve learned to use standard products to their advantage. On the other hand, Lucit’s DevOps environment is “half custom and half Phabricator (now Phorge).” Furthermore, their CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is home-grown on top of the Lucit platform itself.
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office (Microsoft 365) is the all-encompassing product family of productivity software, including Microsoft Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and more.
Adobe
Adobe offers a wide range of various platforms and products for personal and professional use, including Photoshop (Image editing and design), Illustrator (Graphics and illustration), Adobe Express (Social graphics), Lightroom (Cloud-based photo service), and much more.
Canva
Canva is a free-to-use online graphic design tool for creatives at all levels. Canva can be used to create social media posts, presentations, posters, videos, logos, and much more.
Quickbooks
QuickBooks is an accounting software package developed and marketed by Intuit. QuickBooks helps small businesses compare and manage everything— from cash flow and tax prep to inventory and entering time—all in one place.
Phorge (Formerly Phabricator)
Phorge is a suite of web-based development collaboration tools. It represents an open-source, community-driven platform for collaborating, managing, organizing, and reviewing software projects
“Phrabricator (now Phorge) is probably the most unique one we are using. We use it in DevOps for all of our source control (git repositories) and we use it for task and project management across DevOps, Operations, and Sales.”
What is DevOps? “DevOps is the combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools that increases an organization’s ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity: evolving and improving products at a faster pace than organizations using traditional software development and infrastructure management processes. This speed enables organizations to better serve their customers and compete more effectively in the market.” – Amazon AWS
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