John Morley for Smart Grid Instructional Design and Communications

Adventures on the Smart Grid

Southern California Edison Earns a 2011 Expanding Excellence Award Congratulations to my colleagues and our Edison SmartConnect team for receiving the Class 1, 2011 Expanding Excellence Award for best smart infrastructure project,
presented to Southern California Edison (SCE) during CS Week 35.
My involvement began many years ago when editing an internal newsletter used by SCE executive management to respond to questions,
	many of which concerned the leadership role SCE was taking
in Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI). Since then, I have been designing training on the Edison SmartConnect Itron® OpenWay wireless network,
network management system, CENTRON meters, meter data management system,
and a range of SCE practices and systems that make up Edison SmartConnect. Coming to the end of a two-year contract, I am eager to put that expertise to work on other smart-grid-related projects.

Make Sure Your Customers

and Team "Get It"
Even the best systems and processes won't work until your team "gets it." Helping your audience "get it" is the value I add to any project; so that they can then get to work, get more productive, and your company and customers get the full value that the smart grid promises.

My expertise in ensuring that audiences "get it" has been recently honed over a two-year project designing training for Southern California Edison (SCE),

supporting the launch of an Itron OpenWay® wireless network and Itron meter data management system. This followed over a decade of other projects for SCE, coauthoring a book on data communications, and designing training and communications on enterprise-level systems for other clients including Toyota, Harris software, and Hitachi Data Systems.

"The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think. Save Time and Money
You've probably seen it: highly paid engineers and managers searching the office for anyone who knows "how to do this." Knowledge transfer has broken down. Hours and days are wasted as everyone tries to "get it" on their own.
With the training and resources I design, knowledge transfer is done more effectively, and followed-up with quick references and continuing processes that ensure that the right information is quickly available to the right people, at the right time.

"There are no dull subjects, only dull writers."

Corporate Communications
It's also critical that customers, share holders, and non-technical internal audiences get it. My experience writing for a broad range of internal and external audiences includes external communications that have appeared over the name of the director of Southern California Edison's SmartConnect program. I have also designed websites, news letters, email campaigns, and a range of other projects ensuring that every audience gets it in a message targeted to their specific interests and concerns.

This dual path of expertise adds value to both: training that's made more effective with the energy of marketing communications, to better engage an audience; and corporate communications grounded in technical understanding, to ensure accuracy and credibility.

If you need help ensuring that your audience "gets it," please email or call, (818) 952-8102. Quote

Completed Projects
Wireless

Networks Training Design
Designing training on smart grid wireless networks was a natural progression from work for Verizon on data networks and coauthoring a book on data networks. Work for Edison SmartConnect included participant guides, PowerPoint presentations, trainer guides, and quick reference guides.
Self-healing smart connect mesh network

Content areas included RFLAN mesh networks, Itron CENTRON meters, Itron collection engine, cell-phone WANs, ZigBee HANs, and all the supporting detail that helps learners to "get it."

Meter Data Management Training Design
Designing training on storage area networks for Hitachi Data Systems, made it easier to understand the enterprise-level challenges of managing millions of pieces of meter data every day.
Itron MDM workbenches

My concise, step-by-step documentation served as both computer lab training material and on-the-job reference. System operators and administrators had a much easier time preparing to resolve a broad range of exceptions, after my clear introduction to the interface, review of procedures, and comprehensive set of example scenarios.

Corporate Communications Projects
A spectrum of previous experience in communications work prepared me well for editing the Southern California Edison, Direct Connect email newsletter. This was an edited version of a monthly question-and-answer session that members of executive management hold in a different field office every month. It boiled down current issues, including AMI, into a concise message that kept an internal audience up to date on any issue that members of the Q&A audience chose to discuss.

Most recently, I wrote the acceptance response for the 2011 Metering International Excellence Award that appeared over the signature of the director of Edison SmartConnect, Ken Devore.
"I think, therefore I am paid."

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Corporate Communications | Resume | Contact