We ran a mini game around inventorying all the computers in the ZCoB and won!  Our reward was attending the ZingFeast on June 28, 2007.

Beverages:
Fresh Strawberry Spritzer
Wild Mulberry Spritzer

Starters:
Grilled Norwegian Mackarel served with a gooseberry chutney atop a crostini
Cold Sour Cherry Soup topped with Marcona almonds
Fresh Arugula Salad tossed with fresh goat cheese, raspberries and tarragon

Mains:
Fresh Twigs & Berries - a salad of whole-wheat berries, sunflower sprouts, fresh cherries, herbs, onions and apple cider vinaigrette
New York Style New Potatoes simply boiled and served with Michigan farm butter
Organic Roasted Pork Shoulder slow roasted with blueberries, vinegar, bay leaves and onions

Dessert:
Fresh raspberry sorbet

I’ve had an idea in my personal vision for about 6 months now of creating some means for like-minded geeks to connect and collaborate casually across the niche industry that Zing IT is in. I’d define that as restaurant/specialty food with a strong focus on quality of food and quality of customer experience. The latter is the outcome of excellent service.

In our IT department within Zing we’ve worked really hard to be strong contributers to the positive culture that our business has created and it’s been powerfully rewarding. We consistently receive the highest service rating for our work within our organization and providing that level of service is inherently personally rewarding - it’s a great feedback circuit.

Our challenge is to continue to provide knowledgable IT support in a rising tide of higher expectations, more complex offerings from vendors, increased security concerns and compliance standards, all within an industry that is traditionally not inclined to embrace technology.

For that reason it would be great to share with other geeks in our world.

We’ve had some issues agreeing on our next book to read so today in our weekly meeting we set some rules to guide us on choosing the next books.

• topic should be related to our work
• ideally <500 pages
• should not need a dictionary on hand to read the book
• 1 book per quarter
• should be readily available
• should be affordable

Finally, we decided to rotate who picks the book, if criteria is met it would take the other 4 remaining geeks to block the book. Billie is first.