NIU graduate Peter Krysik currently is involved with a hot little telephone number called “It’s Chgo” (312-487-2446).

“It’s Chgo” is an entertainment hotline that informs people of such leisure opportunities as restaurants, nightclubs, hotels, theaters, family fun, musical entertaiment, special events, sports and sporting events, tours, transportation, and services in the downtown Chicago area by allowing the individual to access any of the above categories and listen to a 30 second message about the establishment.

When a person lets his fingers do the walking and dials “It’s Chgo,” he is charged only for the long distance telephone call, unless he dials within the 312 area code.

Krysik graduated from NIU in 1984 with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering technology. When he entered the job force, however, he decided to focus on high-tech sales because of “traveling and profitable benefits.”

He then was sold on a job at a company called Jask Inc. At Jask, Krysik was working with them as the voice mail expert and soon after the idea of “It’s Chgo” was spawned.

“During this time, one of the owners of Jask knew that people were using voice mail systems as corporate phone directories, and one day thought that some people could use it to advertise (their businesses and services),” Krysik said.

When Krysik first heard about the idea of “It’s Chgo” a year ago, he “thought it was brilliant. Its time is coming and a lot of people are becoming familiar with computerized services. It’s easy to use and fun to listen to.”

Before “It’s Chgo” was put into action, Krysik and some of his associates left Jask Inc., started their own corporation and researched the other services nationwide. “We first called around and found out that services were available in New York, Atlantic City, Seattle, Kansas City, Minneapolis, and San Diego,” Krysik said.

“We then started looking at how they were doing the services, what we liked about the services, what we didn’t like about the services, who was advertising on them and who wasn’t advertising on them. Then we put all these different ideas together as to what we think would work in the Chicago area.”

The present clients, however, weren’t quickly sold on the idea. “Everybody was a little worried because they were familiar with the 976 and 900 numbers and the negative connotations associated with them,” said Krysik. “We had to convince the subscribers that this isn’t like that and that we want to be very professional and very legitimite and mainstream orientated.”

Krysik, who is the director of research and development at “It’s Chgo,” has responsibilities that include “the research as to finding out how the other systems worked; what was good about them and what was bad about them; what we could improve. I helped develop the program as to how the system would run, how to get it into different categories; where to spend our marketing dollars; and going out and letting people know that we exist and what we can do for them,” he said.

Krysik said one of the best characteristics of the company is “Everybody wears many different hats; we do what needs to be done. We’ve got our own specialties, but we go out of our way to make it work; it’s a team effort.”