Data is what makes your business function, and if you’re not careful, you might find yourself without it due to a hardware failure, malware attack, or even human error. You need to maintain and implement a powerful data backup solution to ensure that your business can bounce back following a disaster, and this platform should keep your data as safe and accessible as possible in the process. Here’s how you can implement such a solution.
Delegation is something that you, as the leader of your organization, need to master in order to get the most efficiency out of yourself and your team. There are various ways to handle delegation, all with their strengths and flaws. We’re here today to help you figure out your own personal management style and how technology can help you carry it out.
Your technology is essential to your business remaining efficient and your employees remaining productive. Unfortunately, this technology will fail at some point. By adopting proactive strategies, businesses can ensure the longevity and smooth functioning of their IT infrastructure. In this blog post, we will explore how proactive management of IT can keep it running longer, resulting in increased efficiency and cost savings.
Lately, we’ve spent some time examining the phenomenon known as procrastination and where it comes from. To close the book on the subject, we wanted to go over how you and your team might be able to procrastinate less moving forward so that your business might get more done.
Wouldn’t it be great if your business didn’t have to worry about technology problems? Well, with the right amount of attention and care invested, your business can minimize technology issues and optimize your infrastructure for proactive technology management rather than reactive. Let’s go over some of the most important practices.
For the past few weeks, we have been looking at the idea of procrastination and how it manifests in individuals to directly impact your business. Today, we want to take a closer look at how you can put a halt to procrastination in the short term, as well as how you can further these tactics to create real change over time. We’ll begin with the short-term solutions.
We started a series on procrastination last week and how you might address it within yourself and your business. Last time, we covered topics like how procrastination shows up in everyday work, so now we are continuing the conversation by helping you identify how you can address it.
Procrastination is one of the banes of any productive employee, and as such, it’s worth examining why procrastination surfaces and what you can do about it. In this series of blogs, we’re going to take a deeper dive into procrastination, with this week focusing on the concept of procrastination and what might cause it.
When you have a lot of tasks to get done, you might find yourself stressing out about the sequencing or ruminating on your circumstances. How did you let it get so bad? Why does this always happen to you? If this sounds like an everyday occurrence for your organization or your employees, we want to share three ways you can help to make things easier to manage, even when it feels like there is just too much to handle.
Businesses tend to collect and capture consumer data in an effort to provide a better experience or find new customers. Many of these businesses will package this information together and sell it to marketing companies. Consumers often don’t know how to opt out of this kind of activity and, thus, wind up oversharing information. This week, we want to highlight these issues and address how you can keep your personal data from being collected without your consent.
Friday, March 31, 2023, is World Backup Day, the annual observance set aside to help ensure that businesses and individual users alike are doing what they need to do to protect their data from loss. Let’s go over where this observance came from, why it is so important for your business, and how you can make sure your organization is as protected as possible.
More businesses than ever before are making adjustments toward a more digital business involving more complex and sophisticated technology, making more reliable and efficient IT of paramount importance. There are benefits to outsourcing your IT resources, but there are also times when you might consider hosting your infrastructure in-house. Let’s go over the benefits and how you can benefit from a mixture of in-house and outsourced IT.
We are of the firm belief that data backup is crucial to the continued success of any business. It can be the differentiating factor for a business that is successful and one that less unfortunate circumstances knock them off the grid for good. You can invest in your business’ future with a solid data backup solution, even if it’s there simply as a preventative measure.
There is an inherent value associated with outsourcing the management of your technology to a managed service provider, or MSP. With your team taking a more hands-off approach to technology, they can instead focus on being more productive. If you’re still on the fence about this approach to technology and business, then we have some questions you should consider asking if you are thinking about learning more about MSPs and what they do.
Would you describe your business as “productive?” Without setting a specific standard for productivity, you can’t answer this question. A basic way to measure productivity for your business is how effectively your employees use the tools at their disposal in conjunction with each individual’s capacity to get work done. Let’s take a look at some technology built specifically for your employees to be more productive throughout the workday.
There are struggles that the workplace inherently presents to most people (whether that workplace is in the traditional office space or in the home) that can lead to the too-familiar-to-some feelings of burnout. As these struggles aren’t likely going to go away at any point (never mind anytime soon), it is important that you have strategies to help minimize their impacts.
It’s not always easy to build a network that is both robust and secure, but this doesn’t make it any less necessary, not with so many of your critical business functions relying on connectivity. With so many devices accessing your network at any given time, you need to have a concrete understanding of how to keep your network secure while still keeping your network running efficiently.
After this prolonged pandemic, remote work has established itself as a key component of many organizations’ operational policies and infrastructures. However, it has added new levels of complexity that make managing a workforce more important than ever. Let’s discuss some ways management can improve the work experience for remote employees.
Whether you are in the office or working remotely, there are many distractions that can derail your productivity. To set yourself up for success, we recommend that you follow the tips outlined in this blog. You might be surprised by how just a few simple adjustments can make a world of difference for your productivity.
Sometimes it might be tempting to just smack your computer to make it work appropriately, and while it’s often a joke that this can fix the problem, it’s not something that we would recommend you get used to doing. Let’s discuss why it might not be a good idea to abuse your computer.
We live in a world that is constantly connected, be it through a wireless connection or through your smartphone’s mobile data. This makes it especially important to practice appropriate cybersecurity practices while you’re connected to a wireless network. Let’s go over some wireless cybersecurity best practices you can keep in mind when using your wireless technology.
How does your company manage its technology? Does it struggle with the idea of managing multiple workstations, server units, networking components, mobile devices, and more? If so, then read on—we have some tips to help you better manage the many different technological parts of your organization.
Contrary to what many might assume, remote work is commonly associated with overwork—employees working longer hours and having difficulties disconnecting from professional life during their personal time. This can have some serious consequences if not offset in some way, so let’s discuss how this can be accomplished.
Microsoft Outlook, just like its sibling solutions Word and Excel, has several keyboard shortcuts that are designed to make navigating and using the application easier than ever. We’ve put together a short list of the ones that you might need to know so that you can take your productivity to the next level.
If you are traveling this holiday season to bridge the gaps created during the COVID-19 pandemic, then you’ll want to take specific precautions about your technology. Here are some of the best ways you can keep your technology secure while you travel from point A to point B, as well as how we can help you do so!
If you don’t properly maintain your technology, then it’s simply not going to be one of your company’s strengths. It’s a simple statement, but it’s one that many modern businesses fail to act upon. A managed service provider can make it much easier to get the technology maintenance your business needs to succeed. Let’s take a closer look at the people who deliver these services to your organization.
In order to get the most value out of your business technology, it’s important to understand best practices and how they can figure into your business operations. Let’s examine some of the most effective practices that you should include in your day-to-day operations and how they can benefit your organization.
Whenever you go to send an email, you might glance at the CC and BCC fields and wonder what they are used for, or perhaps you are an avid user of both. Well, let’s take a look at what CC and BCC are supposed to be used for and whether or not you actually use them for their intended purpose.
With remote work still widely in place, the idea of lost or stolen devices has many companies terrified. Due to this security issue, you must consider what you might do should someone lose track of one of your company’s devices. Here are four ways that you can take preventative measures to ensure that lost or stolen devices don’t become a major security risk for your business.
Cybersecurity is an important part of running a business, especially in today’s age of ransomware and other high-profile hacks. It stands to reason that you periodically assess how effective your security practices are and how well-prepared your team is to respond to threats, but how often should you do so? Let’s take a closer look.
Computers are supposed to make life easier, and in a lot of ways, they do. However, using a computer can get complicated at times, especially when you are working with tons of files, applications, and resources on a daily basis. This can lead to a ton of digital clutter, which can be counterproductive and time-wasting. Let’s learn about how you can reduce digital clutter on your work PC.
When you started your business, you had a specific goal in mind. You wanted to prove something, to create something worth sharing with the world. We all have goals and aspirations, but it’s not always clear what the best path toward those goals is. Using a simple framework, you can maximize your odds of success and set great goals that you are much more likely to achieve long-term.
The fact that many of their workers never see each other has led to some interesting shifts in the way that businesses approach communications. They used to just walk across the room and have a conversation, but as people try to make sense of the hybrid work environment, communications will continue to be a key. Let’s take a look at how your internal and external communications strategies will change to meet the needs of your roving workforce.
Data, at least nowadays, effectively makes the world go ‘round. Data is responsible for powering the operations that a business needs to undergo if it is to survive. This—as you may imagine—makes data incredibly important for businesses of all sizes to protect.
Today’s business is always searching for a leg up, and this often means doing what it can to improve their operational efficiency. Companies can approach this in several ways. They can try to cut out redundancies, they can invest in training, or for many businesses, it means leveraging innovative new technological tools that are designed specifically for this purpose.
Technology is important to most small businesses today, especially when looking to improve it affordably. That’s why when making technology decisions, you should consider the following solid practices.
Google search is synonymous with searching the internet, but that hasn’t stopped them from constantly innovating the service. One of the most recent updates is to give users more context for the content that returns on search results. This works to protect users from potentially clicking on websites that could contain threats. Today, we discuss this innovation and how it will look to the end-user.
With a business’ data being such a priority nowadays, protecting it against all circumstances needs to be appropriately attended to. One fundamental component of this protection is the implementation of a proper backup strategy. Let’s go over the most foundational element of a successful backup, and how we recommend businesses to accomplish it: redundancy.
A schedule has long been the tool of choice for businesses to uphold their productivity, despite the challenges that managing everyone’s schedule can often present. Fortunately, today’s cloud solutions provide a means to overcome these challenges. Let’s explore the idea of smart scheduling and how it can make your entire process so much simpler.
Windows 7 was the most popular operating system Microsoft ever created. It’s so popular that months after the software giant officially retired their record-breaking OS, some businesses continue to use it. Today, we will take a look at why some businesses haven’t moved off of Windows 7, and what effect it could have on their company.
Collaboration—one of the more popular workplace buzzwords you hear nowadays, it serves a very important function for any successful business. Therefore, establishing healthy collaborative processes should be considered a priority in any establishment’s operations.
With the amount of technology that the modern business relies on today, each business needs to maintain comprehensive documentation outlining it. As a managed service provider, we can provide an expert perspective on what needs to be included in this documentation. Let’s get into it.
For decades you had to go into a bank to complete your transactions. Today, you can do most everything you need to do without stepping into one. Between online banking and now FinTech-fueled mobile apps more people than ever are avoiding the bank. In fact, a study from Bank of America found that 62 percent of people are now using some type of digital banking or financial services. Today, we’re going to give you a few ways you can protect yourself when using mobile banking apps.
If your procedures and policies aren’t currently documented, they need to be. A written policy and procedure guide can help keep your team up-to-speed on the expectations that you have of them. Consider it a quick and easy reference for your employees to use to answer their questions. In light of this, here’s some tips to keep in mind as you put together your business’ employee handbook.
Working from home isn’t new, but with the COVID-19 pandemic sparking public health fears many businesses decided to move their operations offsite. For much of the past decade remote work was an available strategy for business, but many business owners feared it would give them a lack of control over their workforce, and therefore was largely ignored. This was despite remote work being a strategy people have embraced for a long, long time. Today, we take a look at the history and progression of working from home.
As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, affecting hundreds of thousands of people, and keeping hundreds of millions at home, the beginnings of recessionary fear have begun to hit small businesses. Today, we will go through a few elements that will help you get your business through this (and many other) anxious times.
The healthcare industry is in a difficult position. Despite the utility that connected devices present to medical providers, the Bluekeep vulnerability makes it seem as though connected devices aren’t a wise solution for many to use… and there’s nobody these organizations can blame but themselves.
Collaboration: it is the gold standard of teamwork that so many businesses seek. If your employees aren’t naturally drawn to the idea, however, there are some ways that you can help to sell the concept. Let’s discuss a few of the ways that you can coax your users into collaborative behaviors.
In a word, yes. Sure, there’s the obvious difference in that one leaves you with a computer that is turned off while the other results in it being turned on again, but there are other important differences that are present behind the scenes. Let’s go over a few of these differences, and how they impact when you should restart your computer versus when you should shut down completely.
Workplace engagement has long been a conundrum--how do you maximize the productivity of your business without alienating your team through quotas and ironclad policies? Many businesses have been finding that an effective way to do just that has been to use a concept known as ‘gamification.’ Let’s explore gamification and how it might be useful to you.
A Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy is something that many organizations have adopted, for a few good reasons: employee satisfaction, cost savings, and productivity boosts included. However, it’s crucial that you don’t just assume that you can adopt a policy like BYOD without establishing some ground rules that your employees need to abide by.
It is a well-established and widely-known fact that your employees are some of the biggest threats to your business via the technology that they use each and every day. If your employees aren’t aware of the practices and policies that they need to follow to prevent these threats, you could find yourself in an unpleasant position. Here, we’ll review four categories of cybersecurity basics that everyone in an organization should abide by, and some tips to support each.
Information technology continues to play a more significant role in businesses, and as technology changes, so should yours. IT procurement is a critical part of any business’ success, which means that your business can greatly benefit from a managed service provider. They have the know-how to procure all of the best technology. Today, we will discuss how your business can acquire the IT it deserves.
Many businesses are capitalizing on the vast amount of benefits Managed IT services can bring to the table. These service providers are able to assist your business in obtaining, and managing the technology that you rely on. Working with one of these providers can help your business simplify data management practices, as well as make them much more secure. Today we will go over how they are able to do so.
When you need something done that requires a level of skill or experience or knowledge that you don’t have, what do you do? Generally, you call in someone who has the required skill, experience, or knowledge that is required. Your business’ information technology strategy should be approached in the same way. As we continue our series on how managed services can make a business more efficient, we’re considering consultants.
Your employees are your greatest asset, which means that they need to be carefully managed and maintained, just like any of your other productivity-boosting assets. The difference is, your employees aren’t just another solution - they’re human beings, and as such, they aren’t tirelessly motivated. In fact, if your employees aren’t treated properly, they could… burn out.
Workplace wellness programs, despite being an $8 billion industry, are a bit of a quandary for employers - as the jury is still out over whether or not these kinds of programs are effective. For this week’s tip, we’ll examine if a wellness program might be a good fit for you.
As nice as it would be to always please everybody with your business services, it just isn’t going to happen. Sooner or later, you’re going to encounter someone who isn’t pleased, and they’re going to have the capability to do some damage to your reputation. Fortunately, there is a way you can mitigate this damage.
Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD, has become a very popular option for businesses seeking to save a bit of their budget on obtaining and maintaining devices for their employees. While this is an economically commendable practice, it has the potential to generate risks for your business if left unchecked. Let’s discuss the pros and cons of BYOD, and how you can make it work for your business.
Collaboration is an invaluable part of any modern business’ success, which means that teamwork is an essential skill for your staff to have. Unfortunately, teamwork isn’t always the easiest thing to achieve in the office. There are, however, ways that you can promote it among your workforce. For this week’s tip, we’ll discuss a few ways how.
With business moving faster than it ever has before, it seems to be a no-brainer that collaboration is something that your business needs to focus on to remain competitive. Fortunately, there are many technologies and strategies that can be leveraged to help your business keep its collaborative and communicative efforts front-and-center.
We all know how to use YouTube… find video, click video, watch video. Simple, right?
Consider the following question: is your business’ Internet connection feeling a bit sluggish lately? If you haven’t examined your bandwidth since you started your business, then there’s a chance that you aren’t being as productive as you could be if you took a closer look at it. We’ll discuss some ways you can make the most of your IT solutions with proper bandwidth.
Many people can find it challenging to constantly remain productive, which is only understandable. Nobody can be firing on all cylinders all the time. However, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t ways that you can optimize your productivity. Here, we’ll review three general approaches to improve your productivity, with examples describing how to enact each.
Meetings rarely go as planned. The issue is that meetings generally aren’t planned as well as they can be, meaning that they run the risk of going on longer than necessary. If you find your meetings could be managed more efficiently, then read on; we’ll discuss three tips that you can use to improve the quality of your meetings.
Have you ever thought about why we use certain techniques to get the most out of our technology? Believe it or not, there is often a rhyme and a reason for why certain tactics are most useful for business technology solutions. We’ll try to get to the bottom of some of the strangest questions you might have about how to use your business technology.
When someone tells you to recharge your battery, how do you interpret it? In today’s increasingly digital office, you might misinterpret this statement as charging your laptop or smartphone, but in reality, we’re talking about your internal battery. If you constantly find yourself exhausted from your work, perhaps you should take some time to reevaluate priorities and destress a little bit.
While it would be nice, not all troubles concerning your data are resolved once a disaster has passed - even if you have a strategy in place. There’s still the matter of having the right strategy, and having it configured correctly. Here, we’ve listed a few considerations you should take regarding your backup (preferably before you need it) to make sure you’re properly prepared.
Let’s be real: the title “managed service provider” doesn’t cast much insight into what we do on a daily basis. Even when people understand what we do, there are a lot of parts that confuse them and lead them to false conclusions. As a result, we wanted to take a few minutes and go over what it is that we do for our clients.
There are many reasons, both personal and professional, that you may want to consider adding a few certifications to your expertise. Today, we’ll discuss how you and your staff can become certified Microsoft Office Specialists on Microsoft Office 2016, and why you may want to consider doing so.
Businesses don’t like to spend money on solutions they don’t need. You’d rather make sure you hit payroll, dish out Christmas bonuses, and have something left over to grow. With this in mind, a business that doesn’t properly back up their data might not get a chance to make payroll, dish out bonuses, or even keep their doors open. Data backup isn’t something to skimp on, because when the time comes, it can mean disaster for your business.
Data is an asset, there’s no getting around this fact. Therefore, your business needs to consider it important enough to protect with a data backup and disaster recovery solution, as even something unlikely, like a natural disaster or hacking attack, could place your organization in peril. We’re going to take a look at some of the different kinds of data backup and disaster recovery you can expect to see, as well as four terms that you should understand.
The Windows 10 operating system is the most common operating system for business use, which is what makes it surprising that so few know how to adjust its appearance to suit their preferences. For this week’s tip, we’ll go over a few ways to adjust what you’re seeing and/or looking at for maximum productivity.
Data recovery is a major consideration that every organization that depends on data has to plan for as a part of their business continuity strategy. Since there are so many ways that businesses can lose data, there needs to be a plan to recover data for any possible reason. Today, we will take a different look at operational data loss and talk about how your organization should consider strategizing data recovery.
Uh oh. One of your employees sat down at their workstation and was presented with a pop-up telling them that Microsoft has detected a fatal issue with their workstation, and if they don’t let someone remote in to fix it, all of their data will be lost. This could be a serious problem… especially if your employee falls for this scam and lets in a threat.
A key component to effectively attracting your audience is to better understand their preferences. Even the most seemingly insignificant change, like changing the color of the buttons on your website, can have a major impact on how effective your materials are. Fortunately, through a process called A/B testing, observing the impact of these changes is somewhat straightforward.
One of the key benefits of managed IT services is right in the title. It’s managed, meaning that you don’t have to worry about maintaining or configuring your systems. Many small businesses see these kinds of advertisements out in the world but don’t necessarily understand what services are being marketed to them. We’ll take a deep dive into what you can expect from “managed” services for your organization.
Security is a necessity. Every technology professional will tell you this, but in an age where employees are taking information on the go, it’s trickier than it’s ever been before. Encryption is one of the ways that businesses are attempting to shore up their security, but this also requires having an encryption key. This week’s technology term is all about encryption, as well as how encryption keys protect your business’ data.
There’s a big difference between turning off any other appliance, like a stereo or a television, and turning off a computer. A computer takes much more time to shut down than your average device, but why is this the case? Is there a way to speed up this process? This tip will explain these processes and provide some ideas for how you can make this process much faster.
March 31, 2018 is World Backup Day. Data is a commodity, but unlike other commodities--it can be replicated without hurting its value. As a result, data backup has become a critical need for the modern business. World Backup Day has been created to remind people to protect their assets by backing up their files.
Wireless Internet connections, often referred to by the moniker Wi-Fi, have become a popular offering from public businesses. Even organizations that have no real need for an Internet connection to conduct business, like restaurants and coffee shops, now offer Wi-Fi for their customers. However, public Wi-Fi can be dangerous, especially for the business professional.
Instant messaging has changed the way that individuals communicate with one another, both in their personal lives and in the workplace. Just as email threw a wrench in traditional mail's plans, instant messaging threatens to jump start a new method of instantaneous communication, one which can be seen as a great benefit, but also an immense annoyance.
One way that your business can save money is by purchasing used computer equipment, but only if you do your research and perform a meticulous analysis of where it’s been, and why it’s no longer being used. If you’re serious about purchasing pre-owned computing equipment, consider these four tips.
One of the main ways to keep an account’s credentials secure is by changing them consistently. However, we ran across an article recently that plays “devil’s advocate” on the password security issue, and they made some fair points about how changing passwords too frequently can lead to decreased security as a whole.
It’s been almost one year since the release of Windows 10. Are you taking advantage of everything Windows 10 offers? Here are four of the best Windows 10 features that you’ll want to start using right away.
We’ve all ran into problems that weren’t easily solvable, even by technically-proficient people. In fact, it’s often the case that simple problems can be escalated far beyond where they deserve to be. Sometimes all it takes is a little outside perspective, and some out-of-the-box thinking, to fix an issue.
Sitting at a desk all day is probably the worst thing you can do for your health. The average office worker sits for 9.7 hours each day and after one hour of sitting the production of enzymes that burn fat declines by as much as 90 percent, significantly slowing metabolism. Then there’s ongoing back pain and eye strain. What’s the modern office worker to do?
Your wireless router is both an integral part of your business’s online infrastructure, and a critical part of your home computing environment. Therefore, you need to make sure that your router is broadcasting a clear signal. Here are some tips on how to keep your wireless signal as strong as possible, regardless of where you are in the office.
Social media, as wonderful a tool for connecting and communicating as it is, does have its dangers. Fortunately, these risks may be mitigated through careful deliberation and pragmatic posting habits, but only if you know what they are. What follows are some easy habits to encourage a heightened state of security both digitally and in the physical world.
To get the most life out of your smartphone, you’re going to want to properly take care of it. Of course, this is easier said than done for a small device that’s prone to being dropped and subject to the many dangers of being transported. Here are five smartphone practices to avoid if you want your device to last.
Your business takes advantage of several different types of technology every day, but there comes a time when your tech needs to either be upgraded or replaced with better tools. This is part of the natural order of things; no technology solution can (or should) last forever, but if you don’t catch issues before they become major problems, you could be putting your data at the risk of hardware failure, software hiccups, or even hacking attacks.
Laptop touchpads can be rather fickle. You may have experienced the frustrating situation where you’re using the laptop and then an unexpected glitch causes the mouse to jump across the screen. This error can actually cause data loss if it happens at the worst possible time, but it’s also just plain unproductive. Here are five troubleshooting tips to keep your touchpad in good working order and prevent this all-too-common issue from happening.
It’s clear that your IT department should have administrator privileges with your business’s technology, but the average employee is another story altogether. Administrator privileges provide users with the ability to do many things, such as install programs and access admin settings. Administrator privileges are exactly what you want to keep users away from, and it turns out that the majority of flaws in the Windows operating system depend on these privileges.
Technology has provided humanity with the ability to make stupendous advances in the way we live our lives. However, it has also given rise to a wasteful society that neglects old technology, tossing it to the side in favor of the latest and greatest gadgets. As you can imagine, considering the rate at which modern technology advances, this trend has proven especially difficult to break, and it’s having extremely negative effects on the environment.
Computers are complex devices that require special attention to keep in optimal shape. Unfortunately, some people don’t pay enough attention to the current state of their computers. Once you’ve cleaned your computer properly, though, it’s important to make sure that it stays that way for as long as possible. Doing so can increase the longevity of your technology, and prevent it from an untimely demise.
At the end of the workday, you’ve got an important decision to make: power down your desktop or log off? Each option has its own set of pros and cons, but are you confident that you’re making the right decision? Here’s how to find out for sure.
We’ve all been in a situation where you’re asked by someone if they can use your personal computer for whatever reason; checking their social media, email, or just browsing the Internet. Some people, however, also want to protect their privacy, and allowing relatives to use your own account can become problematic. A quality solution to this issue is to create a guest account.
Cellphone etiquette goes hand-in-hand with common sense. Here are four cellphone etiquette tips that every device owner should know.
The Internet is a great and wondrous thing, giving us information about pretty much anything we could ever hope for. However, this is a dangerous thing for those who want to go about their entertainment “spoiler-free.” In other words, you want to be pleasantly surprised when you watch your favorite movies or TV shows. Sometimes the Internet isn’t so kind toward that goal. Well, here’s a somewhat viable solution: the Spoiler Alert extension for Google Chrome.
Knowing how to properly use your PC is key to its longevity. Therefore, you should never take for granted basic PC best practices. Here are three basic PC best practices that are easy to overlook.
