“It’s time to do some spring cleaning! It’s been put off long enough!”
It’s easy to let things pile up to deal with them at a later time, especially when you are on strict timelines and only have so many resources. That’s why my desk can look like a disorganized disaster some of the time (but in my defense, it cleans up very well when it needs to).
To build anything great on a budget or a timeline, you need to have good coordination. At the helm of these projects is the project manager. A job that is extraordinarily stressful and often equally thankless. After all, most customers take the positive resolution to any order for granted. This month, we will take a look at project management and the tools that are used by them to produce the best results possible.
Do you know what drives me crazy? It’s the fact that, of all the lists of things you can do to improve your business and boost your productivity and optimize something or other… it seems there's not much to be said about how your employees factor in.
Have you ever wondered how colleges and universities function at a technological level? With so many students, you might start to think about how these institutions secure data, ensure timely completion of degrees, and closely monitor student retention efforts, all in addition to the normal IT operations that you would see at any business.
In a sense, your business relies on its vendors to provide the goods and services needed to make your organization function. Think about your Internet service provider. They provide you with a service that connects you to important assets. The software your business utilizes is also provided by vendors, and work probably can’t get done without it. Therefore, it’s natural that you will want a good relationship with vendors… provided they are actually decent vendors themselves.
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.
How does your business fare with employee engagement? Do you find your employees have trouble staying on-task, or they simply aren’t interested in the work they do? This is more common than you might think, and you can help them improve the quality of their work with certain kinds of technology.
Technology is an easy thing to take for granted, especially in an office that has countless solutions that are utilized on a regular basis. It doesn’t matter if you’re a small retail establishment, a large organization with multiple offices, or a factory to produce consumer items. Today, we’ll look at the various ways your business is changed for the better thanks to the use of technology.
Despite what you may have heard, a bias is not an inherently bad thing. However, if not considered rationally, a bias can easily lead you to make a business decision that does more harm than good. Researchers have uncovered why we hold the biases we do, and how we might work to overcome them.
The Internet of Things is everywhere, which means that potential security risks are also everywhere. Your business needs to take the risks presented by the IoT into account and prepare accordingly.
2017 was filled with security issues ranging from threats and small attacks to major security breaches. You can learn a lot from the misfortunes of other ill-prepared organizations about how to prepare for and handle cybersecurity issues. This week’s tip is dedicated to learning a bit from some of the security problems that may have flown over your radar last year.
An IT project manager is an important part of any new technology initiative in your workplace. Therefore, you should be looking for specific requirements when finding a project manager for your latest project implementation. Here are some specific traits that your business should look for in an IT project manager.
Technology has become more commonplace in offices and homes all around the world, and you might find yourself replacing it more often than previously thought. This leads to an awful lot of waste that can accumulate in your office, be it an extra smartphone, desktop, or something as simple as a random, non-functional hard drive. However, getting rid of your old, unnecessary tech isn’t as simple as throwing paper into a recycling bin, and it shows in the amount of e-waste that infects the world every day.
Your business either has a sound plan to manage its IT maintenance, or it does not. There is no middle ground here. Either you have an internal team dedicated to maintaining your IT infrastructure, or it’s not being taken care of as well as it should be. Even if you do have an internal team, you might notice that they simply don’t have time on their hands to handle all of their responsibilities. We’re here to introduce you to one of the most notable ways of keeping your technology in proper working order: managed IT services.
Vince Lombardi, one of the most successful head coaches in NFL history, once said “If you are five minutes early, you are already ten minutes late.” Although it wasn’t its intended use, this quotation can easily apply to technology. The tech industry is constantly changing, improving, and innovating. Adapting to changes is something all businesses must do to thrive, small and medium businesses included.
How many emails does your organization receive every day? Chances are that you can’t find time in your day-to-day operations to maintain and manage your email solution as well as you’d like, and in a world where threats to your organization’s network lurk around every corner, you can never be too careful. How can you make sure that you’re taking proper care of your business’s email infrastructure, without sacrificing the time and manpower required to do so?
Entrepreneurs enjoy an almost mythical standing in the business world as visionary leaders risking everything on an idea that, if successful, pays off in a big way. Yet, few understand the role of the intrapreneur; those who have equally big ideas, but operate in the context of established companies. Your business likely has dynamic intrapreneurs in your midst, but how do you make sure their voices are heard?
We have been very fortunate to assist many organizations, and this experience has given us a certain perspective of how many businesses approach their technology maintenance. We often work with new businesses to audit the performance of their IT. We’ve found that small businesses tend to have more issues and are susceptible to bigger vulnerabilities. These aren’t networks that go ignored either--many of them currently pay for an “expert” to support them.
Vacations are an important part of maintaining one’s sanity, especially if you’re a business owner. However, unless you have a reliable staff that can handle the management of your business, chances are that you might feel like you can’t get away from the office long enough to relax. While it might seem tempting to disconnect yourself from the office entirely while on vacation, it’s actually better for your business if you don’t.
Regardless of how your business’s administration is set up, you should be aware that anyone in a position of authority must have a basic understanding of how IT, and its related responsibilities, functions for your business. Here are four ways that you can learn more about how IT works within your organization.
