You want to call me before:

1. You commit to a long-term service contract with a technology provider.

2. You purchase a new technology asset (phone, laptop, computer, tablet).

3. You purchase any form of software.

4. You attempt to install any networking hardware (NAS appliances, routers, switches).

5. You have another vendor tamper with your network.

6. You terminate an employee.

7. You renew any of your domains or tech-related services.

8. You perform any data restoration activities.

9. You install any software on your server.

In all of these cases, you’d do well to involve a technology consultant to help explain options, suitability, pricing, commitment, competitors, and capabilities.

You want to call me when:

1. Your Internet connection goes down.

2. Any of your technology services are reporting errors. I can help channel you to the right vendor and maybe even help broker a solution.

3. You suspect fraud or theft or electronic eavesdropping.

4. You’re needing to execute an emergency termination event of one of your employees.

5. You’re needing help.

Best practices for contacting me:

1. Email. Ahead of time. Like, a week ahead of time. Let’s talk about it. Great for low-priority stuff.

2. Text. Somebody’s at your shop and wanting to make a change to your network or computers. Let me talk to them. Great for mid-priority.

3. Call. Something’s broken. Leave a voicemail if I don’t pick up. I’ll usually get back to you in less than 30 minutes. Great for high-priority.

Just a reminder from your friendly neighborhood tech-guy-superhero.

Thanks!

R

I appreciate your prompt attention Russell.

What can I do to make sure this issue does not cripple me again in the future?

I am wondering if I should buy a desktop or something. Maybe another laptop. Is there a way to have computers sync together?

And what follows is my response:

Well, what hurt you was “Windows”. This isn’t untypical for Microsoft and the reliability of their system restore process is dubious. Still, the answer that I’d give you isn’t even about a competitor like an Apple product. You ask about a strategy. Here’s one: what if you didn’t need Microsoft Office and Windows, and I could train you on how to operate your life through a browser?

Your files would be online and available to you on every device (phone, tablet, or pc); your software (word processing, spreadsheets) would be online and available to every device. The good news is your mail, contacts, and calendars are already this way with Google Apps, and your production app (Quickbooks) is terminal-based and already this way. You’re half-way there.

The answer to your question is that we’re not sync’ing PC’s in the industry. That’s not the direction of the future. PC sales are down 14% from a year ago – suffering its worse sales decline since the PC was invented – and Microsoft’s future in this industry is questionable. Instead, we’re getting rid of PC’s and replacing them with dumb appliances whose sole purpose is to be online.

A Google Chromebook is a good example, but Google’s product is just an example … there are plenty of competitors in this space.

https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/

No backups are necessary as everything’s stored online. It’s disposable. It’s just a dumb appliance, like your phone and tablets are. There’s no reliance on just a single device.

That’s the future. If I could, I’d try to convince you to abandon the use of Outlook, Word, and Excel in favor of using Google Apps. If you did that, you’re effectively able to use any device anywhere in the same way, and you’re not hamstrung by owning a PC.

R

And that’s the way it should be. The small business owner should be concentrated on making quality product, providing excellent service, and satisfying their customer every time.

Still, they usually don’t have time or a strong technical background to make good decisions on these kinds of purchases. Decisions can be made rapidly without research or an understanding how those expenses line-up with their business goals, eventually ending up as wasted time and money.

A great example that I see of that is in software licensing. In a rush, business owners will:

• select an operating system that doesn’t interact with their servers because the retail pricing is attractive;
• choose a single-user license of a product meant for a PC instead of a multi-user product for their staff;
• purchase the incorrect version of a license that violates the terms of the licensing (example: an education or home license being used in a commercial business);
• purchase a version of a software license that doesn’t include the applications that they need (example: they’ll choose the lowest-cost version of MsOffice which doesn’t include Microsoft Outlook, which is what they wanted in the first place);
• purchase licenses or contracts for leased hardware that doesn’t interface with their existing networks or is redundant to existing hardware, wasting money;
• enter into multiple online service arrangements – throwing out big sums of money on online software subscriptions every year – without understanding how those expenses can be minimized;
• purchase software in an era where extra commercial software isn’t needed anymore – the capabilities they want are available for free.

Generally speaking, this is where somebody like me provides value. A local technology consultant can help the small business owner look at their  software licensing choices based on their goals, price-point, and existing infrastructure. I can save the business owner a lot of time and headache by just preparing a shopping cart for their approval; that way they get to avoid the research and just purchase the one thing they’ll need. That saves time and money, but also allows the owner to focus on what really matters: keeping their customers happy and making good products.

R

1. Chrome. Simply a superior browser, Google Chrome synchronizes settings between your mobile device and your desktop computer. Save a site password in Chrome on your computer and, presto! – that password is securely synchronized to your mobile device. Benefit: saves time, repetitive motion, ease of use.

2. Evernote. Imagine folders and files of notes. Now imagine those notes available to you on any device – your PC, tablet, or phone. You make a change on your tablet and it’s immediately synchronized to your PC; make a change there and it sync’s to your phone. Now imagine all of that stuff searchable, organized, and sharable with a touch of a button. And Evernote can save content from websites, music, and audio clips, too. Right on. Benefits: saves time, improves productivity, shareable content.

3. Flipboard. You remember newspapers? Well, what if you could aggregate all of your feeds (Twitter, Facebook, news, entertainment, websites and RSS feeds, whatever) into a column format like, yeah, a newspaper? It actually makes reading Facebook and Twitter an easier experience, and everything is in just one app (which, um, works a lot better than the Facebook app). If you setup a free account, your settings are synchronized between mobile devices and updates are immediately downloaded. Benefits: aggregation, social, ease of use.

4. Dropbox. If you own a Dropbox account and save files to it, you need to install Dropbox on your mobile devices. Your files everywhere, readable and shareable. Benefits: improves productivity, shareable content.

5. Mint. Aggregate all of your financial data into one application with built-in reports and alerts. If you’re not using Mint, you should be. It’s a financial dashboard. Benefits: improves productivity, aggregation, ease of use.

6. Google Maps. I like to think of maps as a superior product to Apple’s mapping program on the iPhone – in the least, it provides a second opinion. Great tools for people who use public transit, biking, and walking. Benefits: ease of use, travel accuracy.

7. Google Earth. An incredible tool to visit anywhere on the planet from your mobile device. I’ll use it to scope out an area that I’m traveling to but have never been to before to get a lay of the land. Benefits: ease of use, productivity, travel accuracy. 

8. Square Register. I wouldn’t understand why anybody would want to enter into a merchant services account these days. Payment processors like Square are redefining the micro-payment landscape with apps like Square Register. Accept credit cards anywhere and everywhere. No terms, cheap rates. Plus the reporting on the web is quite choice. You can download all of your transactions and the data behind them making reconciliations a breeze. Benefits: ease of use, increased productivity.

9. Downcast. Subscribe to podcasts and download them to your mobile device. Listen or watch the content; tons of options for controlling downloading frequency. Benefits: aggregation, ease of use.

10. Google Voice. With a Google Voice number, you can control a telephone number that is always yours. You can forward that number to an active cell phone or place it on permanent do-not-disturb. Your cell phone’s voicemail can be linked to Google Voice. And when somebody leaves you a message, it’s transcribed into text and emailed to you. Using the app, you can listen to voicemail but also make free calls across Google Voice in wifi spaces, just like Skype. A powerful tool: it centralizes voicemail for multiple phones into just one box. Benefits: aggregation, ease of use, increased productivity. 

R

Now why is that? Well, small businesses often run unstructured and unmanaged IT environments. They make sporadic purchases, introduce few controls, and perform next to no audits of their information system. They don’t know what data they have, what they’re responsible for, how to control access to the data, or how to make sure the data is safeguarded.

Simply put: most small business owners don’t understand the problem of cybersecurity risk let alone the consequences of exposure ranging from civil or criminal negligence to identity theft. And most small businesses don’t even realize they’re a target – I mean, if you’re a hacker, who’re you going to hit? A big guy with a huge budget and skillset for managing IT risk or the little guy? That makes the small business even more vulnerable than ever.

So today – right now – is the best time to start thinking about a security audit for your small business. A security audit would encompass:

1. Administrative Controls. Your documented policies, procedures, and work instructions addressing technology security, privacy, acceptable use, access control, and disaster recovery.

2. Technical Controls. Your existing hardware and software solutions designed to carry out management’s intention expressed by policy.

3. Physical Controls. What kind of physical constraints exists to prevent people from stealing equipment.

Also, a couple of facts. Did you know:

1. In 2011, 1 newly-infected malicious website was published on the Internet every 4 seconds.

2. 73% of web users admit to using the same password on social networking sites as their online banking system.

3. 50% of corporate security breaches are conducted by insiders for personal gain or revenge.

4. Users who’ve been using social media for five or more years are twice as likely to be a victim of identity theft.

If you’re a small business owner, this should concern you. In a practical sense, your employees would be exposing your information system to increased risk. Bad practices outside the company translates to bad practices within. Now would also be a great time to start educating your employees on the dangers of cybersecurity and what they can do to protect themselves and, in turn, the intellectual property of your business.

Mickler & Associates, Inc. can help with performing the necessary audit, reporting, and corrective action necessary to secure your information system. We can provide your management team with satisfactory documentation demonstrating your “Due Care” obligation in managing your information system. We can also help provide fast, online or onground training for your employees on these matters, and impart some practical advice they can start employing right away.

Please feel free to contact me if you’d like to talk about this a bit more.

R

Okay, well, here’s what’s happening. You’re being encouraged.

IE8 doesn’t fully support a newer kind of web programming language called HTML5. Companies like Google are “encouraging” their userbase to upgrade to a more modern browser that can support the new language.

Users of WindowsXP, however, will be quite dismayed when they learn they can’t simply upgrade IE8 to IE9, or, IE10 for that matter. Microsoft doesn’t have an upgrade path for these browsers on WindowsXP to help “encourage” their userbase to buy a new computer; one running Windows7 or Windows8. WindowsXP left mainstream support in 2010 and will cease receiving security updates in 2014. Thus you can’t upgrade IE8 to a more modern state. You have to choose another browser to use.

Google would encourage you to download and use Google’s Chrome browser. Not a fan of Chrome? Firefox, Opera, and Safari are other reasonable alternatives. Microsoft would encourage you to replace your junkie old computer.

Everyone is just so darn encouraging, aren’t they?

So, are there any downsides to doing nothing? Aside from being annoyed, not really.

However, over time, new features and capabilities of web-based software will not be available to you. Eventually you may outright not be able to use web-based software. Also, over time, the browser you’re using becomes more vulnerable to security flaws. Switching to another browser and/or replacing your computer would be the best option.

R

SEO is a concerted effort on behalf of web developers and content on your website to attract eyeballs. Your website is engineered to appear more relevant to search engines. When people search for your website, you appear within the top ten choices, generating more visibility for your site and your brand. The more traffic you obtain from search, the more money you make.

Well, really?

It’s not uncommon to see small business owners pay upwards of $300/mo for SEO services. I’d suggest a formula like this:

1. Annualize your SEO charges. Example: If you’re paying $300/mo, you’re paying $3,600 for the year on SEO.

2. Compute your ACLV (Average Customer Lifetime Value).  This is the average gross amount that a customer will bring to your company. Example: one customer typically does $400 worth of business with you.

3. Stop looking at “hits” to your website – they’re irrelevant. The number of hits to your website is about as relevant as the number of friends you have in Facebook. Instead, how many “hits” produced conversions. Specifically, how did a customer’s visit actually translate into real sales? Count the number of customers who actually heard your call to action and did business with you from the website.  Don’t know this number? Start tracking it for a quarter.

4. Be optimistic. That that quarterly conversion rate, multiply it by your ACLV. Example: say SEO efforts produced 6 new clients in a 3 month period. That’d optimistically be 24 new clients in a year. That’d be, on average, $9,600; a 2.6:1 return. Nice! SEO is paying off. But let’s say you produced just 1 new client in a 3 month period, that’d be 4 for the year, or $1,600 average revenue; no return.  SEO isn’t doing anything for you, or, your call to action isn’t clear: people don’t know what to do when they’re coming to your website.

The volume of hits are irrelevant to your bottom line; they are interesting from a search engine optimization perspective, but meaningless unless hits are being converted into real sales. If it’s not working, stop shelling out money for what isn’t working and focus on something else.

R

I’m encouraging all of my customers to wait on Windows8 and to avoid purchasing PC assets and mobile devices that use Windows8.

Now, It’s not entirely unusual for me to make this kind of recommendation. I’d usually recommend that my clients wait until the first service pack (nearly a year) before adopting a new operating system (o/s) from Microsoft.

This time around, though, I’m convinced that investing in Windows8 would be a very risky proposition and extraordinarily frustrating for small businesses.

Windows8 represents Microsoft’s attempt to remain relevant in a world quickly moving away from microcomputers (PC’s) and to mobile devices.  Microsoft has introduced some radical changes to Windows to work on tablets and phones just as much as PC’s. Windows8 is the biggest change to Windows since 1993 and materially changes the way users will interact with their desktop, applications, and files.

Windows8 also represents new security challenges that weren’t an issue in previous versions of their product. Out of the box, Windows8 wants to synchronize files, passwords, and other confidential data outside of a company’s network and into Microsoft’s cloud, allowing users to sync mobile Microsoft-centric devices. Although this might sound desirable, the traditional mechanisms tech guys like me would use to secure files, networks, and confidentiality are thus bypassed. This capability alone leaves a whole bunch of unanswered questions that put small businesses at risk.

Change isn’t bad – certainly there are lots of new features in Windows8 that make it a compelling upgrade – but if you’re concerned about productivity, learning curves, security, end-user anxiety, and creating a stable work environment, this upgrade isn’t for you. It’s very bleeding edge. In fact, some analysts are already calling Windows8 a dismal failure.

Inasmuch, I’d recommend holding off on Windows8 adoption into the foreseeable future and stay with Windows7. Interested in upgrading from WindowsXP to Apple Mac or Linux? I’d be happy to give you some ideas on this kind of migration as well.

R

Productivity Suites

Your company may use Microsoft Office to do word processing, make presentations, and prepare spreadsheets. Office is updated every two years. If you don’t upgrade, you run the risk of having incompatible files transmitted to clients and suppliers. You must pay for Office to be installed on every computer you own. As you grow and add more employees, Microsoft gets a cut of your growth.

Your competitor doesn’t use Office to do basic things like presentations, word processing, and spreadsheets. They use free products like LibraOffice or Google Docs. It can run on any computer anywhere and they’re free. As they grow and add more employees, they pay nobody for their growth.

Email Clients

Your company may use Microsoft Outlook to read email, use contacts, and manage calendars. Outlook is loaded on a computer and it’s used only on the computer you installed it on. And every two years, Microsoft updates Outlook so you can buy another copy to do the same thing all over again: read email, use contacts, and manage calendars. You pay money to do the same thing every year.

Your competitor no longer users Microsoft Outlook to read email, use contacts, and manage calendars. Instead, they use a web browser on any computer system, or, the mail applications built into phones and tablets. This software is free and is updated all the time. They pay nothing.

Personal Information Management (PIM) and Mail Services

Your company may use Microsoft Exchange to manage email, contacts, and calendars for your company. Exchange is an expensive server product that requires maintenance, patching, backups, and redundancy. It also requires a lot of security knowledge. If it goes down, you have to fix it. Your company pays a lot of money to manage Exchange.

Your competitor migrated away from Exchange two years ago. They shifted risk away from them and to the back of hosted providers like Google or Rackspace. If it goes down, somebody else fixes it. Your competitor pays a lot less for a contractually-guaranteed service.

File Services

Your company may use a file server to store your company’s files on a network. Those files must be managed and maintained by somebody who knows what they’re doing with server technology. Backups must be made. Permissions must be set. And those files are only accessible from within your office. It limits your productivity.

Your competitor doesn’t use a file server. Instead, they store their files in the Cloud … in services like Dropbox or Google Drive. Files are stored securely by somebody else. Your competitor pays a lot less for that capability than you do as they’ve once again shifted risk to somebody else for a service. Their productivity is skyrocketing: they can access all of their files everywhere.

Applications

Your company uses applications loaded on individual PC’s to do things like inventory or finance. In order for you to work with your company, you have to be logged in to your computer. Sure you can remote control your computer but it doesn’t always work, and, it’s a big hassle, and it doesn’t work across tablets or mobile devices. It makes you frustrated.

Your competitor moved their applications portfolio to the Cloud. They run their inventory and financial system from a web browser. They can work with their company’s data anywhere, on any computer, using apps on mobile devices. It’s easy-peasy. It makes them more nimble and more responsive.

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

Your company’s IT costs continue to go up because you’ve decided to own IT assets and manage them yourself.

Your competitor’s IT costs continue to go down because competitive forces drive subscription costs lower and shifts risk entirely away from them.

Externalities

Your company’s concerned about a future of rising oil and gas prices. How will people get to work to perform work and satisfy customers?

Your competitor isn’t concerned because they can work from anywhere, saving money for them and their employees. They can satisfy customers from anywhere.

Moral of the Story

So, what’s your company doing again? And why do you consider that a strategy?

R