TECHMinutes April 2021 Your Small Business Technology Information Source!
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TECHMinutes
April 2021
Your Small Business Technology Information Source!
This Issue: Stop Letting IT Problems Fester
Stop Letting IT Problems Fester Let me tell you a deep, dark secret about some of your em-
ployees... one that you might be a little surprised to hear:
Taking a Look at the IT That Fuels
NASA’s Success
They aren’t reporting issues to you.
Maintaining a Work-Life Balance is
Crucial When Working from Home This can snowball into much larger problems. Let’s discuss.
Tips to Improve Business
Productivity I’m being pretty general here—for a moment I’m taking off
my “computer guru” hat and putting on my “business owner”
Not All Industries Use the Same hat. This problem is something that transcends IT. Problems
Solutions within a business can fester because employees don’t speak up. It’s how serious issues
Marketing for Those with Little Time arise and it’s been a problem for a long time.
Maintaining a Work-Life Balance is What kinds of serious issues?
Crucial When Working from Home
With all that has gone All kinds.
on in terms of the
coronavirus pandemic, Productivity issues, creep issues, HR issues—you name it. Problems can range from the
it is little wonder that small and benign to the “get a lawyer involved” emergency.
many businesses have
suddenly changed their tune con- As your business grows and becomes more complex, there is more of a chance that this
cerning the use of remote work. could happen. That’s why larger organizations hire teams of human resource professionals
However, some workers are in a bit and other dedicated staff that exist simply to keep the gears spinning smoothly.
(Continued on page 2)
of a crisis as they try to adapt to their
new work environment: suddenly,
the place they would go at the end of
Taking a Look at the IT That Fuels NASA’s Success
the day to recover is the same place Perseverance recently paid off, with the successful touch-
where work must now be done. This down of the so-named Mars rover. In light of this, let’s con-
shift has led to a not-insignificant sider a past rover launch and how a technical issue it encoun-
amount of stress and mental fatigue. tered provides a case study for anyone whose business relies
on technology.
Maintain the Work-Life Balance
Before the current crisis, while large The Curiosity Rover Self-Administered Brain Surgery on Mars
swaths of people were online, it was Bet that wasn’t what you expected to read, was it?
more often out of choice than…
When you’re essentially throwing a few billion dollars a few
Read the Rest Online! million miles into space, you’re going to want to have some safeguards… particularly once
https://dti.io/worklifebalance you consider that it’s going to spend just a few months shy of a year in transit, after which
it will need to safely land a piece of equipment the size of a car on the planet you’ve aimed
it toward without breaking any of the sensitive equipment hosted onboard.
That was the situation that NASA faced when Curiosity was sent to Mars, and it was one
that NASA addressed quite well.
The Curiosity rover had two brains in the form of two identical onboard computers. This
meant that, should something happen to the first brain, the second one could take over.
It’s a good thing this was incorporated, too, as a glitch popped up on day 200 of a two-year
mission that took the device offline. Basically, Curiosity stopped saving data to its memory,
but continued to ping NASA with requests for instructions whenever an instruction was
sent. Fortunately, NASA could switch over to the second onboard computer and Curiosity
was able to, well, persevere.
(Continued on page 3)
"Technology makes what was once impossible possible. The design Page 2
makes it real." - Michael Gagliano
Tips to Improve Business Productivity
Productivity Track Time and Limit Time Taken on imposed by your organization. A man-
improves as Tasks ageable amount of stress is typically
time manage- You may think you are good at gauging helpful to keep ahead of your workload.
ment im- how much time you spend on your typi-
proves. It cal tasks, but really only a small per- Limit Your Exposure to Meetings
seems like a centage are. By tracking how much time If there is a time waster out there, it is
simple no- you take on your daily tasks, you may the meeting. A normal meeting will
tion, but if find out that you spend too much time resolve the issue in the first ten
you aren’t obsessing over your email, or you may minutes, or not at all. In fact, according
deliberate about managing your time, spend an exorbitant amount of time to one study, the average office worker
there isn’t much positive movement swiping through your social media ac- spends around 31 hours a month in
that is going to be had in the productivi- counts. Knowing how you can save time meetings. That’s far too long.
ty meter. This month, we thought we is a great first step in actually saving
would help you by giving you a few some. Quit Multitasking
strategies that will work to improve The more the concept is studied, the
your employees’ productivity. Take Regular Breaks more that psychologists believe that
You’re probably thinking that taking multitasking is detrimental to overall
The more you focus on productivity, the breaks works counter to being more productivity when compared with hav-
more you will have to divorce yourself productive, but taking scheduled breaks ing dedicated focus on one task at a
from the humanity of your staff. Rest can help improve focus and concentra- time.
assured, when managing a corporate tion. This is especially true if you are
culture, the more that is made of working on large, time-consuming Perfection Isn’t Attainable
productivity gains, the less engaged tasks. One big roadblock to productivity is the
many of your employees may become. idea that a task can be carried out per-
It is essential to your business’ success Set Attainable Deadlines fectly. Sure, you can be…
that you find a balance between priori- A lot of people think they work better
tizing productivity and promoting staff- on a deadline. It’s for this reason it is Read the Rest Online!
aimed initiatives to keep your produc- suggested to set deadlines for yourself https://dti.io/tipsbusiness
tion staff happy and turnover low. that are outside of the deadlines
Stop Letting IT Problems Fester
(Continued from page 1) being brought up by certain individuals? Mary knows that when she needs IT to
Why Don’t Some Employees Report Are there some employees that never help her with her computer, they usual-
Issues? mention anything? What are the chanc- ly remote in, take over her screen, and
It’s going to differ based on the person, es that they never have a single check on things or walk her through
but some employees don’t want to problem? something. She recognizes the notifica-
ruffle any feathers. They’ll make do tion that pops up on the screen when
with what they have as long as it That’s the thing—we’re all human and this happens.
doesn’t cost them a raise or promotion we all have problems eventually.
or get in their way too much. What’s my point? This is why one morning, she didn’t
really question it when someone logged
Other employees simply don’t air their Unreported IT Problems Can Lead to into her computer while she was work-
grievances or feel they have the weight Bigger Issues Later On ing. She figured it was IT or an admin
to get something to change. Okay, not just unreported IT prob- doing something. After all, the remote
lems—any unreported problem could notification only popped up for a few
You might feel like stopping me right gradually snowball into something big- seconds.
here and telling me, “now wait a mi- ger, but IT problems can affect your
nute, as a business owner/manager, a entire organization if left unchecked. It happened two or three times
pretty decent portion of my day is deal- throughout the morning. That notifica-
ing with internal affairs!” Here’s a perfect example, and it’s actu- tion came up that someone was…
ally the reason why I’m writing this blog
Same! post: Read the Rest Online!
https://dti.io/itissues
The squeaky wheels squeak pretty loud- (I’ve changed the person’s name to pro-
ly. Ask yourself though—are the issues tect all those involved)
IT PAYS TO REFER A FRIEND! Page 3
refer.directive.com
Taking a Look at the IT That Fuels NASA’s Success
(Continued from page 1) How Could Your Business Benefit from get that team member back in business
In fact, despite the initial mission being Redundancy? that much faster.
to collect data for two years, Curiosity We have gone on the record to say that
has been operational and functioning your data needs to be backed up, and in In some cases, a redundant internet
for about eight years… and there’s that way, redundant. Any data and files connection can benefit a business. With
more. you have should always be stored on at so many processes and procedures now
least two separate devices—ideally, one facilitated by an internet connection,
Unsurprisingly, the replacement com- centralized location with a secondary keeping a backup connection in case of
puter eventually began to degrade and device as a backup, along with a cloud- emergencies to switch over to auto-
experience some of the same problems based copy for true redundancy. That matically can help prevent service
that afflicted the first. Fortunately, way, you likely won’t lose your data interruptions.
NASA was still able to access the first even if your internal IT is completely
remotely and perform the required destroyed. Whether you’re trying to explore our
diagnostics to identify and resolve the terrestrial neighbor or operate a small
issue. In exchange for a small amount of Furthermore, having an extra work- to medium-sized business, redundancy
memory that had become corrupted, station or two kept onsite can help can be a huge asset. Learn how else the
the original computer was able to be preserve productivity. If something right technology preparations can bene-
restored and could resume control of were to take one of yours out of com- fit your business by giving us a call to-
Curiosity. mission, instead of waiting for a re- day at 607.433.2200.
placement or for Windows to be rein-
All thanks to the redundancies that stalled, a spare computer with the basic Share this Article!
NASA had put in place. software and settings preinstalled can https://dti.io/itfuel
Not All Industries Use the Same Solutions
Professional
services in-
upwards of one-third of the time spent
by a professional services business, is Cybersecurity
clude some of
the oldest
doing mundane, repetitive tasks. If you
have an analog strategy it may be time
Tips
professions in to consider deploying some technology
Your Incident Response
the world, that can help you streamline your
and some of business.
Plan – Part 1: Preparation
When creating an incident response
the newest.
plan, the detection and response stages
Regardless of Professional Services Technology
are a critical component. It is important
what kind of professional services busi- There are certain solutions that are cre-
to know how to detect when an incident
ness you run, it is hard to continue to ated specifically for professional ser-
occurs and the appropriate response to
meet your customer’s needs without vices companies. In professional ser-
help mitigate the damage.
incorporating some technological vices, there’s that extra responsibility to
changes. Furthermore, there are new be the authority that you were hired to
innovations that can help your business be. As a result, today’s professional ser-
Learn how you can prepare for an
thrive. Let’s examine some of this tech- vices firms are really looking to use
incident before it happens:
nology to see if it could benefit your cutting-edge technology. Like any other
https://dti.io/incidentprep
business. business, professional services firms
need reliable hardware, software tools
Professional Services Pen & Paper that promote productivity, and the se-
Approach curity solutions needed to protect their Get our Cybersecurity Tips to
Many professionals that have been network and data. Here are a few tech- your inbox weekly!
working for decades were taught their nologies that can help. Each week we send an email
craft by people that didn’t have the with FREE cybersecurity tips to help you
technology that we have today, and Document Management to avoid a data breach. These tips can
therefore, often dismiss it. There is When you think of an office worker… be used to educate yourself and your
something to be said about understand- employees on security best practices.
ing the fundamental reasons certain Read the Rest Online!
tasks need to be done, but the truth is https://dti.io/notallsame Sign up today!
that a large chunk of work, some say https://dti.io/gettips
Page 4
We partner with many
Marketing Ideas & Tips for Your SMB types of businesses in
the area, and strive to
Marketing for Those with Little Time eliminate IT issues
before they cause ex-
Marketing is marketing content to that perform every form of mar- pensive downtime, so
an integral specific targeted audience. keting available. It is better you can continue to
part of the Marketing a ton of differ- to do away with options drive your business
business ent content to your audi- that don’t fit your company forward. Our dedicat-
process. If ence is not effective, and a and focus on marketing ed staff loves seeing
your busi- huge waste of time and channels that actually work our clients succeed.
ness isn’t allocating any time money. To save time and for your company. Your success is our
to marketing, then your busi- money you should avoid a success, and as you
ness isn’t growing. However, general marketing plan and Quick Tip: Engage Your grow, we grow.
if you allocate too much time specify your marketing so Audience!
to marketing, you take time that your audience actually
away from other aspects of engages with the content Whenever you receive feed-
the business process. You can that you are putting out. back from your audience,
escape this trap by utilizing make sure to respond and
your time marketing effective- 3. Consistency is Good, but engage with your audience
ly and efficiently. Efficiency is Better You personally. Checking how
may think that you should your audience feels about
Here are 4 ways you can be putting out content at your content will keep you
optimize your marketing to all times, but that's not informed on the content that
save time! really the case. Yes, con- your audience feels favorably
sistency is important, but of, allowing you to weed out
1. Look for Opportunities to too much content is a the less appreciated content,
Incorporate Automation waste. If you optimize the and thus saving you time in
Chris Chase
Automation is a great way times you send out content the future!
Solutions Integrator
to streamline your busi- to the times in which your
ness' marketing efforts. audience is most active you Get Started
There are many tools in the increase the chances that We hope that you try one of
market that automate the your content is actually our tips and get started with
marketing process. Some being seen and engaged saving your business time
are offering to create cus- with. To effectively and when marketing. Make sure
tom landing pages, while efficiently use your time, to subscribe to our blog so
others provide an automat- the content output should you don’t miss out on any
ed campaign building correspond with your audi- more great tips!
system. ence’s active timeframe.
Share this Article!
2. Market to Your Audience, 4. Know Your Limits! Our last https://dti.io/savetime
and Only Your Audience method to effectively use
When marketing to your your time marketing is to
audience it is important know your company's lim- Charlotte Chase
that you cater your its. It is not necessary to Solutions Integrator
Directive
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