Coleman Technologies Blog

If you want your organization to be efficient, you must increase productivity. However, this is often easier said than done, as plenty of obstacles, communication challenges, and resource allocation issues can stymie even the most well-thought-out plans. Let’s look at how you can improve productivity for your business by considering these common issues.

Why Team Productivity Can Impact the Workplace

Your team’s productivity will directly impact how your company works toward a common goal. If you can optimize productivity, you can ultimately achieve better results, profits, and employee satisfaction. Once you establish the importance of this fact, you can start to take deliberate action to work toward it.

Challenges to Team Productivity

Here are some of the major factors that can influence team productivity:

• Poor communication - When team members aren't clear about their roles or tasks, productivity suffers.
• Lack of clear goals - Without a shared vision, team efforts can become disjointed.
• Inadequate resources - Ensuring your team has the necessary tools and support is vital for high productivity.

Set and Work Toward Clear, Measurable Goals

Without clear and measurable goals, your organization might struggle to unify and work toward the same ends. If you offer goals, your team can follow them like a roadmap toward the objective.

Your goals should be SMART, an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Use this framework to ensure that all goals you implement are realistic and possible within the scope of your project.

Leadership Can Promote Productivity

If you want to maximize your team's efforts, give them an effective leader. They will have an immense impact on motivation and morale. A leader must be able to offer constructive criticism and build a work environment that is conducive to productivity. If the leader wants their team to be productive, they must lead by example and set a strong standard.

Track Your Team’s Productivity

Goals mean nothing without tracking progress toward them. There are various methods you can choose, but we recommend the following:

1. Time tracking - Measuring the time spent on tasks using productivity tools.
2. Output-based tracking - Focusing on the results achieved rather than the time spent.

If you’re unsure which best suits your needs, feel free to reach out to us for more recommendations.

Implement Project Management Tools

Project management tools can streamline workflows and allow for increased communication, facilitating productivity. Your team can leverage these digital workspaces to great effect, working together while sharing information in real-time.

Promote a Great Workplace Environment

A great work environment can go a long way to create the motivation to sustain long-term success. It also creates an environment free of negative kinds of stress. You can encourage this type of work environment by promoting open communication. While your employees don’t always need to get along, they should at least respect each other’s professional experience and be cordial enough to work together.

Let Us Help Your Team’s Productivity

Coleman Technologies can help your organization maximize team productivity. To learn more, call us at (604) 513-9428.

Do you want superhuman productivity? Thankfully, it doesn’t take much to be more productive than the majority of workers out there, and a couple of small tweaks to your day can make a world of difference. Today, we’ll cover some strategies you can use for prioritization, time management, and focus, allowing you to get more work done.

Select Your Priorities

If everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority.

Take the time at the beginning of the day to determine your top three priorities. Which tasks will have the greatest impact? These are generally tasks that you’ll want to complete as soon as possible, while others can wait or aren’t nearly as time-sensitive.

If you need help nailing down your priorities, you can use the Eisenhower Matrix to determine urgent work versus important work, allowing you to identify and tackle tasks that will move the needle in the right direction.

Master Time Blocking

An effective way to better manage your time is to use time blocking to minimize distractions and improve focus.

Time blocking is when you dedicate specific chunks of time to accomplishing specific tasks. You might block out a couple of hours a day for deep work activities, like writing or problem solving. Similarly, you might leave another block of time for low-effort administrative tasks, such as answering emails or attending meetings.

Stick to your schedule, and ensure that each block of time is treated as a non-negotiable appointment with yourself.

Focus on Single Tasks

Multitasking might look like it accomplishes more on the surface, but switching tasks repeatedly can have a significant impact on your mental load and productivity.

Consider switching to a single-task approach so you can dedicate your focus to one task at a time. Studies have shown that multitasking eats into productivity and can lead to a reduction of up to 40 percent, which is significant and unnecessary. If you approach tasks as if they’re the only thing on your plate, you’ll see an increase in the efficiency and the quality of your work.

If you find this approach is challenging, take care to minimize distractions so you can attack one singular task with surgical precision.

There are a lot of ways to approach productivity, and we’ve barely scratched the surface. Ultimately, the best productivity tip we can give you is to find what works best for you, and do it consistently. Only then will you see the results you’re looking for.

For more productivity and technology tips, be sure to keep an eye on our blog.

When it comes to your business’ continuity, you should know that even small issues pose a great threat—especially when they involve your business’ data. Let’s examine two situations where even small mistakes could lead to a cascade of problems that could leave your organization strapped for cash and struggling to stay alive.

Situation 1: Security Breaches

As far as security goes, it’s easy for something as simple as a phishing email to escalate into a serious problem. Imagine that someone clicks on a link in a phishing email and provides the website with their access credentials. The hacker then uses that information to log into your network and install something nefarious on your infrastructure, like ransomware. All of a sudden, you’re in a bind that asks you to either spend a ridiculous amount of money on the decryption key, or else your data will be leaked online.

Let’s say you do pay the ransom, but the hacker doesn’t provide the decryption key. Worse yet, they decide to sell the data anyway, offering other criminals access to it on the black market. And since your data is now effectively leaked online, you’re subject to compliance-related fines that are costing your business thousands of dollars.

Of course, this is all without getting into your business’ operations. During this entire process, your team cannot do their jobs, either because the data is locked down or unavailable. Worse yet, your clients find out about this, and you’re facing lawsuits and lost clientele. Good luck getting back into the game following a disaster like this when nobody trusts you with their sensitive data.

Situation 2: Disasters of Any Kind

Another example of a minor inconvenience turning into a massive problem is just about any disaster that involves your physical infrastructure. Imagine that one of the pipes in your office bathroom starts to leak. You don’t think anything of it and just place a bucket of water under the sink until you can get someone to take a look at it. Days, then weeks, then months go by. Eventually that leak develops into a serious problem, maybe during the winter when the pipes freeze.

Now imagine that your server room is directly underneath your now-broken pipes. How much water do you think a server unit can withstand?

A small problem turns into many larger (and preventable) ones. You have to fix up your physical infrastructure and potentially close your office during repairs. You have to replace technology that would otherwise be perfectly fine. You have to pay people for the time they spend waiting around for you to address the problem. And that’s not even mentioning the data lost as a result of the incident. Data backup and disaster recovery that can handle disasters both natural and manmade is vital to the continued success of any business.

Don’t Take Any Chances with Your Business’ Data

It doesn’t take a massive problem like a data breach or a natural disaster to threaten your organization’s continuity; if anything, small issues could escalate into large-scale problems when left unchecked. Make sure you’re taking precautionary measures with a managed service provider like Coleman Technologies. We can ensure your network is protected and backed up, safe and ready to go for whenever life throws a wrench into your plans. Learn more by calling us today at (604) 513-9428.

Blockchain

Perhaps most famously associated with cryptocurrencies, there are various applications in business that blockchain can be of use in. Really, blockchain is of great use in any situation where a record of changes needs to be kept, as the blockchain creates a record of these changes each time a new block is added to the chain - hence the name.

Originally utilized primarily by the financial industries, the utility of the blockchain has expanded to be of considerable use to far more verticals, with no signs of slowing.

AI and Machine Learning

In the past few years, we’ve gone from fearing artificially intelligent machines like HAL 9000 to carrying around a relatively rudimentary version of the sentient computer in our pockets. While our current machines and devices are (thank goodness) far less capable than HAL, they are plenty capable of assisting business processes - largely thanks to machine learning.

Via AI, directed by machine learning, your solutions can carry out predetermined processes and make informed decisions based on the input they receive. As a result, your business can take care of some if its tasks automatically, leaving your team free to focus on other responsibilities.

AR and VR

While augmented reality and virtual reality have been largely associated with entertainment purposes, the business world has started to embrace them for numerous purposes, both in terms of their internal processes and their marketing efforts. Furthermore, with today’s youth being exposed to these kinds of interfaces, they will be more familiar with them when they reach working age (and will be able to use them more productively as a result).

Has your business begun to implement any of these technologies in its workflows - even the most basic varieties? Coleman Technologies can help you do more. Reach out to us at (604) 513-9428 to learn more!

In mobile operating systems, each fresh iteration tends to bring forth marginal improvements and refinements to enhance the user experience. Apple's newest mobile operating system, iOS 17, follows suit in this tradition. Let's take a brief look at some of its noteworthy additions.

Streamlining Verification Code Messages

Basic multi-factor authentication is commonly employed for secure account access, with codes sent via email and text messages. Dealing with a barrage of these codes piling up in your inboxes is a familiar scenario. iOS 17 introduces a feature allowing automatic deletion of these messages once codes are entered through AutoFill. Navigate to Settings, then Passwords > Password Options, and you'll find the option to Clean Up Automatically under Verification Codes. This ensures that codes inserted via AutoFill are promptly removed from the Messages or Mail applications after use.

Elevated AirPod Capabilities

We've all witnessed or experienced the awkward fumbling with AirPods as a conversation kicks off. Thankfully, users with the second-generation AirPods Pro and iOS 17 can enjoy new features, such as Conversation Awareness. This feature enables AirPods to sense when the wearer speaks, reducing media and background noise volume while enhancing voices in front of you. Combined with Adaptive Audio and Personalized Volume, iOS 17 significantly enhances the capabilities of AirPods.

Siri Receives a Boost

"Hey, Siri." Repeat it three times, right? Not anymore. iOS 17 eliminates the need to say "hey" before Siri's wake word. Moreover, users can seamlessly string together a series of queries without repeating "Hey, Siri" or even "Siri" before each one.

Effortless Message Retrieval

If you're like most people, your Messages application likely harbors hundreds, if not thousands, of accumulated messages. Locating a specific message amid this digital haystack was a daunting task—until iOS 17. The updated system introduces a Search function in Messages, allowing users to pinpoint messages based on the sender's contact, the presence of a link, the inclusion of a photo, and more.

This is just a glimpse into the array of offerings in the latest iOS version. While we advocate for regular software updates for security, the added features are a delightful bonus. May your device find renewed utility with these enhancements.

You might have noticed that some of your younger workers are leaving your business much earlier than you might expect them to. This could be because of a phenomenon called “shift shock,” which examines employee engagement and satisfaction. Let’s consider how shift shock could potentially harm your business.

Defining Shift Shock

The term shift shock was first coined by Kathryn Minshew, the CEO and co-founder of The Muse—a values-based career platform. Minshew explains shift shock as a new employee's feeling when their new position is not what they hoped it would be.

The Muse further surveyed their audience members and found that 72% of respondents had experienced this lack of alignment at some point.

If these numbers worry you, get a load of these other ones:

• 29% of respondents said that their feelings of shift shock included both a job’s responsibilities and the company itself
• 41% would tolerate shift shock for two to six months as a new hire
• 48% indicated that shift shock would inspire them to try returning to their previous job

Getting Down to the Bottom of Shift Shock

Various factors contribute to shift shock in the workplace, including:

The Workplace Culture Doesn’t Match Worker Mentalities

The people who can adopt the mentality that work is a part of their personality tend to eventually overwork themselves. When a workplace actively encourages this type of behavior, this type of culture can lead to employee absenteeism and lower retention rates, forcing employers to find new hires once again.

Young workers, on the other hand, are fighting this workplace mentality by establishing that they will not tolerate this type of working environment. They are much more interested in meaningful work and maintaining a healthy work/life balance.

Skills and Talents Are Being Underutilized

Most young workers are eager to enter the workforce and put their degrees and proficiencies to the test. However, those who cannot find and secure positions in their areas of expertise might be disheartened when the job doesn’t utilize their degrees at all. About half of degree holders hold positions that don’t require a degree, and employers take this to mean that there is a talent shortage.

There is Little Transparency with Hiring Practices and Workplace Culture

Many individuals look at the job interview as a potential employee trying to make a good impression, but in reality, it takes two to interview. The employer also needs to make the effort to attract top talent, and if their hiring practices are misleading, the new hire will find out quickly and leave just as fast as they accepted the offer.

Policies Promised are Barely Present, If At All

Remote work is hardly a perk anymore. These days, if anything, the younger generation has come to expect it. Despite recent events showing that it is possible and beneficial to allow remote work in some capacity, many companies still resist it. If an employee applies for, interviews for, and accepts a job that is advertised as remote-eligible, they will be shift-shocked and burned when they discover that it is, in fact, not.

Your Business Can Avoid Shift Shock

If you want to limit the effects of shift shock on your business, you need to work to provide as much transparency throughout the hiring process as possible. If you offer your new hires a clear vision of what to expect, you'll have won half the battle. Be sure to establish realistic expectations right from the start, though.

Of course, you must also follow through on your end of the bargain. If you promise something, then work to make it happen. Proper technology and training can enable much of what you promise to your younger team members, including remote work.

If you’re ready to take the next step and ensure that your team has all the technology you promised them, then don’t wait any longer. Get started by calling us today at (604) 513-9428!

One Account, Two Accounts, Three Accounts, Four…
Based on your work responsibilities and how your office is structured, it is quite possible that you need regular access to multiple email accounts. You could have one you use internally, one for communicating with clients, one to reach out to vendors, one to use to sign up for resources… you get the point. When all is said and done, that’s a lot of email messages.

However, you presumably have other work responsibilities beyond just checking your email, so switching between all of them just isn’t a practical option. Well, it just so happens that you won’t need to switch, as the email client you choose will be able to consolidate these multiple accounts for you. Before we get into how, we need to make sure that we’re speaking the same language here.

- An email account is the individual address used to send or receive a message. In your organization, you might have This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Likewise, each employee may have a different account for their different responsibilities - for instance, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

- An email client is the program that allows you to send and receive emails. Gmail and Microsoft Outlook are two perfect examples. If you have multiple clients stored on the same server, they can be used pretty much interchangeably, each client presenting all emails. An email client also has a few features that enable you to better keep track of multiple email accounts, provided you have set it up to do so.

Let’s go over your options now.

Multiple Inboxes
The people who developed the email clients that we use weren’t naive. They understood that a given user isn’t going to be tied down to a single email provider, and certainly not a single account. This is why email clients can support multiple inboxes, assuming they are configured correctly. Multiple inboxes allow a user to access a single client to manage multiple email accounts, streamlining the process greatly and enabling customized organization.

Multiple Email Personalities
On the other hand, some users don’t mind leveraging one inbox, but might still need to utilize more than one address in their correspondence. There is also a method that enables the use of a single, catch-all inbox, but enables the user to select which email address (in this case, known as personalities) their response is sent from.

To do so, you will first need to set up an email account that you do not give out, as it will serve as the catch-all address that all of your emails ultimately accumulate within. Once it has been set up, you need to set all of your other accounts to forward their contents to that mailbox - your internal IT resource should be able to help.

Once your messages are all being sent to the catch-all account, you will be able to respond to these emails from the address that they were originally sent to.

Setting Up Inboxes and Personalities
In order to accomplish either of these tasks for your client of choice, you will need to adjust a few settings.

Gmail
To add another account to your Gmail client, you’ll need to access your Settings, which means you have to click on the gear icon. Once you’re in your Settings, you should see a tab labeled Accounts and Import. Under that tab, there is a Check mail from other accounts section. Click on Add a mail account, and follow the instructions provided.

To add additional personalities to your Gmail account, you’ll need to again navigate to the Accounts and Import tab. There, you will find a section labeled Send Mail As, with the option to Add another email address. This will also allow you to choose your default email address.

Outlook
As it happens, there are too many different versions of Microsoft Outlook and too many variables to allow us to provide a walk-through. Fortunately, Microsoft does offer some documentation that instructs users how to manage their "connected accounts.” Of course, you can also call (604) 513-9428 for our assistance, as well.

Are there any solutions that you frequently use that you’d like some extra tips for? Tell us which ones in the comments section, and don’t forget to subscribe!

It’s no secret that automation is one of the major trends that most businesses have tried to incorporate into their business plans, most with some middling success. The problem becomes that many businesses don’t really have a strategy for building out automated tools for their business, so they may not be able to take advantage of the benefits automation can bring. 

What Do Businesses Automate?

Most businesses operate in a fashion where they assign people to do tasks and expect that they accomplish them for the betterment of the company. For businesses that embrace automation, however, many tasks that would have to be scheduled and carried out by humans, can now be done in a fraction of the time by a computer. The more a business can automate those tasks, the more they can spend their time and money on focusing their workforce on revenue generating tasks and providing clients with better experiences. 

These days, there are more options to automate business processes than ever before. Let’s go through the functions your business can address through automation:

Marketing

Today’s business has to have a plan to get their brand out in front of prospective customers. Here are three ways you can automate some of your marketing tasks:

• Social media posts - Social media has become a major benefit for businesses looking to enhance their reach. There are several platforms available that allow you to automate your posting to social media. One of the best ways is to have a plan on your message and use a content management platform to push out social media posts (to several social media platforms) over time. This way you can plan your message and then let the software handle the release of these messages. 
• Website traffic analysis - If you use Google Analytics, it’s relatively easy to set up reports with specific metrics that are delivered to people that need to know weekly. This tool keeps people from wasting time trying to pore over all the data. 
• E-commerce or event registration - One of the best automated tools a business can use is the tool that sends registered users materials they find useful. If you sell products or have events, customers and attendees can get all the information they need to consider new offerings and get event information without having to take the time to send individual messages to every recipient. 

Finance

Obviously, the financial aspect of any business is crucial to its health. Here are two ways you can set up automations to help with your organization’s finances:

• Payroll - Payroll is one of the costliest and more crucial parts of your business. There are automated tools that take payroll off your HR department’s plate and ensure that everyone that needs to get paid does. 
• Accounts Receivable - Your hope when you run a business is that everyone pays when they are supposed to, this doesn’t always happen, unfortunately. Today, there are tools that handle invoicing automatically to ensure that clients know where they stand, what they owe, and get messages in regular intervals to make it easier to collect revenue. 

Administration

Finally, automation makes it simpler and more efficient to run a business by doing the things that need to be done regularly to effectively run a business. These include:

• Data backup - We often talk about how important it is to have backups of your data available to restore from should something go wrong. Today, tools, like our BDR service, allow for automated backups at predefined intervals to protect your business from data loss. 
• Cut down on email fatigue - Chances are if you are using email as a communication tool for your business, that your staff thinks they get too many emails. Maybe they do. Today’s enterprise email solutions often separate emails into folders that can help people get the information they need without the massive time sink that is involved managing their emails.
• Task management - There are platforms today that help keep everything organized and moving efficiently by sorting tasks by priority and time. This makes scheduling much, much easier. 

Automation is helping small businesses grow. If you would like to talk about how to get the automated tools you should be using to make your business more effective, give the IT professionals at Coleman Technologies a call today at (604) 513-9428.

When we talk about projects, we typically mean new technology deployment. Our technicians spend a lot of time trying to outfit our clients with the right technologies for their business. What becomes evident pretty quickly is that most businesses don’t just need help with the IT projects, they need to get the tools in place for their own project management needs. In this week’s blog, we will briefly discuss what businesses should be looking for in project management and how today’s tools can help your organization be more productive and get more done. 

Project Management and Your Business

Today’s business is much different than businesses of the past. First, all businesses rely more heavily on technology now than ever before, and many businesses are utilizing distributed workforces to get things done. Having the coordination necessary to get demand fulfilled is not always easy. This is where project managers fit in.

The truth is that a happy customer is a repeat customer. This is true in nearly every situation in every vertical market. Generally speaking, if an order is completed on time and on budget there is very little that can go wrong with the relationship. This is where project management comes in. Let’s look at what having superior project management can do and how technology fits in. 

Great Project Management Helps Your Business

Let’s take a look at three ways that project management helps your business:

Customer Satisfaction

If a project is managed properly, it can go a long way toward repeat business. As stated above, if a project comes in successfully, on time, and within the budget that was agreed upon, they will likely look to your business to do more work for them. Better yet, you may get some referrals out of a successful job. 

More Organized Business

One of the great things about strong project management is that it helps the whole project team be more organized. Therefore, the business becomes more organized. Project managers can help teams with time management, delegation of specific tasks, and the execution schedule of the entire project. 

Cost Management

Obviously, keeping costs down is a huge goal of any organization. With solid project management, projects will be more efficient, more structured, and therefore be more cost effective. 

Technology Can Drive Project Management

Technology can be a big part of getting your organization's project management to a place you need it to be. Here are three tools that can help:

Collaboration Tools

Today there are several tools that can be used to manage projects, store resources, and communicate with a team online. These apps generally have a collaborative structure to them using a forum or instant messaging. They also come with integrations that can really help a project manager drive a project forward. 

Video Conferencing

With a lot of workers working remotely or even away from a project manager within the same office, video conferencing can be an indispensable tool. Not only can it give you an easy way to meet face-to-face with individuals or the whole team, today’s video conferencing solutions tend to have plenty of collaboration options built in. 

Workflow Automation

Developing a workflow is a big part of keeping a project efficient. Team members need task lists to go by and the business/project itself is measured largely by the time and resources put into completing these tasks. By automating workflows, you can allow the project team member to focus less on the business aspects of a project and focus more on the project completion itself. 

At Coleman Technologies, we can help you procure and support the technology needed to run efficient projects. For more information, give us a call at (604) 513-9428.

Keyboard shortcuts are undeniably useful—to the point that some are almost ubiquitous. However, there are a lot that aren’t, and they are just about as useful. We wanted to introduce you to these shortcuts so you can incorporate them into your workflows.

Open a New Tab

Ctrl+T
Having an additional tab (or, if we’re being realistic, at least a couple) open in a browser or file management window is almost always helpful. Adding a new tab in either program is simple: press Ctrl+T.

Open a New Browser/File Explorer Window

Ctrl+N
Similarly, if your process would be better served by having an entirely new window in either your browser or file manager, the Ctrl+N shortcut does the job.

Search a Document or Web Page for Something

Ctrl+F
If you need to locate something in a document or a webpage, you can press Ctrl+F to open a search box, which you can use to locate a keyword.

Take a Quick Screenshot

Windows Key+Shift+S
Screenshots are great, and Windows just so happens to come with a baked-in utility to capture them: the snipping tool. Accessing this tool is simple, too… all you have to do is press Windows Key+Shift+S, and you’re good to go.

Force Quit a Crashed Application

Ctrl+Shift+Esc
If you find yourself struggling with stuttering software or one that isn’t responding at all, it’s often best to abandon ship and start over. While you’ll lose any unsaved changes to your work, you can force quit by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc.

For more handy IT tips to use in the workplace, make sure you check back here with Coleman Technologies!

When we say that some businesses are using Windows 7, what we really mean is that with a remarkable market share that still sits around 23 percent, a lot of businesses have chosen not to upgrade to Windows 10, Microsoft’s latest OS. In fact, as of January, when Microsoft officially did away with support for Windows 7, nearly half (47 percent) of SMBs were still utilizing it. It’s not a good scene. Let’s take a look at why so many haven’t moved off of Windows 7.

Why is Using Windows 7 Bad?

Windows was released in July of 2009. That’s over ten years ago. Microsoft has upgraded their OS several times since then. While its functionality and usability are adequate, the major problem is that it is not supported by Microsoft any longer. Since it carries a long-passed end-of-life date, the OS doesn’t get the security updates and patches of a supported software, and is therefore, a liability. 

As you’d imagine, cybercriminals are not adverse to picking low-hanging fruit; and, if your business still uses Windows 7, it’s definitely time for an upgrade. This is especially true if you have any notions of connecting it to the Internet. 

FBI Says Using Windows 7 is Negligent

The Federal Bureau of Investigation released the following statement to the private companies they work with: “As time passes, Windows 7 becomes more vulnerable to exploitation due to lack of security updates and new vulnerabilities discovered."

It’s not just the multi-billion dollar corporations that are at risk. If you have exploits built into the software you use, you are far more at risk than if you use clean and actively supported software. Cybercriminals have no problems hacking small businesses that aren’t taking the steps necessary to protect themselves. 

Most legacy software can now be run in the cloud, and with the importance that a business’ data plays nowadays, there are very few reasons that your business should be running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2.

What Should Windows 7 Users and Businesses Do?

Obviously, you should be upgrading away from unsupported software. Again, Windows 7 is not supported and you will likely get hacked. For a business, this can be a devastating process. You aren’t just going to get spammed, you are going to get hacked and whatever customer data you have stored can get stolen. I’m sure the last thing you want is to explain to your clientele that you accidentally exposed all their PII. 

More than that, you get Windows 10, which is constantly updated with security patches and functionality upgrades. Microsoft stated their intention to use Windows 10 for the foreseeable future. Windows 10 is more secure, has more features, and even law enforcement thinks you should upgrade. 

Managing risk in your business is important and using Windows 7 is the definition of risk. If you would like to talk to someone about getting out from under Windows 7 altogether, what your options are for the legacy apps you use, and how a quick upgrade will exponentially improve your business’ ability to ward of cyberthreats, call the experts at Coleman Technologies today at (604) 513-9428.

Information technology—IT—is a necessity for the vast majority of modern businesses to function. For the sake of these businesses and their operations, it pays to optimize this IT by any means available.

Let’s go over the benefits that a relationship with a managed service provider gives businesses, particularly regarding the overall efficiency these businesses see as a result.

Managed Services Make Technology Optimization the Standard

This is key because an optimized IT infrastructure will be an efficient one.

Efficiency is, after all, the goal of optimizing it in the first place. Older technologies will naturally slow down with age, particularly when compared to newer technologies. This is ultimately unavoidable.

That said, maintaining these older technologies as they age can help extend their useful

lifetimes simply because doing so helps remove some of the factors that speed up a device’s degradation. It won’t make these devices unendingly useful by any stretch, but it will help them remain efficient for longer than otherwise.

Of course, once the time comes that replacement is more efficient than maintenance, a managed service provider will help identify the technology that meets the current needs for it with room for the future.

This Leads to the Next Benefit: Cost Optimization

While giving your team less than they need doesn't make sense, giving them too much doesn’t make any more sense.

So far, our focus has been on ensuring your technology keeps up with your business’ and, by extension, your team’s demands. Let’s consider the opposite scenario, one in which every member of your team has the same hardware and software regardless of their role or need for the technology.

It almost makes sense if considered from a particular perspective—”Maybe they’ll grow in their skills and take on responsibilities that would call for X-program or Y-hardware!” Of course, then there’s the argument that working with an MSP makes just about every technology you invest in much easier to scale.

With an MSP in your corner, it becomes far easier for you to scale your different technologies in such a way that everyone has exactly what their role requires. Nothing more, nothing less, and if something changes, it is far simpler to adjust what they have to fit their new responsibilities.

These Are Just Two Ways that an MSP Helps a Business Optimize Its IT

What else do you think an MSP could help your business do?

You can find out. Give Coleman Technologies a call at (604) 513-9428 to learn more about what we can do for you.

Unexpected downtime can wreak havoc on businesses large and small, which is especially bad when so many paths lead to it. Let’s explore some of downtime’s causes, and equally importantly, how it can be avoided.

What is Downtime, and What Causes It?

Simply put, downtime is when your technology cannot fulfill its function, disrupting your workflow and halting operations.

With how businesses run nowadays, any level of interruption is unacceptable. Not only does it put you at a competitive disadvantage, but it often costs a lot to resolve, on top of being expensive in the first place. You’re losing money because you’re missing out on revenue generation and productivity, and you’ll end up paying—both in terms of your actual recovery and damage to your business’ reputation. Combining all these factors reveals just how damaging a given downtime event is.

The Causes of Business Downtime Vary Wildly

• Cybersecurity Threats: It should be no surprise that cyberattacks often result in some level of downtime, particularly throughout the event and especially when attack vectors like ransomware are involved.
• Misconfigured Devices: On a related note, devices with errors in their configurations leave doors open for these cybersecurity threats to come in.
• Hardware or Software Failure: The older and more obsolete hardware and software become, the more likely they will hang up and fail.
• Natural Disasters: Inclement weather and other such events can lead to downtime in various ways, from power outages to damaging your business’ physical infrastructure.
• Human Error: Accidents, such as inadvertent data deletion or even tripping over the wrong power cable, can easily lead to downtime.

Make No Mistake: Downtime is No Fun

Fortunately, modern businesses have various means to help minimize, if not avoid, downtime… despite its unpredictable nature. Coleman Technologies is committed to assisting the businesses of British Columbia in utilizing them, including:

Backup and Disaster Recovery
Since downtime is frequently associated with disasters, being able to recover quickly from them can significantly reduce it. Having the preparations in place to do so will not only protect your business but also its productivity.

Help Desk
A help desk is intended to give your team a resource to turn to in case they encounter an issue. If they are experiencing downtime, a professional is on hand to diagnose and resolve it.

Remote Monitoring and Maintenance
Your devices will indicate if something is wrong, but someone must pay attention. An RMM tool does this for you, alerting you to problems while they are still impending and ensuring that the little things that also help prevent downtime, like updates, are attended to promptly.

If you would like to learn more about how to avoid the consequences of downtime, contact our team. Give us a call at (604) 513-9428.

#1: Interact with it less.

As we established from the very start, email can very rapidly shift from an asset to a considerable time commitment, often multiple times throughout the workday. If possible, avoid getting drawn in by reducing the total amount of time you spend in your mailbox. There are a few ways to accomplish this:

• Check your emails in batches, allowing them to accumulate throughout the day and attending to all of them at once. This will help you to remain focused on your actual responsibilities, rather than having your concentration broken each time a message comes in.
  
  
• Create a browser shortcut that takes you directly to your message composer and bypasses the inbox:
  
  
  
  • For Gmail, use: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1.
    
    
  • For Outlook, use: https://outlook.office365.com/mail/deeplink/compose?version=2020042702.13&popoutv2=1&leanbootstrap=1

#2: Organize yourself, by organizing it.

Without the proper maintenance, your inbox can quickly become bogged down with messages and make it impossible to find important messages later. Therefore, it is useful to add additional rules and features to your email client, such as:

• When you’re dealing with a ton of emails, it can be annoying to have to bounce back to your inbox each time you delete, move, or act on one of your incoming messages. Fortunately, there is a way to mitigate this issue through a simple change in your settings.
  
  
  
  • In Gmail, there is a feature called Auto Advance. With it activated, deleting, moving, or archiving a message will no longer send you back to your inbox, and will instead move you to your next message. You can also activate the Send & Archive button, which will give you the option to do both things in one click.
    
    
  • When using Outlook, you can change your settings to also advance you to your next message after acting upon its predecessor. Call up your Options (under the File menu option) and select Mail. On that page, you’ll find a section labelled Other, and the specification to complete an action “After moving or deleting an open item.” Select open the next item from the dropdown.
    
    
• Whether you’re dealing with communications referencing different projects or simply receive many kinds of correspondence, it can be difficult to keep them all straight. Sorting these messages out automatically can save quite a bit of time and frustration.
  
  
  
  • In Gmail, you can create Labels, which effectively help you manage different emails from different senders or that reference different topics. By creating Filters via the drop-down option in the Search bar, you can also set certain emails to have these labels applied based on preset criteria. These can even be used to sort through different email addresses you receive in the Gmail client.
    
    
  • Outlook also offers a similar function with its capability to create Folders and generate Rules to direct certain messages to them automatically, once again. When an existing inbox message is right-clicked, suggested rules will display, along with the opportunity to create one or to manage the ones you have already created.

#3: Prepare Ahead of Time

We all have those messages that we find ourselves sending time and time again, with minimal details changed between them. Shave the time you spend drafting these messages down by creating a template to start off with.

• In Gmail, as your message composer is open, click the triple-dot menu at the bottom and navigate to Templates. From there, you have the option to either insert a template you have already created or save what you have drafted as a new template to use later. If you no longer need a template, you can also delete it from this menu.
  
  
• In Outlook, you can create a new template from a message by navigating to File and Save As, then switching the file type to Outlook Template. To use them, select New Items as you are drafting your email and from there, More Items and then Choose Form. From there, select User Templates in File System in the Look In box. Find your template, and select Open.

What other ways do you know to speed up your use of your email? Share them in the comments! For more handy tips, make sure you subscribe to our blog.

Labels

Instead of categorizing your notes into folders and notebooks, Keep is organized by labels. You can create labels to find everything you have stored on a particular topic. Fortunately, it's also easy to use, so in this tip I'll show you how to use Google Keep to track all the important information you need to process and store.

Adding a new label to a note is as easy as selecting the Labels option in the lower right menu on the editing screen. You can also add a label by holding down the note from the main list and tapping the label icon or by including a hashtag at the start of your note. This allows you to check your note for the label you have added by tapping on the hamburger menu and selecting which labels you want to go through.

Reminders

Setting up reminders for various tasks and appointments is a very simple utility that Google Keep allows you to perform, assisting you in managing all your usual tasks. 

Let’s say you need to go to the bank or run some other errand during your lunch break, which starts at 12:30. Keep allows you to set a reminder for 12:27. Additionally, if you need to perform a task as soon as you get to work, you will be alerted as soon as you are on the premises.

The setting is simple enough and is available by pressing the icon that looks like a finger with a string tied to it. Keep also allows you to check your alarm settings by accessing the hamburger menu and selecting Reminders.

Checklists

Of course, many things you want to remember can involve several steps, but in these cases Keep’s checklist feature makes task generation much simpler.

You can quickly and easily create checklists and simple lists by tapping the Plus icon in the action bar. You can create a quick, simple checklist or use ones you’ve already made, with the capability to close and reopen line items by checking them off and unchecking them as needed.. 

Collaboration

Notes created in Keep can be shared with other people so that everyone can contribute, whether you're developing a business strategy or keeping track of topics discussed during a meeting. After accessing the note to be shared, tap the lower-right menu icon and select Collaborator. You can then send the note to one of your Gmail contacts to invite them to edit and utilize your note. Any changes they make will be reflected whenever you access the tool.

Google Keep is a great tool for anyone looking to be more organized. Have you used Google Keep? What did you think of it? Leave us your thoughts in the comments section below.

Downtime can be lethal to businesses, not only because too much can lead to failure, but it can easily waste a lot of your team’s time as everyone shifts gears to find a solution. This is why is it best to avoid it as often as possible.

That’s why we’re discussing three of the most prevalent causes of downtime, and what you can do to prevent them.

Your Technology is Unreliable

Faulty technology is often the inciting incident behind downtime. Hardware occasionally fails and needs to be replaced, which takes time. Outdated or buggy software frequently crashes. In either case, proactive monitoring and maintenance can help ward off these issues. 

This is why we recommend businesses implement remote patching and maintenance tools. These tools allow such issues to be addressed simultaneously and automatically, applying all fixes to every networked machine.

Your Users Lack Training

User error is behind plenty of IT issues, and downtime is no exception.

User error can be defined as any situation where an employee makes a mistake or is unfamiliar with the full capabilities of the tools they use. Downtime is usually involved in whatever situation applies. Making this issue more potent is the fact that you’ll generally face one of two scenarios:

1. Your users adjust and develop their own, typically inefficient processes, and the only way you realize there’s an issue is if you monitor their performance or catch it in your business metrics.
2. An accident or mistake could snowball into larger problems, interrupting operations.

However, both can be reduced drastically by properly training your team members.

You Didn’t Expect the Unexpected

Life can very easily take us by surprise, and in the case of business, this surprise can translate to challenges and interruptions. There is no shortage of events that typically lead to some amount of downtime, most of which being categorized as either natural disasters or security breaches.

Weather events—whether a hurricane, tornado, blizzard, severe thunderstorm, or other—can all potentially pause your operations. The same can be said of the litany of cyberattacks out there… your business could be stuck in a holding pattern until these issues are resolved appropriately. While these circumstances are inherently unpredictable, you can and should devise contingency plans to address them.

Protect Your Business from Downtime

Unfortunately, no one can eliminate your business’ risk of downtime. It simply isn’t feasible, as too many factors and variables are involved. That said, there are things that you can (and again, should) do to protect as much of your productivity as possible.

The first step is devising a business continuity plan. This plan consolidates all of the above considerations (as well as many others) to evaluate the risk of each and puts safeguards and contingencies in place to minimize the impact of any form of disaster. Next, you need a data backup and disaster recovery plan to facilitate this business continuity plan. Protecting your data (which is easily your business’ most critical asset) puts you in a much better position to recover from an unpleasant event.

If this sounds like a lot, Coleman Technologies is here to help. Call us at (604) 513-9428 to learn more.

Running a business may never be totally smooth sailing, but it doesn’t have to be a complete grind all the time either. Managing complexities with your business’ technology is a good way to ensure that things move ahead with some efficiency. Today, we look at four ways to effectively handle complexities in the realm of business technology.

Strategic Planning and Alignment

The first thing that has to happen is that you need to assess your business’ goals then work to align technology initiatives with these goals to ensure that any IT investments contribute directly to the success of the business. You’ll want to create a comprehensive technology roadmap that outlines how different systems and technologies will evolve over time. This roadmap should account for strategic changes inside of a business and allow for the integration of emerging technologies that can bring better efficiency.

Integration and Interoperability

If possible, you’ll want to select technology that is scalable and can grow with the business. Scalable systems are better equipped to handle increased complexity and the quickly growing data volumes that businesses have today. Another thing that has to be considered is how to improve data flow. One of the best ways to do this is through integration, as it ensures that data flows efficiently across the organization, reducing the complexity of structuring data. 

Cybersecurity and Risk Management

Cybersecurity is one of the most pressing issues any organization has. One of the best ways to thwart risk is to monitor your systems. By implementing a robust cybersecurity framework and regularly monitoring endpoints for potential vulnerabilities, you can better detect and respond to security threats in real-time, minimizing the risk of data breaches and other cyberattacks.

You’ll also want to educate employees on cybersecurity best practices. Establish clear policies and procedures for data protection and ensure that employees are well-informed and trained to follow them.

Agile Project Management

The last point is about building business agility. You’ll need to embrace agile project management methodologies to increase flexibility and be able to respond to your changing needs. Additionally, your business can become more agile with a comprehensive cross-platform training program. The more people that know how to do a job, the more apt that you’ll be able to complete a project efficiently and effectively. 

By adopting these strategies, organizations can navigate the complexities of technology and position themselves inside their market. It’s best to regularly reassess and refine your business’ approach to stay ahead of emerging challenges and opportunities. If you need help getting started, give IT experts at Coleman Technologies a call today at (604) 513-9428.

1. Prioritization

One of the keys to productive work is to work smarter, not harder. By identifying what is most pressing to accomplish or otherwise needs to happen first, you can inherently increase your productivity.

Ignore Inspiration

For instance, one of the biggest causes of procrastination is taking in a project in its entirety. Seeing the entire scope of an undertaking can be intimidating, which often makes people feel as though they need to be “inspired” before they will be able to accomplish anything.

This is untrue, but can be a difficult impulse to resist. If you catch yourself falling back on this excuse, try focusing specifically on a certain aspect or piece of your greater responsibility. Once this portion is completed, you’ll most likely be motivated to continue. In essence, don’t wait to be inspired… inspire yourself through what you accomplish.

Leverage Prioritization Strategies

Another common cause of procrastination is indecision as to what aspect of a project to tackle first. Again, identifying the most important or pressing activity makes it much easier to make this decision, and there are a few ways that you can do so.

One way is to leverage something called the Eisenhower Matrix. It can be used to sort tasks based on their urgency and importance, advising you on how a task should be approached - if it should be done now, planned for, delegated to someone else, or eliminated. This tool can help you avoid spending time on activities that ultimately don’t matter as much as others, optimizing how you spend the time you have. The Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 Rule, is another means of spending your time more intelligently. By identifying the most important 20 percent of their tasks and minimizing the remaining 80 percent, many people use this principle to spend the most time on their most impactful activities.

Save Distractions for Later

We’ve all experienced that moment where, in the middle of one task, we suddenly have an idea for another. While this new task may be valuable or important, it can also hurt your operations by interrupting the one you’re engaged in at the moment… but again, this thought also needs to be addressed. Many people resolve this dilemma by creating a distraction list. Rather than suspending what they are working on, these people simply take a moment to jot down this idea for further consideration after their task is done. This means that they aren’t jumping between unfinished tasks each time a new idea pops up.

2. Preparation

Once you have your tasks organized properly, you need to ensure that you have properly made preparations to attend to them. Some of these preparations may sound counter-intuitive, but are no less crucial to your efforts.

Make Sure You’re in Order

If you aren’t ready to be productive, you aren’t going to be no matter what you try. Therefore, you need to be taking care of yourself, as well as your technology. You need to be healthy and rested to reach your potential, which means that self-care is a must. This also means that you should be strategic in how you approach your responsibilities. If you know that you tend to have a period of low energy in the late morning, it’s probably beneficial to avoid scheduling intensive tasks for that time. In addition, you need to be sure that you’re up-to-date on how things are done. The more knowledgeable you are, the more efficiently you’ll be able to make decisions, and the faster processes will move along.

Expect to Be Interrupted

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, as they say. This means that you should anticipate other things to interfere with your established work schedule. What if another task pops up, or a task takes longer than anticipated? Taking these kinds of challenges into account will allow you to figure out a solution preemptively, or at least a plan that allows you to adjust and adapt.

Learn from Everything

We’ve all been taught the value of learning from our mistakes - examining situations in which things went wrong, identifying why, and avoiding those circumstances in the future. However, this is only half of what you should do to optimize your productivity. You also need to identify why your successes were successful.

Once you have completed a project or process, take some time to examine it. What about it worked well, and how could that be made better? Was every aspect necessary, or could some of it be eliminated or streamlined? Doing so will allow you to further optimize your procedure to be even more productive the next time.

3. Cheating!

In fairness, these strategies aren’t “cheating” so much as they are methods of working smarter. This way, you can make sure that your tasks are accomplished without expending more resources than they need - including your energy.

Subdivide Your Tasks

Remember the prioritization strategies we discussed above? This is a similar activity, in that you take a larger concept and divvy it up into each step that needs to be completed. Instead of putting them into a matrix or focusing on a specific set of them, the idea here is to simply make your tasks appear more achievable.

Let’s say you have to plan a work event. This alone is a significant responsibility, and can be overwhelming to approach as a whole - where to start? However, you can make your process much more comprehensible by going about it piece-by-piece, effectively expanding your task into a complete to-do list. While this does give you more tasks, they will be much easier to attain and progress with. So, instead of “Plan Party for Greg’s Retirement”, your list might include:

• Buy decorations
• Buy card
• Buy ice cream cake
• Hide cake in freezer
• Have team sign card
• Put up decorations
• Take out cake
• Send email to team to gather

More tasks, but much easier to follow nevertheless.

Leverage Shortcuts

There are a great many ways that your technology can offer an easier way of doing things. Naturally, keyboard shortcuts are one example of this, but so is automation. Let’s face it, any time you can save by having your technology handle something is time that you can then spend being productive elsewhere.

Eliminate Inefficiencies

How much time do you spend debating your options for truly inconsequential decisions during the day? Chances are, it’s more than you’d like to admit. The fact of the matter is that many of the choices that we are faced with aren’t all that impactful. Eliminating as many of these choices as possible will allow you to reserve your decision-making skills for the times that you really need them.

Email is another notorious source of lost productivity, simply because people don’t use it as efficiently as they could. It is too common for what should be a very brief and simple correspondence to take far longer than anticipated. Ironically, this is often because the people involved are trying to be brief.

Instead of cutting corners on your next email, invest a few minutes into including more specifics. Don’t just say you want to meet - identify the topics to be discussed. Don’t leave the time of the meeting open-ended, offer a few availabilities. While it takes longer to write, one email written this way will keep you from having to read, write, and send a few more.

Finding Your Groove

Clearly, there are many aspects to consider when you’re trying to be more productive, and some may be more effective for one person over another. A bit of experimentation will help you to land on the approach that works for you.

Coleman Technologies can help by providing the solutions that enable some of these methods. Reach out by calling (604) 513-9428 to learn more about these solutions.

Agriculture

Farms often cover miles and miles of real estate. Traditionally, this makes it more difficult to keep track of everything that is going on around the property. Drones can make monitoring the status of the farm much simpler. With specialized sensors that collect important data, farmers are able to successfully manage irrigation levels, fertilization, and crop spacing, leading to higher agriculture output. Using drones, farmers can also manage livestock much simpler.

Conservation and Environmental Protection

Drones have also been a big benefit to conservationists by expanding the ability to collect crucial data in situations that they weren’t previously able to track. They can help track animal and environmental patterns and report information that is crucial in modern conservation efforts. Drone technology can also help Department of Environmental Conservation officers and park rangers find compliance infractions. 

Construction and Site Surveying

Engineers and construction workers now use drones to not only get a lay of the land, but also inspecting hard to reach places. Using drones in this capacity cuts down on the dangerous situations that human workers are exposed to, mitigating risk. 

Fire Fighting, Policing, and Search and Rescue

One of the most important uses of drone technology today is in emergency situations. It can assist all types of first responders by being able to get an aerial view of the situation. Firefighters are beginning to use drones to fight fires, while still using them in support capacity as well.  

Police have started to use drones for crash investigations as well as to keep officers out of potentially risky situations. 

Law enforcement has also used drones to simplify many of their activities, including crash investigations and search and rescue efforts.

Search and rescue teams have used drones to deliver equipment quickly into situations where people could be at serious risk of bodily harm. 

Insurance

Drones can be of use to insurance companies when they do assessments of claims. Instead of putting people into potentially serious situations, flying a drone keeps risk down and allows people to get the resources they need to rebuild quickly. 

Have you used a drone? How do you think the drone will affect life going forward? Leave your thoughts below in the comments and be sure to return to our blog again next week.

One of the biggest arguments for remote work is that it poses environmental benefits, but how much truth is there to this statement? Today, we want to dive into the details and see if there is actually a solid benefit to working remotely—for the environment, at least. The answer might surprise you.

Remote Work Doesn’t Completely Eliminate Carbon Emissions

Remote work does remove the commute, and you’d think that this is enough to move the needle toward a more environmentally friendly working solution, but the answer isn’t that clear. There are other factors which also play into carbon emissions, more than gas mileage. There are numbers that could sway your opinion in either direction. On one hand, a look at April 2020’s emissions showed that they were reduced by about 17% worldwide compared to the prior year, but as you might imagine, those numbers have come up once again, even with people still working remotely.

Here are some other challenges which can complicate whether or not remote work is a more environmentally friendly approach.

Electricity

Even when your employees are working remotely, they are consuming electricity—just not from your office. In fact, their combined homes will likely use more electricity compared to your office. And how exactly is this energy being generated, anyway? Is it an environmentally friendly and sustainable way, or are the providers relying on fossil fuels? You can see how the answer gets a little murkier.

HVAC

The same thing can be said about heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. How much energy is being used to keep homes warm, cool, and ventilated, and how are these solutions being delivered? It’s easier for your business to control the office’s thermostat and impact the environment from one location compared to your workforce doing so from several different places.

Greater Hardware Needs

Laptops and mobile-friendly solutions are great for making your business more mobile, but if you haven’t already equipped your team with this technology, then you will have to procure it for them before the big shift to remote work. This means that there will be more waste created as a result of more technology being introduced to the world through the manufacturing process. And, of course, you can’t forget about e-waste, which is a big problem in its own right.

We don’t want to say that remote work is bad by any means, but whether it’s bad for the environment is actually up for debate, and the issue is not as clear-cut as you might think at first glance.

It’s Not All Doom and Gloom for Remote Work

There are plenty of great reasons to implement a remote work policy, but just understand that your primary one is probably not going to be to save the environment. A remote or hybrid work strategy can actually be remarkably effective, provided you have thought the whole thing through. Coleman Technologies can help you with this step. To learn more, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.