Computer Network Consulting

IT Support Isn't as Easy as it Looks

Monday, August 2, 2010 by Damon Richards

You've heard the old proverb that, "A man man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client." The corrolary that, "You only need to have a lawyer because the other guy has one," is heard almost as often. Both statements contain an element of truth, and they show the difficulty of providing good consulting services to small businesses. Everybody thinks what professionals do is easy. Afterall, Denny Crane, and Matlock before him, and Perry Mason before him, showed how easy it is to be a courtroom attorney.

The IT support services industry has it even worse. Imagine how simple network support must be when 8 year old girls like Lex Murphy from Jurassic Park sits down at a screen and shouts, "It's a UNIX system, I know this!" Or when beautiful Angela Montenegro taps a few keys and creates a perfect 3D rendition of the victim's internal organs at the request of her boss, "Bones". Not to mention the incredibly easy way in which Garcia mines information from disparate databases on "Criminal Minds". It's no wonder that Indianapolis small business owners think computer network support should be simple and quick.

No we have the real-life 15 year old kid who disguises an iPhone app that allows the phone to be used as a data modem and gets it past all the screeners at the Apple Store. Surely the whole of business computer support must be simple in comparison! These examples don't just create misunderstanding among business leaders. Many people with very modest computer skills draw the same conclusion about how easy it must be to provide IT outsourcing services. They start selling their "skills" at below-market rates and before you know it some unfortunate small business is dead in the water because of incompetence.

The truth is that providing quality computer network consulting services requires a lot of skill and practice, along with an ongoing effort to stay educated about changes in the industry. Solving complex problems often takes time, even if the TV and movie stars make it look otherwise.

There are no Red State/Blue State or Mac vs PC people

Wednesday, July 28, 2010 by Damon Richards

One of the scariest things I've seen in nearly 20 years providing IT support services to small businesses in Indianapolis, Carmel, Greenwood, Fishers, and other central Indiana communities has been the explosion of "Us vs Them" divisions of people. The Internet makes it possible for a person to hear only one viewpoint on a topic so that it gets reinforced and solidified in his mind. One of these splits that impacts computer network services is the Mac vs PC division. You're all familiar with the "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC" commercials that Apple used successfully recently. They played on a separation that was really meaningful a decade ago. The truth is that there is little difference between PC capabilities and those of the Mac any more.

And for those of you who say, "Yes but Macs don't get viruses," check out the latest research from security company Secunia. They found that in the first half of 2010, the Mac OS and the programs that run on it were the least secure, followed by Oracle and then Microsoft. The reason Macs don't get viruses is simply because there aren't enough Macs out there, relative to the number of PCs. One writes a virus to get widespread distribution. That's not possible if there aren't very many target systems to begin with.

When my Indianapolis small business computer consulting customers ask me about Mac vs PC, I tell them the decision is more one of aesthetics and cost than functionality. They don't believe me either.

Where Does Your Smart Phone Fit in Your IT Network?

Tuesday, July 20, 2010 by Damon Richards

Two recent events have me once again thinking about the role of a smart phone in the IT network of my central Indiana small business computer support customers. The first event was a stolen laptop. One of my IT support customers had her laptop taken from her house. She was able to use her iPhone to notify us that it had happened, which allowed us to secure her data. She was then able to continue to work, albeit in a limited fashion, until she can get back to the office and get a replacement. That was a great use of the technology.

The second event was when another of my Indianapolis computer consulting customers called to say he wants to replace his Palm Treo (That's right, he still carries a Treo). In his case, he didn't need anything more than his Treo had been providing. But he had to upgrade and he found the choices overwhelming.

These two experiences made me ponder the role of the smart phone. They show the spread of usefulness to some degree. For many, their phone is still a way to talk to others and to keep up with email and calendars. For others, it is a portable device for computing. The idea of placing a call with it is so low on the list of requirements that it doesn't play in the decision set (unless calls begin to drop, iPhone 4).

Good IT Outsourcing Starts with the Mission

Wednesday, July 14, 2010 by Damon Richards

I met with a prospective new customer yesterday. This man is in charge of a good sized institution. They have not escaped the economic downturn of recent months and his board is pressuring him to squeeze as much out of the budget as he can without damaging the institution. He wanted to talk to me because he wasn't sure his internal guys were giving him the information he needed to make informed decisions about his computer network. He said, "They seem to be doing what it takes to keep their jobs."

This is something that I hear my Indianapolis small business computer support customers say all the time. They want us to give them the information they need to make informed decisions about their organization and its computer network services. Most of my competitors think about the Information Technology as if it were a separate entity from the rest of the organization. In fact, IT is nothing but a tool of the rest of the organization. If your comuter consulting company doesn't understand that, you should get rid of them right away.

When I talk with my customers, a very small part of the conversation is about computers. It's mostly about the business. What is happening that effects it? Where is it going in the future? Who can make things happen for it? When will critical decision points come along?

In the end, my IT support services customer has to make a business decision. My input is to provide a solid understanding of the business impact of the technology decision. Rarely does she have to make a "technology" decision. My technical input allows her to make an informed business decision.

Good IT Outsourcing Requires Constant Review

Friday, July 9, 2010 by Damon Richards

In the world of sports, it's common for competitors to prepare for a contest by studying video of their opponents previous performances. Peyton Manning is famous for reviewing game photos during the game. My favorite boxer of all time, Thomas "Hitman" Hearns used to find weaknesses in his opponents thru film, then test for those weaknesses early in a bout. He became the first fighter ever to win titles in four different weight divisions.

At Port-to-Port Consulting, we obsess with review of our performance. We know that we can only get better if we identify what needs to improve. We survey each of our customers after they have an interaction with our computer help desk to see what they think. We ask the Indianapolis small business owners who've hired us to tell us what they hear from their staffs about us during our frequent business reviews. We constantly debate about whether we're taking the best approach to the routine network support activities that we perform. All in the name of improvment. We understand that big improvements are made of little ones. Thomas Hearns once described the way in which an opponent "signaled" that he was about to throw a jab. He confirmed the signal was true, then proceeded to knock out his opponent the next time he threw that jab.

While we don't have the benefit of video, we do all we can to review and improve. When we find little signals that things aren't going as well as we think, we pay attention... before someone else does.

Every Good IT Consultant has an Axe to Grind

Wednesday, June 2, 2010 by Damon Richards

As a provider of outsourced IT services to Indianapolis area small business owners, I'm often asked for my opinion of one technology gadget or another. For the most part, I try to keep an open mind toward new things. (Heck, I spent a year tweeting before I declared it to be a media created hype.) One of the things I've found in 19 years providing business computer support is that most of my peers don't keep an open mind for more than a clock cycle or two.

The IT industry is still in its infancy. The founders are just starting to be eligible to be called "greyheads." Afterall, the PC was introduced only 30 years ago. Throughout the PC era, the pace of change in PC and network services has been tremendous and ever-increasing. In order to keep up, those of us who provide IT support services have to be able to discern quickly whether a new technology has a hope of impacting our clients and customers. While we often make it sound like we've done extensive research on a topic, the extent of the investigation is often no more than reading a few posts on Digg or our preferred site for technobabble.

Again, I try to be more open than that. I tend not to share an opinion on a product that I haven't at least held in my hand, or tried out online. Once I get my hands on it though, it has a very small opportunity to amaze me before I'm ready to play with the next shiny object. I have enough technology junk to fill a small museum.

I say all of this to caution you when you seek computer network consulting. The expert giving you his opinion may not know any more than you about the subject at hand. See if you can get him to say he doesn't know about something, because he surely can't know about everything. Can he?

Outsourced IT Providers and Data Privacy

Wednesday, May 12, 2010 by Damon Richards

Many people have become so accustomed to sharing private data online thru social networking sites and the like that service providers are starting to take for granted that we are willing to share information that we really aren't. As the outsourced IT department for dozens of Indianapolis area small businesses, we sometimes have to stop and think about these same privacy issues with respect to the computer network services we provide. For example, my network support staff often needs to access a person's account. Many people think that we know (or have a way of viewing) their passwords so they are put off when we ask them to type it in. They think we're just being lazy and not looking it up. In reality, your password is the last thing we want to know. It's your ensurance of privacy on your network.

Sure, we can change your password, but you'll notice that we did. We can also get access to much of your data using our administrative privleges. Nonetheless, we want to respect your privacy at every turn. We don't want to make a gaff like the launch of Google Buzz earlier this year. Google innocently pulled peoples' contact lists into Buzz in order to pre-populate it for them. They never stopped to think that people might not want to "Buzz" with those same people -- certainly not with all of them.

Data privacy is getting more difficult to define and manage, but good computer network consulting providers need to be extra mindfull of their practices.

Computer Network Consulting Survives thru Chaos

Wednesday, April 14, 2010 by Damon Richards

Port-to-Port Consulting has been providing outsourced IT support to Indianapolis area small businesses for almost 19 years. A lot has changed about computer services in that time, but one thing has remained constant: Your Information Technology is a primary source of chaos in your organization. You can't look away from your computer system without having it become a little obsolete. You have to spend time thinking about how obsolete you can let it get before you have to do something about it. That's what we do for our outsourced IT services customers. We help them survive thru the chaos.

Many in the computer consulting business thing that small business owners don't care about IT. I think just the opposite is true. They care about it too much. It's an area of their business that is critical to their success yet there is no way they can know enough to make an intelligent decision about it. This technical ignorance causes them to freeze like deer in the headlights and do nothing until they have no other choice.

Those of us who serve the network support needs of these businesses need to do all we can to make our customers IT-smart without them having to become IT experts. We can start by talking in business terms rather than IT terms. Even when our customers start the technical jargon, we've got to know it's the chaos that's making them do it. We have to help them navigate back to a place where they are more comfortable. From there, we must run the gauntlet to bring back a useful technology recommendation.

I got into the business computer support industry because the chaos attracts me. My customers have their own chaos to deal with. Together, we make successful business and IT decisions.

It's Hard to be a Computer Consulting Expert

Monday, March 29, 2010 by Damon Richards

Our local business paper has a regular columnist who writes about small business technology. (They lock all of their content behind a subscriber login so you can't see what I mean.) I used to think he was an idiot because he was forever writing about Indianapolis Information Technology topics on which he seemed to know very little. The truth is that there is simply too much to know for one man to provide IT support services to even the smallest of businesses. When we started Port-to-Port Consulting in 1991 to provide small business computer support to organizations in Indianapolis, Carmel, Fishers, Greenwood, and Noblesville, my partner Bob and I were willing to make the claim that between the two of us we knew everything there was to know about running a small business computer network. We may even have been right.

Today, every single person at Port-to-Port learns something new and pertinent to providing good outsourced IT support that no one else in the company knew. We share, formally and informally, with one another all the time yet we still find new things every day. The thought makes me realize that Tim Altom is not an idiot. He is a new representation of what Bob and I used to call the "page ahead" guys. These were the computer consultants who would promise to come over tomorrow and do whatever it was that you asked of them. Then they'd go home tonight and read up on it so that when they showed up tomorrow, they seemed to know what they were talking about. In reality, they were only one page ahead of you in the manual.

Outsourced IT Departments Must Protect Your Identity

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 by Damon Richards

When I started my Indianapolis Information Technology consulting business in 1991, we referred to our customers as "clients." Today, I think of the people that I work for as customers and the companies as clients. I believe that we treat customers better than anything else we choose to call them (patients, clients, constituents, visitors, etc.). This distinction between the small business entity to which we provide IT support services and the people who own and work in those organizations gets interesting from time to time.

The latest challenge comes in the form of private information in the age of social media. My clients, the Indianapolis, Greenwood, Carmel, Fishers, and Noblesville small businesses, want us to ensure the safety and security of their data and intellectual property. To do that we install systems to monitor and manage both incoming and outgoing electronic information. In many cases, we have the ability to see every word, image, and sound that moves in or out of our clients' offices via the Internet. We know where it came from and where it is going. We can essentially reconstruct what happened online days ago, kind of like an Internet Tivo. This ability is not generally monitored at that level by my network support staff. But we can in some cases if asked to do so.

With the emergence of Web 2.0 services, this seemingly simple process for managing the online presence of our client companies takes on a Big Brother feeling pretty quickly. Social Media has almost completely removed the line between you as an employee of a company and you as a human being living in Indiana. Services like Facebook and LinkedIn expect (in fact require) you to have a single account with your real name. If you use your LinkedIn account to keep track of your customers, prospects, and vendors while at the same time leaving yourself open to inquiries about job opportunities, then are you cheating on your current employer or enhancing his ability to succeed?

More importantly, what happens when you leave? The account was setup using your work email address, perhaps even at the request of your employer. But the network built in that account seems to belong to you more than the company. Who gets it? What is my role as the business computer support professional in facilitating that? Do I serve my client or my customer?

So far, these questions have come up mostly as hypothetical situations, but we have already dealt with a few real ones. Going forward there will be lots more. Given the strange way that Indiana courts interpret the laws, we think Indiana small business owners should start crafting agreements that define the rules of separation before they find themselves dealing with a private data issue between them and a departing employee.

It's Hard to Find Good Outsourced IT Services

Monday, March 22, 2010 by Damon Richards

This comic strip explains the difficulty small business owners have in finding a competent outsourced IT department. In the central Indiana communities of Carmel, Greenwood, Fishers, and Noblesville, my Indianapolis computer consulting company often runs into people like Henry. For whatever reason, they've decided that being a computer network services provider is much easier than their current occupations. Without delay, they run down to the local Kinko's and have a thousand business cards printed and start handing them out to friends.

Usually, the new Information Technology expert will find a problem or two that he can solve, which bolsters his confidence and makes him chase after more and more difficult challenges until, eventually, he really screws one up. At that point, he stalls until he can find a job in his previous career and gets out of the computer support business by throwing away the 950 leftover business cards.

Unfortunately he leaves behind a burned small business owner. He hired Henry because he was a nice guy he met at some Chamber function. Henry sounded like he knew what he was talking about when it comes to computers. He used a lot of technical jargon in the conversation. The business owner knew that his IT system had outgrown his internal ability to keep it running, much less to use it for strategic advantage. Since there's no industry regulation, he could only choose based on fuzzy factors or price. Henry fit the bill.

What's bad for that business owner, and for those of us who run professional outsourced IT departments, is that he will never again allow an outsider to work on his computer network if he can help it. When I meet owners who have had a "Henry experience," I try to console them for the bad experience. I don't try to win their business. Henry will have turned them into bad customers because they will never be able to trust another IT consultant. The "Henry experience" puts them at a permanent disadvantage. All I do is wish them well.

Computer Network Consulting Involves a lot of Babysitting

Thursday, March 4, 2010 by Damon Richards

I recently attended a conference of bankruptcy lawyers. It's one of those groups where business owners in non-competing geographies get together to share best practices in order to improve their businesses. I attended as the outsourced IT support provider to Indiana bankruptcy attorney Mark Zuckerberg. If any of the good ideas presented had to to with computer network services, my job was to make sure I understood it and how it might impact Mark's network support.

One of the attorneys ignited an interesting discussion about personal communications at work that made me realize that our Indianapolis small business IT outsourcing company spends a lot of time doing things that are intended to keep people from hurting themselves -- babysitting, in other words.

The conversation started with the need to block popular Internet sites like Facebook, Pandora, Amazon, and other social, entertainment, or shopping sites during work hours. It went on to include a debate about whether or not people should be allowed to use their cell phones at work and what can be done about it. I was surprised at how many had already implemented such rules in their workplaces. I guess I shouldn't have been. As more of us turn to the Internet for entertainment and socializing, it will become more difficult to separate our personal and business lives. In the end, nothing that your IT support services company can do will solve this issue.

We can add filtering and monitoring and alerting to the network, but clever people will figure out how to avoid or defeat these measures (I had teenage kids so I know what I'm talking about). In the end, as we agreed at the conference, staff has work to accomplish. As business owners, we may have to look more at quality and quantity of work than at how our people spend their time each day. Good people will do good work. Mine do.

Looking to the Future

Tuesday, March 2, 2010 by Tony Retz

As someone who works in computer consulting, it is part of my responsibility to look to the future for my Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing customers. 2010 is going to be a year full of major change for most people. Microsoft is all but forcing adoption of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008. Both of these are vastly different from their predecessors (excluding Vista, which no one used anyway). Google has released phones to compete with the iPhone, Microsoft is releasing a new Windows Mobile OS, and then there’s the iPad, which at least one person in your office wants. Add to that new versions of end-user software like Office 2010 and you’ve got the recipe for a lot of headaches.

So, what can we do as a network consultant to ease the pain? For one, we can access most of the software in beta format and use it for a few months before it's officially released. But, here’s the trick…we need to actually USE the software. I understand installing it on a secondary computer, but your IT consultant needs to use it regularly to be able to really recommend changing (or not changing for that matter). This isn’t practical for all applications, but for things like Office, Browsers, and Operating Systems, it’s essential.

In our Indianapolis-based small business computer consulting company, we try to get at least two people using new software as early as possible. We had 3 people using the release candidate for Windows 7, and all their raving got the rest of us amped up to do the switch as well. We currently have 2 people (including me) using Office 2010, which is in beta release. It’s got some cool features as well, but hasn’t generated near the buzz that Windows 7 did.

So, let’s be proactive instead of reactive and get ourselves ready for our clients’ benefit.

Whatever happened to the hat?

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 by Chris Sudler

Years ago the ideal salesman would wear a long button up coat with a hat that often had a feather to the side of it. So what happened to this fashion? I haven't seen anyone wearing a professional hat when traveling to or from our Indianapolis computer consulting clients. Granted, we can't really wear a professional hat with a feather in it when we are doing computer network consulting work but the hat should return again. The hat is what completes the business professional image. Next time you are out shopping for new clothes, consider picking up a business hat.

Perhaps This is Why most Computer Consultants are Cold

Friday, January 29, 2010 by Damon Richards

A recent Scientific American article discusses the way in which we make snap judgments about people based on their warmth and competence. In it, the author describes how recent research is showing that people all over the world form their initial impression of you based on warmth and competence. Stereotypes feed these impressions, but they do not account for the whole first impression. The research also shows how a gain in one area leads to a loss in the other. For instance, people who are warm are assumed to be less competent than people who are cold. That must be why so many computer consultants treat their small business computer support customers so poorly. They must believe that appearing cold will also make them appear more competent.

Here at Port-to-Port Consulting, we're willing to take that chance. Our entire IT support services staff is committed to treating our network support customers kindly. We understand that most people are a little anxious or perturbed during most of their interactions with us. They either have a problem that is getting in the way of their work success, or they are trying to make a purchase decision based on limited understanding of the options. We strive first to put our computer network services customers at ease. I guess this research means we risk giving them a first impression of incompetence. So be it.

Our primary goal in providing Information Technology services in Indianapolis is to help our customers get better at what they do. We can't start helping if we aren't approachable.

Computer Consultants Need to Tell the Truth

Friday, January 22, 2010 by Damon Richards

I attended an event last evening at the home of local entrepreneur and philanthropist Scott Jones. The gathering was to introduce Lemonade Day to Indianapolis. My schedule required me to arrive late and leave early. I did get to see the entire presentation and am still wondering about my involvement in Lemonade Day. However, things went bad when I tried to leave. I was the first person to give my parking ticket to the valets. Several more people came out shortly after me and before long a steady trickle of people were departing.

It didn't strike me as strange when the first car to pull up was not mine. I started to be a bit concerned when the fifth one arrived and still I hadn't seen mine. It became ridiculous when I had been standing in the rain for 30 minutes without getting my car. The valets kept telling me they were getting my car, but it was obvious to everyone that they weren't. Finally, after 45 minutes and several polite requests for information, they told me that they couldn't get my car to start. You can't imagine how furious that made me.

The whole ordeal reminded me of one of the important tenets we hold here at Port-to-Port Consulting. We always tell our small business computer support customers the bad news as soon as we know it. They most likely are going to find out sooner or later, so why not tell them right away. Besides, they might be able to help. In the network support business, there are going to be problems. Companies that outsource their IT support services know that as well. They also know what is most critical and can help prioritize in a pinch.

I walked to my car in disgust, got in, turned the steering wheel a quarter turn, and started my car. I waited 45 minutes to find out that something was wrong that only took 10 seconds to correct. I hope these young men learned something from the experience. I'll get my own car next time.

Phone Viruses

Thursday, January 21, 2010 by Chris Sudler

For now all handheld users have the luxury of downloading any app or program to their phone with complete freedom. They don't have to worry about what files they are adding to their phone's operating system or who the developer even is. All of this will change very soon.

Since we work as an Indianapolis computer consulting company, we need to stay on top of all threats that can manipulate our network support clients' technology; this relates to their desktops, servers, firewalls, and now includes handhelds. Already the iPhone has viruses that makes the device controllable by botnets and there are antivirus apps for several phone systems.

Our days of browsing the web and downloading applications through our handhelds without any tension in security are soon coming to an end. We are beginning a new era where cell phone viruses will become an epidemic.

Finding New Things for IT Support Clients

Monday, January 4, 2010 by Damon Richards

In the grand scheme of things, the thing that we do at our Indianapolis small business computer support company is to help our customers do whatever they do a little bit better. Often, particularly with new network support customers, that amounts to nothing more than keeping their computer network running without crashes. After we've worked with them for a while, that becomes less exciting to them because they become accustomed to the idea that their business computer system should work without unplanned down time. That's when we have to start working to earn our keep.

Sometimes we do obvious things like informing our computer consulting customers about the status of their IT system. We keep them up to date on the age and status of their equipment and help plan replacements, refreshments, and upgrades as they go about budgeting. At other times, we move a bit out of the normal things considered outsourced computer support to areas like online marketing and social media. Every now and then we really step outside the normal envelope and do research that only touches computer support because it's done online. A recent example was a question posed to me by a customer who received several gift cards from friends and vendors at Christmas. He knew he would never visit many of these stores and wanted to know if there were options other than "re-gifting" these cards.

We took the challenge and, believe it or not, there is another option. We found a website, giftcardrescue.com, that allows you to trade in your gift cards for cash or other cards. Sure, my customer could have spent a few minutes online himself and perhaps found this site. I could have told him that I didn't know of anything other than re-gifting and moved on to my next task. But the reality of our outsourced computer service is that we do what our customers need us to do so that they can be more productive. Besides, now that I've found this option, I can share it with the rest of my Indianapolis computer consulting customers and perhaps help them with a small problem as well.

Computer Consulting is Full of Excuses

Monday, December 21, 2009 by Damon Richards

I recently read a blog post titled Excuses are Not a Customer Service Policy. In it, the author describes a bad breakfast experience with friends. The post wasn't as interesting as its title, but it made me think about the way in which most computer network services companies behave toward their customers. It's amazing how most people think that a customer who has been mistreated in some way wants to hear excuses for the abuse. In most instances, the customer wants an apology first and a resolution second. If these two are adequate to save the relationship, then she might want to hear the excuse.

At Port-to-Port Consulting, we recognize this and we try very hard not to make excuses for the mistakes that occur in the process of providing computer support to our Indianapolis area customers. We know that things will often go wrong in IT support services. That's the reason we have a Help Desk in the first place. However, one of our main tenets is to avoid escalating the problem by tossing out lame excuses, or worse, telling our customers what

they did wrong. Sometimes the problem is created by a customer who improperly uses his computer, but it doesn't get fixed by us throwing that in his face. So we don't.

Good Information Technology consulting requires a solid working relationship. My network technicians often find themselves taking the blame for something that may not have been our fault. Finding fault doesn't fix problems. The faster we can get past that point, the sooner we can start helping our customers move forward again. Besides, if they hired us to manage their computer network services and they aren't working properly for any reason, isn't that ultimately our fault?

Computer Consultants Should Know Their Customers

Friday, December 18, 2009 by Damon Richards

One of the computer network service technicians here at Port-to-Port Consulting just returned from a training class in Tampa, Florida. One of his complaints about spending time in Tampa was that it seemed to him that everything closed around 5:00 PM each day. I explained to him that the majority of people living in Tampa are old (Data bears me out on this one.) and tend to get inside early for the evening. Businesses start closing early because the bulk of their customers go home early.

It struck me that this is an important element in becoming a successful business computer support company. There are things about your target market that are specific to them and quite different from other categories of businesses. This is why we focus ALL of our efforts on Indianapolis small businesses. The difference between the needs of a 30 person law firm and the legal department at Wellpoint is stark. It's nearly impossible to handle the information technology needs of a 40 person real estate company while also worrying about the needs of the City of Carmel.

I'm often asked why we don't go after the network support business of some of our community's larger companies. My answer always revolves around this idea. If I serve large and small customers, whenever there is a conflict between them, the little guy is almost bound to lose. Besides, working with Indianapolis area small businesses allows us to see the impact we have as we help their businesses grow.