We've been trying to add to our technical staff for several weeks now. The task of finding good, qualified people is daunting even with the growing unemployment. The problem is not so much that we can't find people who have the technical skills for computer network consulting. It's that they don't have the skills that are most important to successfully provide business computer support in the Indianapolis area.

Eric Lundquist made this point in a commentary in a recent issue of eWeek. He summarizes the list of skills identified by the Society for Information Management, a decades old organization for technical managers:

1. Ethics and morals 
2. Critical thinking
3. Collaboration
4. Problem solving
5. Oral communication
6. Written communication
7. Interpersonal skills
8. Creativity
9. Managing expectations
10. Decision making
11. Functional area knowledge
12. Project leadership
13. Database
14. System analysis

Most job candidates find it difficult to understand that technical skills don't even make it into the top ten. My list doesn't exactly match this one from SIM, but it's not far from it. Having people who can't string together a sentence on paper or look me in the eye when talking to me is useless in the computer outsourcing business. My customers expect to get more than technical knowledge from us. They want help with their business problems -- especially the computer network ones.

Trust is a common theme that comes up when I write about the relationship between a computer network consulting company and its customers. I mention it often because it is the most important element in the success of that relationship. The same is true for other professional relationships we have like doctors, lawyers, accountants, and coaches. A recent malware attack led me to remind of this again.

According to Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics with the University of Alabama at Birmingham, hackers figured out how to take advantage of the URL redirector function of some popular web sites including Microsoft.com and IRS.gov to send people to malicious sites. These people were looking for downloads to help them protect their systems from just such malicious activity. Port-to-Port Consulting's Pertingo(r) computer consulting clients can avoid these kinds of problems by trusting that we, their IT support services company, have taken care to protect their systems. They also know that because of the fixed fee relationship between us, a mistake in this area will cost us time and money to repair.

When people don't trust that their computer outsourcing company has their best interest at heart, they start searching for good advice from other sources. That search often leads, on the Internet, to bad results. It's like when your kids listen to their misbehaving friends instead of the good advice you give them.

So if you find yourself chasing online solutions to threats and problems instead of seeking your business computer support provider, you should perhaps seek a new provider. Find one you can trust and your life will be better.

User generated content is the key defining element of the Web 2.0 movement. Social networking is close behind. This makes sites that allow people to rate the quality of various items or providers seem the logical best step for a killer new web site. If you're thinking you have a great idea for a site where people can rate things, that ship has already sailed.

The problem it has created for my Indianapolis computer consulting clients is that the Internet is now filled with sites that contain information about them. Some of it is good. Some of it is bad. Most of it is inaccurate. Why should you care? Most of these rating sites will appear above your company web site when someone does a search on keywords of interest to you. So most people have a greater chance of finding your listing than finding your site. Take Port-to-Port Consulting as an example. If you search for Computer Outsourcing in Indianapolis on Google, the first hit is a site called GetFave. The first mention of Port-to-Port is this blog (4th place isn't bad). Luckily for us, we're the only listing in GetFave and the information is accurate. Why? Because I edited our entry on GetFave when I saw how well it was doing in searches for Computer Network Consulting and other terms.

Do you have someone who monitors these things for your small business? We've created a new practice area for just that purpose. We call it Online Presence Management. It goes way beyond search engine optimization and website maintenance. It involves finding, correcting, or creating your online image to be what you need it to be to succeed. 

I didn't retrieve yesterday's mail from the box until this morning. I was appalled to find THREE letters from personal injury attorneys wanting to make sure that I'm aware of my rights in this accident that "was serious enough to make the public record." I thought about the business computer support providers who use scare tactics to generate new business by feeding their prospects a bunch of stuff that is obvious to anyone in the computer network consulting business but seems incredibly important to someone outside. Like the fact that my accident made the public record. Well, of course it did. Thanks to my Indianapolis computer consulting clients in the legal industry, I know that every police report is a part of the public record. It's not as impressive if you know that.

The two things that many computer outsourcing "experts" are touting these days are security and Online Presence Management. Security is always a good way to scare up some business. Small business owners are overly concerned with the security of their networks as I've written about in a previous post. Combine that with a few stories about the total ruin of a similar business, and you've got a ripe mark.  Even better though is the  promise to raise more money for the struggling business owner. We all know it takes more than a good website or accounts on some social networking sites, but we don't really know how much more. Or how to do it.

The truth is that in both of these areas, the fix is not a one-time deal. Any expert who comes in and promises to make your network completely secure by conducting an audit and selling you additional hardware and software to fix what he finds is providing security at a single point in time. You will not be secure the next day when there are new threat vectors that he didn't take into account. The same is true on the Internet marketing side. Lots of people can present you with a screen image that shows you on page one of a Google search for a particular search phrase of interest to you. They don't tell you that you won't be there by the time your prospect conducts the same search.

The only way your small business can take successful advantage of outsourced business computer support is to have a long term relationship with your provider. That's why we abandoned all forms of network support except our Pertingo^® Computer Suport Services.

I was in a car accident on Tuesday. I was just driving along when suddenly I heard a loud noise. It took a moment for me to realize the noise was the sound of another vehicle slamming into my car. I made the connection when I became aware that my car was spinning in the street. No one was hurt but my car was severely damaged. The other driver had run a red light.

No one who witnessed the accident stopped to offer assistance or to provide their version of what happened. I was apprehensive that the other driver would claim that I ran the light and, with no other witnesses, we'd have a long drawn out dispute. He admitted fault and we're well on the way to resolution.

The incident made me think about the many occasions we have in the course of our computer network consulting business to bend the truth, exagerate, or flat out lie to our customers. We usually know more than they do on the topic. It's the reason they use us for their computer outsourcing. We've learned over the years that those are character making opportunities. We tell our customers the straight truth, whether it's good for us or not. A good example comes from a recent email I got from one of our not-for-profit customers for whom we provide IT support services. He had asked me what it would cost for us to build a new website for him. He didn't know that I was in the middle of a decision about bringing on a full time web developer, but I knew that his project would provide the startup work to make the decision. I also knew that a local school was looking for a not-for-profit organization that needed a new website to use as a class project. I directed him to the school.

Michael wrote me back saying how much he appreciated that I would "take money out of my pocket" to help him. That's the value of honesty in computer outsourcing. Michael knows that he can trust my recommendations because they are made with his interests in mind, even when they don't align with my short term interests.

In 2003, Donald Rumsfeld earned the Foot in Mouth Award for answering a press conference question with his famous, “as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.” As confusing as that sounds, it is the treacherous unknown unknowns that make the job of computer network consulting in Indianapolis exciting. I’m often told by prospects that they have everything they need from their small business computer consultant only to discover a few questions later that they are only happy because they don’t know what they’re missing.

Another computer outsourcing provider passed on a story about a business computer support customer he had a few years ago. She was visiting the office and noticed that every printer had a bottle of white out next to it. The customer explained that their word processor automatically printed the page number on the first page of each document. They used the white-out to cover it, then copied the first page before sending the document. When the consultant showed them quickly how to change the setting, they exclaimed that the solution would save them several minutes per document, not to mention paper and white-out. They hadn’t asked before because they thought the cost to have it changed would be burdensome.

How many White-Out Cures are there in your office just waiting for a good computer help desk tech to get rid of them for you? The reason that we charge a fixed fee rather than an hourly rate is so you can ask those questions without regard to the burden they might be.

I attended the Dealmaker Media Under the Radar conference yesterday. This is a speed dating style conference where companies that are doing new things in Information Technology get six minutes to pitch their company before a room full of potential investors and business partners. Chip Heath, co-author of "Made to Stick," did a brief presentation on the secret to pitching in a short time. It's amazing how much one can present in only a minute. Unfortunately, one cannot pitch everything in one minute. Heath's advice: Pitch the single most important thing and leave the audience with questions that will lead to future conversations.

In thinking about that advice, I considered what is the single most important thing that a good business computer support company should do for its customers. My conclusion surprised me. Your computer network consulting company should make you more money by increasing your revenue. I can list a dozen things that your IT support service provider should do, but the single defining element is that we, like all of your other employees, should work to make your business more profitable. If we aren't doing that, then we aren't working hard enough.

Given that as the main objective changes the way that my Indianapolis computer consulting company views its relationship with customers. Clearly keeping the computer network running is important, but it doesn't begin to impact profitability. The place where we add value is by taking our knowledge of technology and combining it with your understanding of your business and finding the sweet spot where they fit together. That's why we're always asking questions that don't seem to directly apply to the activities of your computer system. We're looking for those places of most potential. Share your goals and objectives with us so we can do our part to make you more successful.

As a species, we don’t care much for change. Even in an ever-changing industry like computer network consulting, I’m often amazed at how resistant to change my peers are. It even sneaks into the thinking of our company from time to time. I overheard a couple of my staff members in a discussion recently. One said to the other, “If you don’t like change, you picked the wrong place to work.”

 

I found that to be refreshing. One of the most important ways in which we add value to our Indianapolis computer services customers is to stay aware of changes that might impact their businesses. Most of the changes that occur in computer outsourcing won’t be important to any individual business, but every change makes a difference to some business. We are responsible for bringing those pertinent changes to the attention of our computer network consulting clients so they can decide how to respond to the change. A significant side effect of this is that our organization is constantly in a state of flux. As Stephen Haeckel said, “Innovation is disruptive and a natural enemy of efficiency, stability, and predictability.” Port-to-Port Consulting is an interesting place to work.

 

In another conversation on which I eavesdropped, I heard this statement: “We have to get it together before the next guy gets here.” I laughed out loud in response. The truth is, we have it together. It doesn’t often look like it because we’re constantly changing, which means it doesn’t stay together very long before something changes. This constant churn is most obvious at the interface between our Help Desk and our computer outsourcing customers. As we make changes to keep up with technology and best practices, our customers are sometimes confronted with a different way of doing things. We work to make a smooth transition if we can. We redirect the bulk of the change to us internally. Still, we know that the best fit customers for Port-to-Port are the ones who can adjust to change.

In the Middle Age Vikings lived and literally died by the sea. After death, wealthier Vikings were placed in ships filled with food, jewels, weapons, food and even sometimes servants or animals for their comfort in the afterlife. The boats were interred in the ground, set alight or sent out to sea. This seems to be the way many small business owners make their computer network decisions. They believe that they should have the latest and greatest so they can impress others with their state-of-the-art technology. I frequently meet with business owners in the Indianapolis area who have rooms full of computer equipment. They brag about the manufacturers of the equipment the way teenagers talk about their clothes designers.

The goal of any business computer purchase decision should be to help the business generate more revenue or realize more profit. Anything else means you’re stockpiling your ship for your afterlife journey to Valhalla. My computer network consulting customers are always telling me that I’m the most “no saying” sales guy they’ve ever met. I point out that I’m not saying no to the purchase. I’m just pressing them to understand their true motivation in making the purchase.

Now I’m no Luddite. I love to have neat baubles to play with. But I don’t pretend when I buy a Samsung micro-PC that it’s going to make money for my company. I buy it because I want to play with it. Sometimes that playing leads to some useful business benefits that I can share with my customers. The PDA was a great example. The first Palm Pilot I purchased was the fifth device I had owned. I saw a real benefit even though the products coming to market weren’t quite there. Smartphones are another, more recent example.

This is one of the intangible benefits that a good computer outsourcing company provides. You have enough to keep up with changes in your specific industry. Let us keep up with the changes in ours that will affect yours. Stock your ship with more impressive things than failed technology.

 

Dan and Chip Heath write in the October issue of Fast Company magazine that companies employ the equivalent of the population of Kansas to field our complaint calls but about a canoe full to hear our compliments. They go on to lament about how difficult companies make it for us to say thank you. I believe they’ve confused cause and effect. If there were more of us trying to say thanks, more people would be employed to take those calls. Saying thank you has become an indication of weakness in our society. Having someone thank you is akin to them calling you a wuss. More often than not when you say thank you to someone, the response is “thank you.” What happened to “You’re welcome”?
 
In my computer network consulting business, I love to hear from customers who are happy. I always share their thanks with my staff. Although we get far more complaints than compliments, we put just as much effort into acknowledging those who send their thanks as we do improving upon the weaknesses described by those who complain. Our computer help desk staff spends every day fielding problems from people who are mad. They usually are mad at the situation, but it’s hard to maintain that rational view when you’re the person getting yelled at.

Here’s my suggestion to test the cause and effect of call center staffing: For each complaint that you lodge in the future, put just as much effort into a thank you. Let’s see if we can’t change the workforce in Kansas.

One of the hot new topics in computer network consulting is virtualization. This is the process of running multiple “instances” of a computer on a single piece of hardware. It’s a step toward taking advantage of the unused power of our computers, particularly servers. The reality is that most computer spend most of their time waiting for something to do. If we use that time to run another function, we can avoid buying more hardware that will also spend its time waiting for something to do. Why not just run the additional applications and services on the current server? Well, you know how some programs don’t like to run together on a machine? You can avoid that problem if they run in separate machine instances.

This is a bigger benefit for larger organizations that have rooms full of servers. By virtualizing the servers, more can be done on the same hardware. The hardware reduction leads to real savings in power, air conditioning, and floor space. In a small business, this is less of an advantage since they generally run a single server.

Once server virtualization became hot, it was only a matter of time until someone thought about using it for desktop applications as well. This is the next step toward centralized computing again. Terminal services and remote control have been gaining in popularity as a way to connect from external locations. Virtualization is another option for making that happen.

For the small businesses for whom we provide computer support, we’ve found that the savings from moving to virtualization is small compared to the inconvenience it provides for the staff. With the exception of remote access, it makes more sense to use your computer as a computer and avoid the added complexity of virtualization. Of course, this is subject to change as the features improve.

One of the things my Indianapolis computer services company tries to do with our small business customers is to help them maximize the benefits of having us provide their IT support services. We started out being called computer consultants, then we were called Information Technology consultants, then Network Services consultants. None of the old monickers goes away as new ones appear so now we're called all kinds of things. The one that didn't stick was the one I thought was most descriptive: Information Management consultants.
It makes me think of the old adage: "A man doesn't buy a shovel to get a tool. He buys a shovel to get hole." Likewise, you don't buy a computer to own a device. You buy a computer to manage your information.

In his book, On Dialogue, Robert Grudin divides information into two sections: forms of information that people consciously desire, and forms of information that are vital whether people desire them or not. We bring both to the attention of our computer network consulting customers.

Consciously Desired

• We want to know what will bring us advantage and, conversely, what holds danger for us;
• We want access to sources of pleasure and excitement;
• We want genuine, heart-to-heart communication, with confidentiality, and the ability to form networks with the likeminded or similarly distressed;
• We want to learn and to empower ourselves.

Undesired But Necessary

• We need to know when we are making mistakes or maintaining self-destructive attitudes or misguiding our young;
• We need to know about emergent forces in history that may necessitate our making some investment or sacrifice;
• We need to know about ourselves and the cultural and psychological forces that influence us;
• We need to review and sometimes to amend the very arts by which we analyze and communicate.

There are professions where creativity is not usually considered an asset. Accounting is one of the first to come to mind. I want an accountant who understands the intricacies of tax law. I want him to be versed in the debit and credit practices required to keep track of my meager fortune. I don’t particularly want him coming up with creative ways to keep my books. Creative accountants bring to mind companies like Enron.

What about IT support companies? Should you expect your computer outsourcing provider to be creative? Certainly your computer consulting services company should be more creative than your accountant. I argue that your business computer support company should be the most creative partners of your business with the possible exception of your marketing firm. While many small business owners want to believe they can buy computers from the pimple-faced kid at Best Buy and keep them for a decade without concern, you all know the reality is that technology changes more rapidly than congressmen. A creative computer network consulting company will be able to see how new technology can impact your business and make you more money. In the end, my Indianapolis computer consulting company is useless if we don’t have a positive impact on our customers’ revenue during the year. I’m not talking about cost savings. I mean real new money coming in the door. The best way to do that is for us to leverage new (and existing) technology in creative ways to benefit our clients’ operations.

How could you have known a decade ago how Electronic Mail (that’s how it was written then) was going to impact your business? How are you expected to know what impact blogging, social networking, smart phones, micro-PCs, Windows Vista, Google Chrome, WiMax, and all the other emerging technologies are going to change your business? Your creative computer tech support company should already have some ideas. I do!

Computer network consulting is not as straight forward black-and-white as it appears to be to most small business owners. There are multiple ways to accomplish the same tasks. Some are more elegant. Some are more expensive. Some require a great deal of setup. Others require a great deal of ongoing support. Some are just different from others without being either better or worse. As long as this continues to be true (and it will for some time to come), it is every bit as important for a business owner to find a network support company that operates with a similar style.
Style, as you know, is a difficult thing to define. There are those whom most would agree are stylish, and there are those whom most would agree are not. Just about everyone falls somewhere in between, meaning a lot of emotion goes into a discussion of style. Take Halle Berry. I love her style: chic, modern, confident. Some of you are right now thinking, "Yeah, Halle is the essence of style." Others are thinking, "This guy wouldn't know style if it bit him on the ass."

Which proves my point. Before you make a computer outsourcing decision, have a style discussion with your candidate providers. I know it sounds strange, but your small business cannot be happy with a provider whose style is considerably different than yours. A good fit means you and the prospective support company's owner have similar philosophies about business. You feel comfortable when you talk to him about things other than computers.

When company styles get in the way, communication breaks down and before long, everyone is unhappy. The time to avoid a bad fit is right at the beginning. If you don't find out until later, separation becomes more difficult. Now you don't have to believe that Halle Berry is a stylish woman to work with us, but a conversation that starts there will tell you a lot about me, and how well we fit.

The rate of change of small business technology is still incredible. Imagine what you thought of the idea of email when you first heard of it. I don't imagine you thought it would be as integral to your daily operations as it is after only a little over a decade. Today about 60 percent of your business's important information is sitting in someone's email box. Now consider if your computer network consulting company had approached you in 1992 with this idea of sending electronic messages to your employees, customers, vendors, and others. What would your response have been? How about if your IT support services provider had suggested around that same time that you provide cellular telephones to key people in your organization in order to stay in touch?

What is your response today when you're told that you should consider having some of your critical software applications hosted at Amazon.com or Google? How hard would you laugh if I suggested that you may not need to purchase another server? In my Indianapolis computer consulting company, we have made suggestions like these and others to some of our small business customers. They are laughing at the suggestion (mostly because I told them they'd be talking to their computers by now). They are also considering the possibility that this may very well be the future of their small business computing.

Most of my competitors will tell you that you've got to have your critical information and applications right there in your office where you can make sure it's secure and properly backed up and fully supported. The next time you hear that, ask the speaker if he uses any of the Software-as-a-Service applications like Salesforce.com. Ask him if he's heard of Amazon's EC2 or Google's App Engine, not to mention the hundreds of hosted applications from CRM and accounting to word processors and spreadsheets.

These changes a frightening to a traditional network support company because they don't know how to make money from it. They are reluctant to suggest something that will prevent them from making money. If your provider isn't bringing you the latest ideas in technology, then how are you going to know what technology you need to compete successfully?

I met with a prospective client the other day to discuss their computer network consulting needs. Like most of my Indianapolis computer consulting clients, this was a small organization looking to upgrade some very old computer equipment. As soon as we sat down, she started right into her list of things she wanted us to quote for her: new server, several workstations, wireless keyboard, etc. etc.

When she took a breath, I asked her to start over and talk to us about her organization. What is their mission? Where are they having trouble? How has their computer system been helping them deal with those troubles? She sat back and stared at me for a moment before asking why I needed to know that information.

I explained that under our Pertingo(r) IT support services, we believe that our job is to add value to her organization's overall reason-for-being. She reluctantly started to explain what they do. I listened and asked question to clarify. After a few minutes, she had given us a good overview of the way her organization functions and I was able to sense that she had a big problem. You see, this was a Not-For-Profit organization that generated much of its funding from its member base. She needed to make sure that her existing members continued to renew, and, more importantly, that her total membership grows in the future.

When I told her that I believe we can do things that will help make that happen, she looked in disbelief. We talked a while longer and I made suggestions that might reduce the amount of equipment she needed to purchase to move forward. I then pointed out that she could probably afford to pay for our business computer support with the money we had saved her during this brief conversation. I told her that even if that savings wasn't enough, I was confident that we could help her increase her membership enough to cover anything that was left.

I hope she decides to take a chance on it. This is where we most effectively show our value. It's not about the tecnology in the end. It's about the successful accomplishment of the organization's mission. I'll update you on this if it goes any farther.

   When Port-to-Port Consulting decided to abandon the preferred approach to Indianapolis computer services in favor of the fixed fee support plan that we call Pertingo^®, we talked a long time about naming it. We really wanted to call the program Catalyst. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in the world who like the word catalyst so we had to go with something else. Pertingo is Latin for “to extend; to stretch out.” Our goal is to help our computer network consulting clients “extend” their operational capability by “stretching out” the ability of their Information System. Really though, we act as a catalyst in the truest sense of the word.

    In a chemical reaction, the catalyst is there to facilitate the process, but it really isn’t a part of the process. Sometimes the process would happen without the catalyst, like when a particle dropped into a supersaturated solution causes it to solidify. Other times, the catalyst must be present for the process to work, like when iron catalyzes the process of hydrogen and nitrogen. In any case, when the process is over, the catalyst remains, ready to facilitate the next process. Of course, all analogies have their limitations. Unlike the catalyst in a chemical reaction, our computer tech support is changed by each interaction with our customers. We learn things that we can take with us to our next computer consulting encounter. The new experience and knowledge makes us an even better catalyst for the next process. Unlike the iron’s efforts at making ammonia, we become smarter, faster, or better in some other way the next time we work with a client. It’s this improvement that moves Pertingo^® forward. We get better the more we do.

An important responsibility of a good computer network consulting company is to keep their customers apprised of the changes in computer technology that have the potential to impact their business. It's not adequate to announce every change that happens in the computer industry, but to act as a filter so the customers here about the things they should give some attention while being isolated from the gee whiz stuff that will only distract them from moving their businesses forward.

Of course a problem that we have here at Port-to-Port Consulting, like most good IT support services companies is that we think all of the changes are vital and critical. I personally replace my cell phone about twice a year because I'm convinced the new one will be better than the one I'm carrying. I don't, however, recommend that my clients change that often. When I come across a phone that solves a particular need of one of my customers, I take that to them, but not to the entire group.

This is the difference between having computer tech support that concerns itself only with keeping the network running as opposed to worrying about whether the system is adding value to the business operations. To make those kind of recommendations, it is vital that we learn what our customers do with their computers. That means spending time with them asking questions that have to do with operations- NOT COMPUTERS. It means listening carefully for the things that they may not even know they're saying, then asking questions to clarify. For example, I met with a client the other day who told me he wanted to install blogging software for his website. As we discussed what he wanted to do, I was able to show him a couple of web based services that were a better fit for his long term goal and didn't require additional IT spending. If I had just jumped into the various packages available for blog hosting, I would not have done my job as his computer consulting professional. Intent matters when talking to my customers.

I received a piece of promotional email today that had the title, "IT as a Weapon." The first image that popped into my mind was of a large viking wielding a hammer to smash his competition. The reality is that the reason we provide computer network consulting in Indianapolis is so that our customers can take advantage of the weapon that computer outsourcing can be for their organizations.

We don't look at it so much as a way to smash your competitors, although that does happen on occasion. We look at it more as a way to defeat the doldrums that tend to settle in after we've been doing something for a while. I know this because Port-to-Port Consulting spent a decade doing business with the same model as all of the other Indianapolis computer consulting companies. While it wasn't working, everybody was doing it so it had to be at least "OK."

Our first shift came during a January staff retreat. I posed the question, "What use of technology could put us out of business?" One of the first responses was desktop remote control. I said then let's start using it to put ourselves out of business. We did. Our revenue suffered because those one-hour minimum service calls started turning into 15 minute remote sessions. The strange thing was that everyone was happier: me, my staff, my customers. This revelation planted the seeds for the change we eventually named our Pertingo(r) Computer Support Service.

We continue to hunt for the ways in which our IT support services can be used by our customers as a weapon for improving what they do, as well as ways for us to improve what we do for them. The hammer jumped to mind for me because it's a tool for smashing old ways of doing things.

  One of the things that led us from the break/fix world of network support to our Pertingo® model was the frequent finger pointing that occurred when multiple providers, along with our customer's staff, had to work together to get something accomplished. I can't count the number of times we sat in a meeting where things were not working and heard each participant say that his part was working as specified. It was like the blind men and the elephant. How can each part be working as specified if the stupid system isn't working? If that's actually true, then who is responsible for fixing it?

  With the Pertingo® Computer Support Service, the answer is always us: Port-to-Port Consulting. We take responsibility for making sure the final system does what it is supposed to do, but only when our customers let us. Our business computer support includes the integration required to get to the final solution. Sometimes our clients don't tell us about something because they don't think it has anything to do with computer outsourcing until their vendor asks for a piece of network related information.

  As my lawyer, Art Robinson, likes to say, "Don't wait until you get served to call me." We often look like the spoilers because we start asking questions that should have been considered earlier in the process. For example, the new copier arrives and there is no network jack to connect it to the network for printing and scanning. Or the office space is finished but no one thought about electrical outlets for the equipment.

  A critical factor in the success of your IT support service provider is the amount of information you provide. Tell them what your plans are as soon as you know them. Many times, we will thank you for the heads-up. Many more times, we will provide some good computer network consulting and help the project go successfully.