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.

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.

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.

Over the years engineers have put tons of time into making the smartphone more powerful and efficient. These phones have evolved into pocket sized computers that can do nearly everything a standard desktop can do. There is one aspect of these phones that still needs major improvement: the virtual keyboard.

I have an android phone with a virtual keyboard and that means I will have to suffer through pain of typing texts and replying to emails from my Indianapolis computer consulting customers through miniature sized keys displayed on the screen. On physical keyboards you have a feel for what key you are on and can develop muscle memory to increase the typing speed on the phone; on a virtual keyboard you have to look at every key that you press and since the keyboard is on a smooth surface, there is no way to develop muscle memory.

There are several plans to increase the smartphone both for better performance and software support. Hopefully the engineers behind these ideas have a good plan to make the virtual keyboard easier to use and less irritating.

Twitter. Surely by now you've heard of it even if you're not sure what it is. Don't feel bad about it. "What is Twitter?" was one of the most asked questions at Ask.com in the past year. It seems as if you'd better find an answer soon though. While I've been a Twitter user for more than a year now, I still search for a good reason to tell my Indianapolis computer consulting customers that they should use it.

According to a recent survey conducted by cScape, almost 44 percent of companies plan to increase their spending on Twitter activities in 2010. It seems they believe this is the best online medium for engaging customers. I say "they" because I'm still a skeptic about the successful use of Twitter. While estimates of the number of users range as high as 80 million, more than half of all users never come back after the first 30 days -- many never return after initially creating their account. In addition, the company doesn't yet know how it will generate revenue from its user base. If someone doesn't figure out a killer business use for Twitter soon, the whole thing may come tumbling down.

Nonetheless, I keep up with my account and tweet every couple of days to my 60 or so followers. Some of my computer network services customers have created accounts, but they keep asking me what they should do with them. And I just can't give them a good answer. So, if nearly half of all businesses invest in Twitter activities in 2010, the other half may have an advantage in marketing. 

My Indianapolis small business computer consulting customers still make fun of me for my prediction in the mid-nineties that we were only a couple of years from being able to talk to our computers just like Spock and Kirk did on Star Trek. At the time there were several major companies investing big dollars in voice recogmition. It seemed like a safe prediction. So you can imagine that those same computer outsourcing customers take my predecitions with a grain of salt. Heck, so do I, most of the time. Nonetheless, I've been right more often than that talking computer proclamation would indicate.

The latest advice I gave to my computer services customers was to get involved in social media in 2009. I told them it was transforming from a fringe thing into a mainstream tool for business as well as personal activities online. As the year comes to an end, the statistics are proving me correct. Let's just look at Facebook:

• 350 million users worldwide with 35 years and older representing the fastest growing group
• 10 million people daily becoming fans of one of the 1.6 million fan pages daily
• 6 billion minutes spent there each day - twice as much as Google and 55 minutes per person
• 55 million updates, 14 million videos, 2.5 billion photos added daily
• 45 million active groups with the average user belonging to 12

Sure, it's possible to waste a lot of time in the social media space, but it's time to invest a little in figuring out what it's all about. Remember wishing you'd started doing email sooner? Our communications world is changing again, and it's going to have as big an impact as email eventually.

There are a few days left in 2009. Sign up somewhere and start learning about these new communication tools.

I just read that a new iPhone has been detected in the wild. A public Internet provider in San Francisco found a device in its access logs that identified itself as "iPhone 3.1". That's a version above the 3GS, which identifies itself as "iPhone 2.1" or the "iPhone 1.2" that is the 3G. Combine that with the recent release of new Android phones from Motorola and HTC and it creates a conundrum for this Indianapolis small business computer consultant. One of the most difficult questions for us to answer for our computer outsourcing customers is, "Which smartphone should I buy?"

The answer depends on so many things, not the least of which being personal preference. With each generation of phone, the ability to synchronize to email, calendar, and contacts gets easier (Blackberry is an exception, but it at least doesn't get harder). At that point, my network technicians are content with any choice. Not me. I want to put the closest thing to the perfect device that is available into my computer services customer's hands. I want to know when they'll use it, where they'll use it, how they'll use it, and how they intend to treat it. Will it be a prized possession kept safe from all dangers, or will it be treated no better than a 19 cent Write Brothers pen?

Understandably I obsess about this particular choice more than most IT services decisions. This is the area in which the geek in me expresses itself most. However, it is indicative of the way in which we go about recommending any element of our customers' computer network services. We want the best answer we can find, given the business constraints and availability.

When we started doing computer network support as Port-to-Port Consulting in 1991, people didn't have much trouble figuring out the connection between our name and the PC on their desk. Sure, we've had a few troubled souls along the way who wanted to know if we were overseas shippers. We even had one poor man who hoped to rent portable toilets from us. Most, however, had no problem understanding that we were referring to all of those different ports on the back of your machine. As the PC has progressed, the number of ports on the back has gone down considerably. Today you can connect just about everything using only a USB port. So much for a cool business name!

About the only thing that is the same about our Indianapolis small business computer support company is the name. Our logo has changed several times. Nearly 100 people have worked here at one time or another. We've served more than 300 different businesses. And the IT industry has changed so much that we tell stories to our new staff members that sound like our grandparents stories of walking to school in the snow (uphill both ways).

My son turned 21 over the weekend. Thinking about how much he has changed thru the years made me start to think about how much other things have changed. One steady element of central Indiana computer outsourcing has been the people at Port-to-Port Consulting. While there are as many as 60 companies in the Indianapolis area that provide some subset of the services we provide, few of them have been around for more than a few years. Most are the result of recent layoffs. 

It does make me feel old to reminisce about the times we've spent working with Indianapolis small businesses on their Information Technology support. It also makes me proud of the incredible things we've done for our community thru our efforts to keep some of the most vital organizations in the area operating at peak efficiency.

In 2000, we decided it was time for Port-to-Port Consulting to grow. The economy at the time felt otherwise. As a result, we found ourselves in an unsustainable cash position. We were going broke. Many people start looking at all the things that are wrong when they find themselves in dire situations. I tend to look for the opportunity being presented. The opportunity in our upside down financial situation was to reinvent who we are. In fact, we went so far as to take the first step in reinventing what computer consulting in Indianapolis was.

While our expenses outpaced our revenue, we did have revenue. We evaluated where it was coming from and then sorted it into good and bad piles. We did the same for our clients, and our staff, and all of our regular monthly bills. When we had sorted everything, we looked at the things on the good list and asked, "Can we make a business out of this?" In my mind, I felt that if we could make a business out of the good parts of the one we had, then it was worth the struggle ahead of us to do it because we'd end up with a top notch Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing company. If we couldn't, then we should move quickly to shutting down the company because the only way it could survive was if we created work we did not love.

Happily, we built an IT consulting company that I love. Our Pertingo^® Computer Support Service allowed us to work more closely with the small businesses we help. Keeping the staff members who believed as we did and getting rid of those who didn't made our office a happier place. Eliminating the expenses that were acquired as a result of bad decisions made our books look better and our attitude get rosier.

If the economy hadn't intervened to create a recesion in the Computer Services industry, Port-to-Port would likely be a much larger company today. Damon Richards would likely be much less happy.

By now you have probably picked up a virus on your computer or know someone who has had a virus. Years ago virus avoidance was a nearly simple task; all you had to do was stay away from the bad websites and scan everything you download. Today virus authors have made the process of picking up a virus so simple and discreet that you will be windows deep in virus notifications before you know what is happening.

Working in computer consulting services offers loads of virus interaction. Almost every day we have an Indianapolis computer services client calling us because they have virus messages all over their screen and a new antivirus on their computer. This is the new breed of viruses known as scareware. These viruses, such as Windows Antivirus 2008 and Antivirus 2010, will imitate an antivirus and will tell you that viruses are found on your system. After this they will recommend that you download a pay version of an antivirus to clean out your computer. Most of our computer outsourcing clients have no idea where they came from or when they got them.

Picking up these viruses are as simple as going to your daily news website. If the website happens to have been hacked recently the code to download the virus could be injected into the web page and when you visit the site you will automatically download the virus. The actual download only takes a few seconds and when it is finished you will be loaded with virus messages in less than a minute. If you happen to pick up one of these viruses call your IT support company so it can be properly removed.

I had lunch yesterday with a gentlemen that I probably haven't seen in a decade. We met at Tea's Me, a local cafe that I'm working to introduce to my entire circle of friends. Jim had called me out of the blue to get together and catch up. As we talked about the 18 years that I've been doing small business computer consulting in the Indianapolis area, it struck me that I'm now one of the old guys in the IT services industry. I used to hire a summer intern every other year to study the competitive landscape of Indianapolis computer support. Without fail, my intern would find between 60 and 75 companies that would look to the marketplace like a competitor to Port-to-Port Consulting. The names on the list would change dramatically, but the count remained steady.

When Jim told me that he was surprised and happy to find that Port-to-Port was still providing quality computer outsourcing, it struck me that we are a rare entity in this volatile industry. I imagine that most folks who start IT consulting businesses do it because they don't work well with bosses. In time they realize that they've traded one boss for dozens, or even hundreds, in the form of demanding customers. Others use the consulting title as a way to conduct extended, paid job interviews in hopes of getting hired by one of their clients.
Not us. Port-to-Port continues to exist because we set out to provide technology consulting that benefits our customers and makes them better able to do whatever it is they set out to do. I believe that bigger purpose keeps our doors open while so many others shut down.

For a dozen years, I've been predicting to my Indianapolis small business computer consulting customers that they'll soon be able to talk to their computer instead of typing or mousing to get things done. I've been so miserably wrong that now I continue to make the prediction only out of tradition. It will happen eventually, but I no longer suspect that the time is as close as I once believed. This morning, a report onNational Public Radio's Morning Edition raised my hopes. I still don't think it is good IT consulting to tell my customers that they'll be able to ditch the keyboard next year.

I've followed the voice recognition progress over the years since we started our Indianapolis computer services company. I have installed versions of the most popular software on my computers along the way. The voice recognition has gotten phenomenal. The problem is that computers just don't understand the English language (or any other for that matter). While the computer can take dictation rather well, it cannot parse meaning from the words it transcribes. Until it can do that, and be able to form sentences in response, we're going to keep typing and clicking.

IT support services are still a rapidly changing area. We've been provided small business computer support to companies in central Indiana for a long time, and we keep wondering when the pace of change will slow. In actuality the pace is increasing. Indianapolis small businesses, like businesses elsewhere, are becoming more dependent on their computer systems while understanding less about how it works.

One of the things that has hindered the pace of change has been the inability of computer service providers to forget what has worked for them in the past. Humans are creatures of habit, and habits are easily formed and impossible to kill. The reason outsourced IT services are usually better than internal staffs is that the outsourced provider is forced to do new things because he's bringing on new business. The internal guys can freeze the system and provide all kinds of reasons why the small business owner should go along with keeping things as they are.

Our inability to forget has gotten even worse because we do some much electronically and we keep all of those bits and bytes forever. Why? Because we can. You know as well as I do that the majority of the email you have filed away (or "saved" in your Deleted Items) will never be seen again. It has absolutely no value to any living creature, but you keep it because it doesn't take up space in the closet or filing cabinet. Your server doesn't look any bigger with it than it did without it.

Forgetting what worked in the past is key to our ability to move forward to new stuff. Learning how to be active forgetters is becoming a new management skill.

I often meet with prospective Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing customers who have internal IT staff. Usually it's just one person and that person came to the organization to do a different job and then morphed into the IT support person by virtue of their interest in computers. By the time I meet them, considerable time has passed since this arrangement got formalized and the business owner is wondering whether or not his internal person knows as much as everyone once believed. In truth, the wondering stopped a long time ago, probably when the owner heard a peer talking about a computer network capability that she uses routinely. The owner inquires about the mountains of time and money it must have taken to get that capability only to be told by nearly everyone else that the capability is commonplace in today's computer services.

When the owner got back to the office and asked his tech support person about it, he again hears how he's better off forgetting about that capability because it will take lots of time and money to implement it and then it won't work like he expects. That's when I get a call to discuss matters. Sure enough, the conversation gets around to that specific capability and, after I assure the owner that it is very possible, he screams, "I knew it!"

The next part of the conversation is difficult. I have to gently remind this prospective IT support services customer that he created the situation he's in by giving his network to a person who is unqualified to perform the job. I try to sugarcoat it with a monologue on the rapid rate at which technology changes and the great difficulty any one person must have trying to keep up with new features. And that's true. Not one of my computer systems consultants will pretend to know everything necessary to keep any but the smallest of computer networks running at peak efficiency. We rely on one another to make sure that happens. What the inside network support person has done is to limit the changes in the network so that he can continue to use the knowledge he gained in putting the network together for as long as possible.

That approach stiffles creativity. It throws water on any new idea for moving the business forward thru technology. It's a cost that doesn't get weighed when small business owners consider their computer network services options. You see, while most of my customers are in a relatively steady state with respect to their network, many of them are going thru a significant change. Because of this, it is rare that any one of our customers has to suffer thru being the first to have a particular new technical capability installed in their office. Where the inside guy gets only one chance to get it right, and fears the pressure involved, our network technicians get to do it all the time, and look forward to finding ways to do it better the next time.

 In a recent blog post, Mack Earnhart asked the question, "How do you tell someone they stink?" The title caught my attention because I really thought he was discussing BODY ODOR and it's a sensitive topic that I have a hard time with when I find myself in an "odiferous" situation. To my surprise, and slight amusement, he was writing about getting introduced to prospects thru networking. How do you prep your new networking acquaintance to introduce you to his friend, your prospect?

I've found that most of my Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing customers don't need to be told that their Information Technology is bad. They know it deep down inside, but they are in denial of it. They've spent months, or even years pretending that their computer network is modern and up-to-date. And I don't think it's my place to tell them differently. Certainly that's no way to start a relationship. Imagine the bedside manner!

No, instead of telling that small business owner that his network support stinks, I encourage him to talk about his business and how his computer services support his business. Then I suggest other ways in which it might be able to help if it consisted of slightly different pieces or configuration. I haven't found a nice way to tell someone their network stinks because the reality is that it works, at least somewhat. Your network doesn't stink, nor do your IT consultants. The odor you're smelling is from the relationship you have with your computer consultant. And, like Mack's readers suggest, if we find that we can get along, then we can work together.

Several years ago my children introduced me to the movie Good Burger. It is a silly Nickelodeon movie about a local burger joint that is about to be put out of business by the mega chain Mondo Burger...until one day Dexter gets a taste of Ed's secret sauce and they start putting it on the Good Burgers.

I believe that most good small businesses exist against their Mondo competition because of a secret sauce of some sort or other. In the Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing arena, our secret sauce is customer service. We understand that most of our customers don't care a bit about what the technical competence of our help desk or our network
technicians. Of course, they'd care if we were incompetent, but once we know just a tiny bit more than they do, our competence becomes a given. After that, we have to work to keep them happy so they will continue to use us for their tech support.


At our Indianapolis computer services company, we are constantly adjusting our internal processes and procedures. There are two, sometimes competing goals behind the changes. First, we want to be as efficient as we can be in performing the routine computer network services. Second, we want to make the things we do as invisible as possible to our customers. Often these two ideals conflict. When they do, we choose in favor of our customers' convenience. My technical support team often moans about the choice, but they recognize that, in the end, it is the right way to provide IT support.

Working wirelessly is a beautiful thing...but sometime we expect to be able to connect in places where we can't.  We've become spoiled by the number of free WiFi sites at coffee houses, restaurants, bookstores, banks and more.  How does one not go without? 

As an Indianapolis Computer Consulting firm, we are called upon by our clients to research and make recommendations that best suit their needs.  I recently had an opportunity to find the best broadband carrier for a client who travels the state extensively, and goes into some areas of construction where wireless is not available.  Based on knowing her parameters and her current cell carrier, we were able to recommend a service that should provide her the best coverage she can get.  A few minutes of my time will allow her to improve not only her productivity but also her safety.  She will be able to work where ever and when ever she needs to. 

Port-to-Port Consulting provides Computer Consulting Services and finds a better way to do business.  Look us up the next time you are sitting at your favorite WiFi spot.  See how clear we come in! 
 

I was sitting at a stop light the other day with my daughter.  The cars were backed up enough so that we could just see the light; we were probably 15 to 20 cars deep in line.  We saw the light change, but we had to sit, because the car in front of us didn't move.  My daughter, being 14 and quite impatient, was annoyed that the light was green but we weren't going anywhere.  By the time we were able to move up in line, the light had turned red.  We were in the weird situation where we were stopped on green lights and going on red lights.

She couldn't figure out why this was happening.  I explained that there was a delay between when the car in front of you moves and when you put your foot on the gas to move your car.  If you are far enough back in line, all those delays add up until you get completely out of sync with the color of the lights.

It seemed obvious to us that if everyone in line would look at the stop light, we could all go at the same time and traffic would flow much faster.  The problem is that if you're looking at the light and the person in front is not paying attention and doesn't move, a rear ender is sure to ensue.   You are forced to wait on others before you can do what you need to do.

That to me seems like a perfect description for this recession.  Everybody is waiting for something before they will take the next step in their business.  You can see the signs around you and you've got your foot on the gas, but you can't put your foot to the floor because you see plenty of brake light right in front of you.  You'll eventually make it thru the light, but everyone is else certainly holding you back.

So here's the deal folks.  If we're going to get thru this recession, let's start focusing on the lights above us and not pay so much attention to the brake lights directly in front. If you get a nudge in the rear, it will probably do you a little good.  If you ram somebody in front of you, so be it.  You're just doing your part to get things moving again.

At Port-to-Port Consulting, an Indianapolis Computer Consulting Services firm, we are moving our business forward.  We've added staff, reorganized our work flow and added services to support our clients better.  We expect that this will enable our clients to do the same for theirs.  If we all do our part and look up instead of at all the brake lights, this recession will be over before we know it.

 My Indianapolis small business computer consulting company has sponsored a golf league for more than a decade now. We call it the Port-to-Port & Friends League. Every Wednesday night from May until September, 30 to 40 golfers hit the links for nine holes of fun. I started this league because many of my IT support services customers would talk about their desire to play more golf. Over and over the conversation would end with, "I just can't find the time."

One of the things I pride myself on is that our company focuses everything we do on making our customers better at everything they do. The solution to this problem seemed simple enough: Create a way for my customers to play golf more regularly. In order to demonstrate that computer consulting is a part of nearly all that we do, I found a piece of software that would handle the management of league stats.

I give this as an example of the kinds of things that are unexpected of a computer services vendor. We don't view ourselves as the vendor. We think of ourselves as a part of each and every one of our client businesses. It's why we started offering our bundle of computer network services that we call Pertingo^®.

Every now and then we drop the ball on a network support project. We don't do it because we're incompetent. We don't do it because we're mean. There is absolutely no malice intended. We sometimes drop the ball because we're human, and people make mistakes. I've discovered over the years that our response to those mistakes determines the kind of relationship we have with our Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing customers. I've also found that it isn't in the normal nature of most Information Technology support companies to handle these mistakes correctly.

Many of my competitors in the Indianapolis and Carmel area will, as soon as they discover a problem, start looking for someone other than themselves to blame.
"It's stupid Microsoft!" 

"I can't believe they didn't put that in the instructions."

"Who would make a part that doesn't fit a standard jack?"

And on and on until they get to the worst one: "That's what you told me you wanted!"

If my dear IT outsourcing peers would stop for a minute and consider what these excuses really say to their computer services customers, they might not ever make excuses again. Didn't you hire them because they are the experts? Aren't they supposed to investigate the IT solution they recommended to be sure it meets your needs? Shouldn't they have known going in how stupid Microsoft is? What my friends in Indianapolis IT consulting are saying is, "We don't have the necessary knowledge to provide you with a working solution." They're screaming it with each excuse until they finally turn on you. 

Not at Port-to-Port Consulting. When we drop the ball we take responsibility for it. We'll tell you what went wrong, and why, and what we're going to do to get it fixed.

"We should have expected that Microsoft was exagerating their claim and tested this in advance. We'll put things back while we go do that testing."

"It's surprising that this part doesn't fit a standard jack but we should have checked that back in our office."

"When you told me that this was what you wanted, I should have questioned more to be sure we had the same understanding."

We'll continue to make mistakes. If we don't, we'll have difficulty learning. We understand that it's a part of doing business as a computer consultant. We won't go on witch hunts when mistakes happen. We'll own them, just like we own the computer network that powers your business.