Pertingo Computer Support

iPhone Catches Cold

Posted Thursday, November 12, 2009 by Damon Richards

While Apple has managed to maintain an image of being virus-impervious, most of us in the computer outsourcing business have always contended that the reason there weren't many native Mac viruses was because there just weren't enough Macs to make it worthwhile for evil hackers to bother with it when there were far more Windows PCs out there to attack. In fact, as the Mac continues to becomes more popular on the Intel platform, I imagine computer help desks all over the country will start to see more infected ones. The popularity of the iPhone (30 million sold and counting) has already attracted some attention. A young man in Australia has written a worm that infects the iPhone while pretending to be a Rick Astley screen saver. I have to admit that I didn't know who Astley was, but this is sure to raise his popularity briefly.

One of the most frequent questions from my Indianapolis small business computer consulting customers is, "What can I do to ensure that my network is safe from hackers?" I always answer the same way: "Disconnect your machines from the Internet."

That's the only way to be sure, and even then you may have a mole in your own organization who ferrets out data on a flash drive. (How about that, two rodents in the same sentence?) Data security is an important element of any good network design. We do all we can to keep our computer network services customers' data safe. The best analogy I can use is your home security. You lock the doors when you leave to keep bad people out. If you feel you're at a higher risk, you turn on an alarm as well. These measures will keep out most burglars or thieves. They'll just move on to the next house in search of one without an alarm or with an unlocked door. However, if the burglar is looking to get something from you in particular, your locks and alarms become a nuisance to him. He'll have to plan better and it will take longer, but if he's committed, he'll get around your reasonable precautions. The same holds true for your network. Practice safe computing and avoid upsetting anyone who might have crazy tech skills.

If those infected iPhone users had practiced safe computing, they wouldn't have jailbroken their phones, and the worm wouldn't have gotten in.

New Toys in IT Services

Posted Saturday, November 7, 2009 by Damon Richards

The new Droid smartphone has been on the market for more than a day and I still haven't been to the local Verizon store to play with one. It's rather unusual for me but my schedule was full yesterday and my wife owns my time today. I'll visit during the Colts game when other gadget geeks are working their man-sized remote controls. I'm really excited about the chance to use a phone that has learned from the iPhone success and works on a more reliable network.

Many of my Indianapolis small business computer support customers know that I'm the go-to guy for gadgets, particularly any portable devices. The upcoming holiday season may arrive too soon for the coolest of the rumored gadgets though. It's almost certain that Apple will not unveil their Tablet (iTablet) before the end of the year. If they miss the Christmas rush, it will probably be Jobs' afterthought during his MacWorld keynote in February. The Barnes and Noble Nook, which looked like it had features that would give the Kindle a run, is now bogged down in legal battles. It appears that B&N stole the device from another company. I'm sure there will be tons of new phones and mp3 players soon, but they bore us all any more. It's time for a device that defines a new category. It may just come from Microsoft.

That's right. While the "I'm a Mac" and "I'm a PC" commercials battle for our desktop dollars, the real fight for our souls is going on in the next generation of portables. Even though Apple may not hit the streets with their Tablet, Microsoft will very likely make it to market this year with their new Courier -- I don't know what generic name to call it -- electronic journal. That's right, it's unique enough that it may create a new category.

Fear not, business computer support buyers, I'll be the first kid on the block with one of these new thingy's.

Are These Five IT Issues on your Agenda?

Posted Friday, November 6, 2009 by Damon Richards

A recent eWeek article recalled the top five priorities of the IT industry. According to Doug Tracy, CIO of Dana Holdings, the top five are:

Set a Vision
Manage Vendors
Improve Process
Standardize Operations
Test Open Source

I found this list interesting because it contains the elements of our Pertingo(r) Computer Support service that most of our Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing customers overlook when they are looking for a good computer consultant. We know that our customers use price and convenience as the primary factors in deciding on a computer support service. It isn't until they've had a provider who looks at things like these top five priorities for them that they come to realize the full impact of good IT support services.

We work with each of our clients to develop a vision for their technology that fits the vision they have for their company as a whole.
We have always described ourselves as the "one throat to choke" to our customers. We manage the activities of every other provider who touches their computer network.
We take the time to learn how our customers do their jobs so we can make suggestions to improve the process.
We strive to standardize, as much as possible, all of the elements of their network.
We're always playing with something new to see if it has applicability in our customers' IT environments.

In short, we are always working on those top five priorities. Any good IT support services company should do the same. Many don't. Sure, we are also doing those routine things as efficiently as we can. But we don't add value if all we do is fix broken stuff and wait for you to tell us what new stuff you'd like to buy. Our job is to maximize the benefit you get from having bought all this stuff in the first place. That's good IT.

Who Owns Your Data When You Die?

Posted Monday, November 2, 2009 by Damon Richards

A recent story in the New York Times brings up a brand new issue related to teh steadily growing amount of data that we all have online at various Web 2.0 sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, and all the others. Every one of those online services has a volume of information about us that we've put online behind a set of usernames and passwords. What happens to that stuff if you die? Does ownership play into divorce proceedings?

Currently no one knows for sure. Most of the online providers have no provision in their agreements to grant access to your heirs or estate. This is not a common issue that comes up in conversations with my Indianapolis small business computer support customers, but it seems it will before long.

The Times story tells of a woman who, thru her avatar in Second Life, married a man and built a happy virtual home. When the man died, the folks at Linden Labs deleted her entire virtual world because the house had been purchased in his name. The poor woman lost her online mate and all of their online possessions. Imagine if that happened in real life!

This is certainly an unusual thing for your computer consulting company to worry about -- until it becomes important to you or your business. We try to stay one step ahead so our customers can maintain their focus on their work.

Microsoft's Next Trick

Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 by Damon Richards

Now that Windows 7 has been fully released, Microsoft is turning its attention to the next big software release: Office 2010. That's right! Just as you started getting used to having (or avoiding) Office 2007, the next version is being readied for the marketplace. If you're like me, you probably wonder how they can find anything else to do in a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool, or mail client. While I did find some features in Office 2007 surprisingly useful, I could have continued without them forever.

The biggest new feature of Office 2010 will be the web-based version. Microsoft is taking the online office tools like Google Apps and Zoho seriously now. And they should. I know many small businesses that use these exclusive of full desktop applications. Many of my Indianapolis small business computer consulting customers use these tools from time-to-time, but none so far have abandoned the desktop application. With the advent of Microsoft Office 2010 web apps, we may have some that take that route.

One of the things that we do to keep our computer outsourcing customers aware of changes in the IT area is to play with new things as they come along. Sometimes that means we find the coolest new things to make life easier. At other times it means we break our stuff and have to figure out how to fix it. The web version of Office 2010 could fall into either category. Time will tell.

Fast Thinking IT Consultants

Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 by Damon Richards

A series of experiments conducted at Princeton and Harvard universities shows that thinking fast can make you happier. It doesn't seem to matter what you think about as long as you think about it fast. Apparently, we're wired to be mentally challenged. So why are so many people trying to get thru life without thinking at all? I hear so many people talk about how much it hurts to think.

Perhaps that's why the people who work with me at our Indianapolis small business computer consulting company are happy in the midst of ever-changing challenges. We can't get thru a day without doing some very quick thinking. Most of the time that we interact with our computer outsourcing customers, they need an answer right away. Even those who earn their living by researching the answers to complex questions expect us to have all of the answers at the tip of our tongue. Oftentimes we do, which perpetuates the myth that every computer geek can run Jurasic Park after looking at the screen for a few minutes.

Nonetheless, we are a happy bunch, even when our circumstances seem to dictate that our attitude should be less cheery. Its one of the joys of coming to work. The quick thinking nature of our jobs helps to keep us happy.

Indianapolis Computer Consultant Feeling his Age

Posted Monday, October 12, 2009 by Damon Richards

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.

Backhanded Compliment from Outsourced IT Customer

Posted Friday, October 9, 2009 by Damon Richards

I had a meeting with one of my Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing customers today where we talked about planning for their coming year. We discussed the mundane stuff like which computers should get replaced and how many new printers we should plan for. Then we talked about the things that constitute the reason I've been working as a computer consultant for the past 18 years: the future!

He told me about his vision for his organization and asked me, "What's happening in computer technology that will help me make this vision come true?" Just hearing the question gave me goose bumps. I dove right in, starting by pulling things out of my briefcase that he needed to see. The Amazon Kindle let me talk to him about the transition of printed material and how it is consumed. Pure Digital's Flip video camera let me talk to him about the way in which everyone is becoming a creator of content. My Sony Vaio TT which is one of the coolest laptops I've ever owned, let me talk about the constantly shrinking size of our most powerful computer technology.

With each item, we had a mini-brainstorming session about how the concept can impact his vision for his organization. We didn't decide to run out and get any of these things or competing products. We just imagined together how these ideas can one day make his vision more clear in his organization. Then we went back to work.

Collaboration

As I was leaving his office, another gentleman was waiting in the lobby to meet with him. He took a moment to introduce me and explained to the man that Port-to-Port Consulting had been with him since he opened and he has tried many times to replace us but none of our competitors will commit to learning enough about his business to help him use technology to create his future.

I was flattered to know how much he appreciates the way in which our IT services staff watches out for technology trends that can impact his business. I was a bit distressed to hear that he's been trying to replace me. The gentleman turned to me and said it was quite an accomplishment to have been supporting this organization since its inception. He knew exactly how demanding this CEO was of the people around him.

Computer Support That's Too Good to be True

Posted Monday, October 5, 2009 by Damon Richards

How do you respond when someone tells you your offer is too good to be true? I find it extremely difficult to come up with a response that is acceptable to them. While I know that I wouldn't be making the offer if I couldn't deliver, the other person usually doesn't have enough experience with me to be able to have blind faith in my ability to perform. That leaves me wishing I had made a lesser offer to start with.

This is the situation we often find ourselves dealing with when we propose our Pertingo(r) Computer Support Service to organizations. Inevitably, we play the "Is this included?" game. Even our computer consulting peers make fun of the Pertingo(r) offering. They refer to Port-to-Port Consulting as the "All-You-Can-Eat guys. In a sense we are. We view the agreement between us and our Indianapolis small business computer consulting customers as an employment agreement. We compete more against the single inside guy than we do against the other central Indiana computer outsourcing companies.

If you hired a guy, you'd expect him to work hard at whatever is required to keep your organization moving forward. We do the same. Sometimes, your inside guy would have to put in extra hours to handle a particularly difficult task. In general, you expect that to be a part of his normal compensation because there will also be times when he has little to do, or he needs to cut out early for a cross country meet or something.

In the final analysis, the Pertingo(r) offer isn't too good to be true. It's a fair deal for everyone. It seems better because it's compared to astronomical hourly rates charged by other IT consultants. We find that by doing more, we're able to avoid the things that consume huge amounts of time. At first, it seems counterintuitive, but think about how much easier it would have been to lose those first few extra pounds instead of waiting until you had dozens of pounds to lose.

IT Consulting is What I Love

Posted Tuesday, September 15, 2009 by Damon Richards

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.

The Old Guys of Indianapolis Computer Consulting

Posted Wednesday, September 9, 2009 by Damon Richards

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.

When Good is Good Enough

Posted Tuesday, September 8, 2009 by Damon Richards

Good Enough

When I was a child, I often heard adults say two conflicting things to me and it took until I was older to understand that they didn't necessarily conflict. The first came from coaches and other people whose job was to get me to strive for success. It is best expressed in this little ditty:

Good, Better, Best
Never let it rest
Until your Good is Better
And your Better, Best.

The other thought usually came from people who were driven to get lots of things done. It was captured in this much shorter missive:

Better is the enemy of Good Enough.

Having these two ideas in mind at once is a testament to our capacity as human beings. Knowing which of the two to practice at any given moment may determine the gap between genius and dullard. While I found the two concepts confusing as I grew up, I see them both at work in my Indianapolis small business computer consulting company every day. The trick is really to determine whether you're in a situation where perfection is important or where completion is important. As I used to tell my network technicians back when we billed by the hour, "You reach a point where the solution is acceptable to the client. "At that point, you have to turn off the clock because you're working for yourself from then on."

The conflict between Good Enough and Better was a contributing factor in our decision, years ago, to change from the traditional time-and-materials billing model to our Pertingo^® Computer Support model instead. Now we can seek Better even when Good Enough would suffice for our customer. At the same time, we can give them Good Enough when time is the most important factor in the work.

Plenty of Blame to Spread in Computer Outsourcing

Posted Tuesday, September 1, 2009 by Damon Richards

Two events happened in the past few weeks that clicked on a light bulb in my head. The first was a meeting that I had with one of my Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing customers in which he lodged a complaint about a problem with a form on his website. Shortly after we started working with his company, we switched them to an Exchange server from Gmail. In the process, we missed an account. It was a distribution list that went to several people inside the company. It was only used as the mailto in a form on their website. After several months, one of their staffers got a call from a customer wondering why he had not heard back from his form submission. At that point they discovered that they had not received ANY forms since the email switch more than six months ago. Our conversation seemed to get stuck on the issue of assigning blame for this oversight. It wasn't enough that the problem was quickly fixed as soon as it was brought to our attention. Someone's head had to roll for things to be OK again. Even my agreement to accept the blame was inadequate to end the witch hunt.

The second event was an invitation from my best friend Thom Horn to hear him present the message (sermon) at his church one Sunday. Now I'm not the most frequent church goer around. In fact, I usually go only when my attendance is demanded by my mother (which she graciously limits to a few times per year). Anyway, Thom baited me by telling me I'd be mentioned in his message. He knows how to get me hooked. His message was about Blame. He told a story of three friends who set out to see a movie right after a city closing blizzard. Along the way, they have a crash and their vehicle turns over and gets stuck in a ditch under a pile of snow. Thom patiently asks the congregation to determine who among the nine characters in his story is to blame, in whole or in part. You can read the text of his message here.

After we all assign blame, and there was plenty to spread around, he tells us its a trick question. "You're stuck in a ditch upside down and covered in snow. Wasting time figuring out who to blame doesn't do anything to get you out of the ditch." That's the view we take all the time here at Port-to-Port Consulting. We will accept the blame if that's what is required to get everyone moving toward a solution. Blame doesn't create progress. It creates stumbling blocks. In our business, there's always enough blame for everyone to have a full serving.

Hello, Computer

Posted Tuesday, August 11, 2009 by Damon Richards

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.

Remembering to Forget

Posted Thursday, August 6, 2009 by Damon Richards

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.

Privacy vs Convenience Online

Posted Wednesday, August 5, 2009 by Damon Richards

Because a web connection is not a permanent connection, it is necessary for web developers to use tricks to make it seem like the connection is permanent. Oftentimes this is done with cookies. These are little files that hold some basic information about your interaction with a particular website. They are necessary in order to make the web experience the one you've come to expect. Cookies got a bad reputation when sites started creating super cookies that would contain information from several sites you visited and started to tell more of your story than yo might have wanted. Then hackers started reading cookies from other websites to gather information about you. This led to the cookie craze that had everyone deleting their cookies after each web session. It generated features in web browsers that restricted which cookies a site could see.

Devoted web developers worked around this by creating another kind of marker to place on your machine. These little snippets of code are generically called Bugs. They aren't talked about as much, but they are every bit as information rich as cookies ever were. Most Web 2.0 sites use bugs, as does Google Analytics and many shopping sites. You can find details about web bugs from a site set up by UC Berkeley.

When my Indianapolis small business computer support customers ask me what they can do about increasing their privacy online, I have to tell them "not much." Sure, there are obvious things like staying away from strange sites, and avoiding random links. But the reality is that the rich web experience we've come to take for granted is only possible by allowing web sites to collect information about us in the background. Most of the data is not dangerous or threatening. Yet when pulled together, they can tell a lot about a person. In my Air Force days, these were called EEFIs (Essential Elements of Friendly Information). Collect enough of these and you get a pretty good profile of a person or organization.

Learning from My Computer Support Peers

Posted Tuesday, July 21, 2009 by Damon Richards

About a year ago, my business partner joined an industry peer group: HTG. Both of us had been members of the Young Entrepreneur's Organization. His group disolved and mine defected. He decided to join HTG to get a different peer experience. In YEO, the commonality is business size and geography. Everyone is local but works in a non-competing industry. In HTG, everyone is geographically separated but works in the Computer Network Consulting industry.

Last week was the fourth quarterly meeting of Rob's group, and he wanted me to attend with him. I had a blast! I'm a fairly gregarious person. I like meeting new people and I believe everyone has something to teach me. It's that curiousity about people that makes my job of supporting the Information Technology of many Indianapolis small businesses appealing to me. I get to learn how businesses in different industries operate. But I digress. At the HTG meeting, the owners of 12 IT support services companies spent two days talking to each other about their businesses.

Two things struck me. We are on a par with the companies that are most professional in our industry, and none of us has found the silver bullet or secret sauce that will allow us to revolutionize small business computer outsourcing. Both were reassuring revelations. I appreciate the challenge of running my little Indianapolis Information Technology company. If there were a cookbook, I'd want to treat it like all the other instruction manuals I get.

Computer Security Starts with You

Posted Tuesday, July 14, 2009 by Damon Richards

Many of my Indianapolis small business computer support customers ask me what additional things they can do to ensure their data security. They all have the expected firewall, anti-virus software, anti-phishing software, and password protection in place. Most have tightened their password policy to require more difficult passwords and periodic changes. So, when they ask what else they can do, my response is usually to tell them they need to train their staffs on the importance of information technology security.

I mentioned in a previous post that an incredibly large number of people in a random survey admitted to have visited pornographic sites while at work in the previous 30 days. Now a new survey reveals that about half of people say their corporate data security policies are largely ignored. Nearly half admitted to have shared their password with another employee or contractor, and twenty percent have turned off their anti-virus or firewall.

Add to that the increase in power of mobile devices and things get even scarier. How many of your staff members have a complete list of all of your corporate contacts in their cell phones? Do you even know for sure? What about those who transport corporate documents by copying them to a USB flash drive? Is anything ever encrypted?

Nothing your computer consultants do can prevent things like password sharing. We can create rules that prevent some of the other abuses, but in the end, you and your staff are the weakest link. If everyone in your organization doesn't follow the guidelines in your Acceptable Use and other Network Services policies (or if you don't even have them), your data and network resources will remain at risk.

In the end, if someone wants to get your corporate data specifically, you can't do much to prevent it. However, you should take the steps to ensure you've done the common things that prevent data loss or resource compromise. Your network consulting company can offer some guidance.

IT Staff vs IT Outsourcing on Network Capability

Posted Monday, July 13, 2009 by Damon Richards

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.

Why your Computer Support Doesn't Stink

Posted Saturday, July 11, 2009 by Damon Richards

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.

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