Port-to-Port

A New Data Security Risk for IT Service Providers

Tuesday, April 20, 2010 by Damon Richards

We generally tell our Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing customers that, "if it plugs into the wall, you should probably talk to us about it." The reason for that blanket statement is that while today's model of office electronics may have nothing to do with your computer network services, the new one you're about to buy likely will. Common examples are fax machines that morphed into fax servers; copiers that became network printers; and phone systems that provided unified messaging. We frequently learn of new devices that suddenly have network access and, like the modern copy machine, data storage capability. A recent CBS Evening News report demonstrates this importance.

Copy Machines, a Security Risk?

Clearly, data security is a brand new concept to copier companies, while protecting your data is a critical part of the computer network services we provide to our customers. Talk to your outsourced IT provider before you get rid of that copier (or anything else that plugs into the wall).

Reasons You Hate Your Computer Support Provider

Thursday, April 15, 2010 by Damon Richards

I had a sales call recently that was scheduled, at the prospective customer's request, at lunch time. When I arrived, they sneaked me into a conference room away from the main lobby. I was told that their guy was dating the receptionist and both were out at lunch so we had to hurry. Can you imagine being that afraid of one of your employees? Maybe you can. This isn't a new occurence for me. I often find that Indianapolis small businesses looking for outsourced IT support services are in a situation where they are afraid to tell their current provider that they're unhappy. This is even the case when their current provider is not an employee, but an outsourced computer support provider.

The number of humorous references made to the frightening help desk technician must mean there is some truth to the idea that people in companies have a fear that their computer network services provider can wield almost magical power over them. I suppose it's possible, but that's no way to run a railroad. If you keep your guy only because you're afraid of the damage he might do if you tried to fire him, then you should fire him right away. He's already done more damage than he should by creating that fear factor in your organization. He's empowering others to try bullying you in their respective areas as well.

All you need is a good, ethical business computer support company. They will be able to help you extricate this evil network support tech from your midst. Once you have accomplished the task, make sure that you don't end up in that situation again by requiring that everything about your system be documented in a manner that will be easy for you (or your next IT guy) to understand.

Computer Network Consulting Survives thru Chaos

Wednesday, April 14, 2010 by Damon Richards

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

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

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

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

Your Online Identity is being Protected (from you?)

Tuesday, April 13, 2010 by Damon Richards

A recent 1to1 Media story discusses two websites that were setup to allow you to remove yourself from Web 2.0 in a single step. The process is termed "Internet suicide." In the sixties it would have been called "checking out." Many people are becoming fed up with the ever increasing pace of our lives and the always-on nature of life in these days of portable communications gadgetry. How far are you from a communications device right now?

Those who know me realize that I'm the king of computer gadgets. I like playing with the newest things. They also know that I don't tend to promote a new IT gadget just for it's cool factor. I abandon them as fast as I acquire them. I'm already just about done trying to find a use for the iPad. I have told many of my Indianapolis small business computer support customers that they can't do it all. But I tell them all that they need to do some of it. Regardless of the inevitable backlash against Web 2.0, it's not going to go away. Email was met with the same backlash, and I imagine the fax machine was too.

The interesting thing about the suicide sites is that they have been shut down as a result of legal action against them from the likes of Facebook. Apparently, helping you to delete your account information is a violation of your privacy.

IT Support Should Help Manage the Information

Monday, April 12, 2010 by Damon Richards

I called the office of Mark Zuckerberg, one of my Indianapolis small business computer support customers the other day. Mark was out so I got his voicemail. In his greeting, he said to please leave a message and he will call me back "the same day." I remembered the last time I had made that promise in my voicemail greeting. It was a long time ago. I felt bad when I reached the point that I could no longer return all of my calls on the same day. And I know that Mark only manages it by staying late every evening.

The reality is that the world has sped up too much for most of us to keep up with everthing that hits us every day. Between email and phone calls I could occupy my entire business day. All of the new IT gadgets that help to keep us in touch only makes the overload worse. They are supposed to make it better. It doesn't because we are weak when it comes to skipping things. We'd hate to miss something important!

You have the ability to use your IT services to help. Here are some simple things:

Turn off notifications. You ignore them anyway, but they tunnel into your subconcious.
Establish telephone time. You don't have to answer it right now. Use that Do Not Disturb button.
Don't preview email. It's easier to delete that e-newsletter you don't need to read if the tempting headline isn't already shown to you.
Leave your cell phone in the car. Enough said.
Prioritize. However you manage your time, don't overlook the prioritization step.

The amount of information that you encounter each day will continue to increase at a rate that makes it impossible for you to do anything with it. As Herb Simon said, "A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention." You've got to start paying more attention.

It's Not Easy Doing Green IT Consulting

Wednesday, April 7, 2010 by Damon Richards

It's a common error for people to take an action with a specific result in mind only to discover that the action had unexpected, and unintended, consequences. Our newly acquired obsession with all things green is creating many situations like this. Only a few of my Indianapolis small business computer support customers have asked me directly for more green IT support initiatives, but my vendors are constantly bombarding me with marketing ideas around being green.

A recent study by the Dutch company Printer.com concludes that you can save money by changing your default font. It turns out some fonts use more ink than others, so using a more ink-less font saves printer and toner cartridges. What a green thing to do. However, it turns out the most ink efficient font is Century Gothic, which is wider than the more common and moe ink intensive Arial font. As a result, the printer may use as much as 30 percent less ink, but put it on more pages of paper. A one page Arial document will likely stretch into a second page when converted to Century Gothic. Now, is the ecological impact of those extra sheets of paper worse than the additional ink? It might take a rocket scientist to figure it out.

Trade offs like this pop up everywhere in our attempts to help our customers with business computer support. As a result, we reduce the conversation to costs and let our customers decide whether they consider it green or not. In the case of printers, you should switch to the Century Gothic font. It will make your documents take up more paper, but ink is by far the biggest cost in printing. The switch will save money and the jury is out on whether it's more or less planet friendly. You can even help with that by switching back to Arial or Calibri when you have a document that is just going over into that second page.

It's Hard to be a Computer Consulting Expert

Monday, March 29, 2010 by Damon Richards

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

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

Blogging for Search Success in IT Outsourcing

Friday, March 26, 2010 by Damon Richards

Port-to-Port has been publishing this blog for almost 2 years. If you've read many of the posts, you've noticed that most are written by me. The rest of my organization gets a good idea every now and then. A few (Chris Sudler often, Becky Hardwick sometimes, and Tony Retz rarely) actually write interesting posts about life in an Indianapolis outsourced IT department. One of the biggest complaints I get from those who don't write, or don't write often, is that they feel as if they have to manipulate the words in order to optimize for search.

This is true. In normal conversation, I wouldn't refer to Port-to-Port Consulting as an Indianapolis small business computer support company. I might try something like it as part of an elevator pitch, but it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. Nonetheless, I squeeze a few awkward phrases into these posts because they are the phrases that you may be typing into Google (or your search engine of choice) to find a company like mine that can provide computer consulting to your small business in Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Greenwood, or Indianapolis.

The awkward prose is to help you, my reader, find us on the web. That's the first step in our goal to establish a relationship with you. If we do the rest well, you'll come back to learn things that will help you grow your business thru technology. I try to practice the advice of my ghost blogger friend Rhoda Israelov and put the Big Four of Blogging into each post. I apologize for the stinted phrases, but I hope the content makes that forgivable, or at least allows you to overlook it.

IT Support Services and Indiana Courts

Thursday, March 25, 2010 by Damon Richards

My youngest son had some societal difficulties in his teenage years. As a result, our family got introduced to the juvenile justice system, in particular, the juvenile facility at 25th and Keystone in Indianapolis. As the owner of an Indianapolis Information Technology company, I've been accused of carrying more than my fair share of gadgets, but the most basic of portable electronics is my smartphone (currently an iPhone, but I'm always looking). Inside the Indianapolis facility is the juvenile court, probation office, clerk, and the jail. All visitors to the building enter through the same doors. At the door, we're told that we cannot enter with any cell phone that contains a camera. Have you tried to purchase a cell phone without a camera lately?

Inevitably, at some point during the visit, it becomes necessary to schedule a future visit, but anyone who uses modern technology to track his calendar is at a loss because he had to leave his phone outside the building because it included a camera. Now the courts are extending a similar set of Luddite-like rules to jurors. According to a recent article from WTHR, jurors will have to surrender their phones in order to prevent them from communicating with the outside world while deliberating.

While I understand (even though this post doesn't seem like I do) the need to manage how information gets disseminated during sensitive court proceedings, this doesn't seem to be the best approach. Nonetheless, I have been asked by more than one of my Indianapolis small business computer support customers what can be done to rein in staff use of electronics at work. I've even heard from my peers that some of their clients collect cell phones at the front door from their employees and using one during work hours is grounds for termination.

The rapid pace of technology and its impact on our daily lives make it hard for a small business to stay abreast of rules and policies and their impact on the business. A good outsourced IT department should work with these owners and their staff to craft policies that keep the business functioning well without destroying staff morale. For instance, we have a client who is installing a new phone system that will include a "personal emergency hotline" for his staff to give to anyone who might need to reach them at work. Once it's in place and operational, he will require his staff to turn off their cell phones while in the office. It removes the distraction of constant texting, while maintaining the assurance that people can be reached during an emergency.

Outsourced IT Departments Must Protect Your Identity

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 by Damon Richards

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

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

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

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

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

Online Customer Service Could Cost More

Tuesday, March 23, 2010 by Damon Richards

Recent research by Dennis Campbell and Frances Frei at Harvard Business School shows an example of the surprise that many of my Indianapolis Outsouced IT customers receive when I tell them that online initiatives may cost more. These researchers studied companies that switch to online self-service for their customers. The results indicate that the cost per transaction goes up, on average, nearly 18 percent.

The reason is that providing online self-service leads customers to do more online than they have ever done for themselves, which leads to more calls to your company for related transactions that cannot be conducted online. Even though the cost per transaction goes up, the profitability of these customers goes up as well because they are doing more business with your company. Online self-service can be a win for your business if you're prepared for the internal changes (read: increases) that will occur from a successful implementation of online resources.

Like so much of what we do in business computer support, the results of new IT initiatives someimes impacts the organization in unexpected ways. A small business owner who wants to reduce transaction costs would consider a self-service online initiative to be a failure while an owner who wanted to increase profitability would call it a rousing success. Good IT support services companies have to understand this and be able to explain to their business computer support customers the difference.

It's Hard to Find Good Outsourced IT Services

Monday, March 22, 2010 by Damon Richards

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

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

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

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

Passwords are an Unfortunate Gatekeeper

Thursday, March 11, 2010 by Damon Richards

One of the more frequent activities of our computer help desk is to change passwords on various accounts. My network technicians often have to refuse to set passwords to specific things because they are far too simple to be meaningful. I’m not just talking about people who want to set their password to their birthdate, or anniversary, or home address, or even the names of their children or pets. At least a hacker would have to know something about the person, albeit information they can probably pick up on their Facebook page. No I’m talking about really simple stuff. And we’re not alone. An analysis of a recent data breach at web company RockYou revealed that a lot of people are unconcerned about security. Here are the top 10 passwords found in these accounts:

123456
12345
123456789
Password
iloveyou
princess
rockyou (the name of the site, remember)
1234567
12345678
Daniel

The other side of that is when my Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing customers decide to make password requirements hard, or have frequent changes. This leads to post-it notes on everyone's desk with their latest passwords on them. As biometric technology gets better, we may be able to move away from the password. I relish the day.

Computer Network Consulting Involves a lot of Babysitting

Thursday, March 4, 2010 by Damon Richards

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

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

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

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

Looking to the Future

Tuesday, March 2, 2010 by Tony Retz

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

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

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

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

Data Consumption in America

Wednesday, February 24, 2010 by Damon Richards

I spent several hours on a plane today, which gave me a chance to catch up on some reading. One of the things I read was a NY Times article from December that claims that American data consumption has grown by 350 percent in the last three decades to a whopping 34 Gb per day. The rate continues to increase by 6 percent per year.

Now I don't know why they did a 30 year comparison, but I do know the amount of data we save is growing far faster. Perhaps it's because, like me, people are saving stuff they hope to get to during their next plane ride and the trips aren't coming often enough. All I know is that the size of the disk space we install in new servers for our Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing customers gets larger and larger. Still we frequently have to contact our network support clients to let them know that they are nearing the end of their storage capacity and need to purge old information.

Often, our IT support services clients will ask us to do this for them. By the time we call we've already done all that we can do without having some detailed knowledge of the value of their data. We invoke the "one man's junk is another man's treasure" excuse to avoid causing unhappy results.

If it's been a while since you cleaned up your files, take some time to do it now. There is stuff there that is taking up space that you will eventually have to replace. It's also getting backed up regularly, taking time and resources. And it might be causing some of that low level anxiety you feel when you set out to find a piece of information amid all that stuff.

Whatever happened to the hat?

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 by Chris Sudler

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

Perhaps This is Why most Computer Consultants are Cold

Friday, January 29, 2010 by Damon Richards

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

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

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

Computer Consultants Need to Tell the Truth

Friday, January 22, 2010 by Damon Richards

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

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

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

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

Phone Viruses

Thursday, January 21, 2010 by Chris Sudler

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

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

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