Risk Management Goes Both Ways Business owners tend to focus on their business, which is what you would expect them to do, but their business usually involves other people. When they start handing out mandates that they think will help the business, the other people involved (the employees) may not share that view. That is because most workers want to do well at work, but they leave the health of the company to the people in charge of it.  When you recall all the people that have either been laid off, or working from home, back to the office, you should consider for a moment what is going through their minds. First of all, for the people who were laid off, they are probably thrilled to get back to work. Even with government subsidy over the past few months, most workers will take home as much or more in salary than they do when they aren?t working. For the group of workers who were working from home, however, they will almost certainly hate coming back to the workplace. This is because to them, COVID-19 is still going strong and they are scared of getting sick. To them, the risk isn?t worth the reward.  That?s why you need to explain why you are calling them back?and mean it. If your staff has been busting hump for you over the past three months from home, and your only reason to recall them to an office environment where they (think they) have a much better chance to get sick is because you don?t trust them working from home, expect some pushback. Ultimately, you are the captain of the ship, but making fast and loose decisions (or decisions that seem fast and loose) with other people?s health, expect to squelch a mutiny or two.  Don?t Open Just Because Seriously, if your staff is working well enough from home to keep revenue at a place that allows you to keep your doors open, why bother bringing your staff back to the workplace? Obviously, if you need people to man the store, you can?t just stay closed, but for office workers that can do their job from their favorite chair at home, why even consider exposing any of them to the anxiety and anger that goes into that? If it’s to bump up productivity, consider that many businesses shut their doors and will never reopen. At least your business isn?t losing you money.  If You Have to Open, Preach Safety Many businesses that were deemed essential, haven?t closed at all. People still go to work, they wear a mask, they try to wash their hands as much as possible, they try to stay away from their co-workers or customers. If your business is one that needs to be open to sustain itself, be sure to emphasize safety. That means doing all those things listed above.  Moreover, you should do what you can to keep your employees safe. You should provide hand sanitizer, soap, masks, and all the other resources they need to improve their piece of mind. Scared, angry people that are preoccupied with getting sick aren?t productive workers. Do what you can to ensure that if you need them to be out in harm?s way, that you take the steps necessary to protect them.  Mental […]

Track Your Hardware The first part of your inventory strategy is surprisingly an analog one. Well, kind of. You will want to inventory all of your hardware. That includes servers (and server components) all the way down to your organization’s extra mouses (did you know that multiple computer pointing devices can technically be referred to as mouses, and not mice?). The best way to go about doing this is to get yourself a label maker. No kidding. Today, there are label makers that are under $100 that allow users to print out labels with barcodes or qr codes on them. Tagging your hardware with labels that tell you everything you need to know about the item when the code is scanned can go a long way toward helping you manage your business? physical inventory. Inventory Management The second part of a comprehensive inventory strategy is to utilize an inventory management platform. An inventory management system (IMS) is a tool that provides users with a way to track goods across your business. An IMS can provide your business with the transparency it needs to cut down on redundancy as well as manage your technology and other inventory.  Using IMS software, you can set up a lot of automated processes that can automatically order items, alert staff to restock items, and much more. For the inventory management platform to work, however, you will want to ensure that yours delivers the following features: Barcode scanner – An obvious addition that allows quick information on any tagged item.  Optimization – Make sure that you have the right amount of a product. Overstocking and under-stocking can be problematic for numerous reasons. Report generation – Being able to view sales history, manage current inventory, manage sales levels and more.  POS integration – One beneficial strategy is to integrate your point-of-sale system and your IMS.  Purchase order management – Get an IMS that gives you a single view of purchasing records.  Some inventory management systems come with additional features that automates warehouse management and gives you a look at product demand. For the average business that is just using their IMS to inventory their own assets, some high-end platforms may be overkill. The point is to be able to manage the assets you have. If you would like to talk to a professional technician about an inventory management system or just discuss the best practices of keeping your technology managed properly, call White Mountain IT Services today at (603) 889-0800.

Restarting Projects While your employees were doing DIY home improvement projects, your business? improvement projects have laid dormant. As the new normal will present situations that were not only rare a short time ago, they are not completely aimed at improving your business? situation in the same manner as the projects you had planned before this whole thing hit. If your strategy is like many other businesses, you will have to be cautious to not put your employees in harm’s way. With a projected second wave of COVID-19 still possible, it?s going to be important for project teams to forge ahead even if they are being forced to work from remote locations.  One of the best collaboration tools you have at this point is your video conferencing solution. Not only does it give your team the ability to meet with each other from remote locations, solutions today are built with the ability to integrate some of your most important software into the meetings. These integrations can go a long way toward giving your project team members the resources they need to efficiently and effectively complete difficult projects.  Collaboration Strategies Sad to say, solid collaboration isn?t just the act of people working together. True collaboration is measured in the successful delivery of professional goods and services. If your project teams need to work together to get your offerings out the door, and they are being forced to work remotely, invest in a video conferencing solution that provides both an option-rich interface with the ability to interact as a team or one-on-one. This is crucial because the more time you spend in meetings, the less time is spent being actually productive, even if the meetings contents are critical to the success of the project.  Once you have a reliable conferencing solution in place, you can use it to run point over operational difficulties, projects, and even whole staff meetings. Here are some suggestions on how to use your video conferencing solution to get the most out of your team.  Don?t be brief to save time – Many people will try to keep meetings as short as possible. That?s actually a good practice, but if your team needs communication on the specifics of a project or task, brevity may be counterproductive. Don?t send too many messages – Do you follow up using instant message, email and phone? This is completely overkill. With a video conferencing platform, you can quickly address all the issues present for that day at once, not over multiple forms of communication. If things do require a write up after the fact, assign one person to compose meeting minutes. Don?t just use the video conference for work – Part of working for a company is the camaraderie your staff shares. Things like birthday parties and staff meetings can be a respite from the continual flow of work-related information. Using video conferencing for collaboration means having a strategy that both keeps people connected while reducing the feeling of anxiety that comes from being overwhelmed with information. If you would like to talk about video conferencing solutions that can help your business get the most out of your remote staff, call the IT experts at White Mountain IT Services today at (603) 889-0800.  

Defining Cloud Deployments For our examination, businesses have the option to use three different cloud deployments: Private Cloud ? Space in a cloud infrastructure is owned and utilized by a single business. Public Cloud ? Space in a shared cloud infrastructure is utilized by multiple businesses and users. Hybrid Cloud ? Space is utilized in both a public cloud environment and in a business? privately-owned cloud space. Regardless of the type of cloud deployment used, it provides considerable utility to the businesses that embrace its capabilities. Let?s consider some of the ways that your business could make use of these utilities. The Cloud?s Service Models Using the cloud, a business can fulfill its technology needs and requirements through solutions provided ?as-a-Service.? Some of the ?aaS? solutions available to businesses include: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) By subscribing to IaaS, a business retains the responsibility to supply the software, while hosting it on the hardware that the cloud provider supplies. This means that the provider maintains the infrastructure that your business relies on to host its assorted needs?like its operating system, storage needs, and applications?in the cloud. This can be seen when your business leases space in a data center or cloud storage, or maintains a cloud-hosted backup and disaster recovery solution. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Alternatively, a business can also utilize the software solutions that a provider maintains on their infrastructure. This means that the provider not only takes on the task of keeping the cloud infrastructure maintained, but also ensuring that the software solutions themselves are managed and maintained. This is commonly seen in a Desktop-as-a-Service or Machine-Learning-as-a-Service, or in services like G Suite or Office 365. Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) PaaS almost serves as a hybrid between IaaS and SaaS. Essentially, using Platform-as-a-Service enables a business to create its own proprietary application without any of the responsibility to create and manage the infrastructure that supports it. However your cloud deployment takes shape, White Mountain IT Services can help ensure that it is ultimately a success. Talk to us today by calling (603) 889-0800.

Password hygiene, as it is known, is the practice of securing your accounts with the use of passwords that are difficult to guess, even for a machine. If you have good password hygiene, you will avoid using authentication methods that could easily be compromised. Here is a list of commonly used strategies for passwords that would be considered unhygienic: Personal details, like your name or birthday Names of friends, family, or most infamously, your pets Commonly used words (like ?password? or a favorite sports team) Simple keyboard patterns (like ?12345? or ?qwerty?) Repeated login credentials (like username: David1973, password: David1973) Making their passwords as short as possible If this short list stops you in your tracks, don?t panic. We?re going to give you some strategies you can immediately use to improve your password hygiene and secure your accounts. The constant development of tools and strategies designed to crack passwords has changed the way password creation has been approached in recent years. Here are some examples of some password creation strategies that are no longer recommended:  Alphanumeric Switching: You know the practice. You switch some letters with numbers that look like them to create the appearance of security. It isn?t always a bad strategy, but users that adhere to this method of password creation tend to make the password something simple, making it ineffective against cutting-edge software designed to crack passwords.  Length Requirements: For years, accounts made it mandatory to have a certain amount of characters in your password. This practice is falling by the wayside because the longer a password is, the simpler users make it so that they can remember it. According to the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), this strategy is actually hurting your ability to keep your accounts secure. Banning Cut and Paste: Some password fields ban users from using the paste feature to enter a password. This all but eliminated the effectiveness of the password manager, an extremely useful tool for many people who couldn?t possibly remember all the account credentials they need daily.  Password Hints: Most of the accounts you set up, especially for your finances, have this option. They provide you with a set of predefined questions to ask if you, for some reason, lose your password. With so much of our information shared online, the practice isn?t as effective as it once was, when less of our personal information was available online. Frequent Password Changes: This directive, usually implemented by overzealous IT administrators, can have the opposite effect due to the fact that many users will forget their new password, or they will create an insecure password so that they CAN remember it. Obviously, a password reset is useful, but doing it frequently doesn?t help secure accounts at all. Password Hygiene Best Practices At White Mountain IT Services, we recommend that users use a passphrase made up of at least three words that don?t have anything to do with one another. We also believe that using replacement characters can have value in this method. For example, a passphrase of ?asamericanasapplepie? is not in itself secure, because it?s a common phrase, but a passphrase of ?asamericanaspanakopita? is better. Sprinkle in upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols like ?A$@m371c@n@$5p@n@k0p1t@? and your passphrase is something you can both remember and works well to secure your account. […]