Hardware Management Checklist For SMBs

✓ Clean your computer components

Wipe down monitors with a clean, static-free, non-abrasive fabric such as computer component-specific microfiber cloth. You can use the same type of cloth to wipe down mice and other peripherals, but for those tight nooks and crannies such as your keyboard surfaces, a can of compressed air will do the job.

Regular wipedowns are good because dust buildup can block computer air vents and affect their performance. Also ensure that your workstations are getting adequate ventilation and don’t get direct exposure to sunlight and other heat sources.

✓ Manage your cables

If you’re not giving your computers’ cables the attention they deserve, now’s a good time to do so. Aside from wiping the thick coat of dust off of computer cables, consider using cable management solutions that unclutter and untangle messy wires. Cable organizers don’t just organize and secure your cables, they also help ensure your PCs run quieter and are less prone to overheating as a result of blocked air vents.

Planning to relocate or upgrade in the near future? Organizing your computers’ cables now will make future relocation and upgrading processes much easier.

✓ Review and update your inventory

Keeping stock of all your hardware helps you manage hardware life cycles and purchases, identify items that are near their end of life, and ensure you avoid duplicate purchases of items already in stock.

Your inventory list should include all owned and leased devices: PCs and laptops, printers and scanners, tablets and smartphones, and modems and other network hardware. Update all your assets’ serial numbers and keep track of their respective users and location.

✓ Maintain your printers

Clean the interiors and exteriors of your printers, including paper trays, which are sure to have accumulated dirt from years of use. You should also repair and/or replace parts and accessories such as print heads and cartridges that are no longer in good condition. Should you decide to do a complete printer maintenance, check for the latest software updates for your printers and install them immediately.

✓ Implement a hardware policy

This is also a good time to create a technology guideline that your employees can follow to ensure they work efficiently. These guidelines reduce the need to spend on unnecessary repairs, keeping the succeeding year’s checklist shorter. With clear instructions on the proper use, replacement, and storage of your hardware and devices, you’ll be better able to manage your hardware for years to come.

With a more organized IT hardware inventory, you have one less thing to worry about. Want to get more in-depth hardware management advice? Call the experts at Net Activity today.

How does the human cloud benefit SMBs?

If the prevalent image of a startup is a couple of guys in a garage (think Amazon, Apple, Microsoft), the emerging picture of the workforce of the future consists of skilled talents collaborating in the cloud. Thanks to the human cloud, small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can now eliminate the barriers associated with traditional workspaces and enjoy cost-effective solutions.

WHAT IS THE HUMAN CLOUD?

The human cloud is a working platform where staff performs white-collar tasks from any location and on any device. Collaboration, file sharing, or discussions on projects are done in a flexible and productive manner, rewarding team members solely for their output.

BENEFITS OF HIRING ON THE HUMAN CLOUD

Companies looking to take advantage of the human cloud are entitled to the following benefits:

1. Low cost
   The human cloud helps save time and money spent on traditional employment processes. Hiring is fast and easy, and you pay for the skills you need on a transactional basis.
2. No overhead
   Hiring through the human cloud requires no overhead for office space, thereby enabling firms to stay lean and profit-focused. By becoming virtual, teams can work independently from anywhere. Remote collaboration via the human cloud is a game-changer that benefits companies, such as startups, that are inclined to spend fewer resources to build their business infrastructure.
3. Get skills on demand
   Employers can contract for micro-tasks, such as copying text from business cards, to larger tasks, like selling products for a fee, to even more complex projects such as software design and programming.
4. Global talent pool
   Even startups can be multinational today, so they are no longer limited by geography in finding key talent with specialized skills. Business can leverage overseas creative, administrative, engineering, and other high-level talent to build a well-rounded team. A good idea can come and be executed from just about anywhere.For instance, Foundr Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Nathan Chan started a passion project that enabled him to interview some of the most influential entrepreneurs around the world, which he shared through his monthly digital publication.
   For Chan, the launch of this successful project would not have been possible if it wasn’t for human cloud service and freelancing platform Elance. Elance allowed him to leverage overseas talent and build a solid team of graphic designers, audio/video editors, and writers. All tasks and projects for each issue of his magazine run through the platform, which also conveniently processes payments for his contractors.
5. Easy collaboration
   Using an online platform gives SMBs the ability to manage projects through virtual workrooms. Collaboration software can be extremely important and even mission-critical for remote teams to work efficiently.

As more startups and SMBs become familiar (and comfortable) with the advantages of the human cloud, the future of work means that location is not the most important factor in determining who will contribute to your business’s success. A worldwide network of online contractors is now ready to serve you with the qualifications, skill sets, and shared enthusiasm you seek to turn ideas into valuable products or services.

For more information on how to leverage cloud technologies or collaboration software, get in touch with any of our cloud specialists.

Number Of Microsoft Edge Browser Users Are Surpassing Firefox

At long last, Microsoft has a web browser that the market seems to like. Their new Chromium-based Edge browser has enjoyed rampant growth over the past twelve months, seeing its market share increase by 1300 percent for the year. It should be noted that one year ago, Chromium-based Edge had a market share of just 0.57 percent, and their rampant growth has seen that increase to 8.03 percent.

Google’s Chrome browser, which currently holds a 67.14 percent market share is by no means in immediate danger of losing its position as the dominant browser on the web.

Even so, it would be a mistake to discount the new Edge browser’s progress. It’s essentially the same as Google’s Chrome browser in that it uses the same engine and can make use of all of Chrome’s extensions. Plus it’s got a few native features that make it unique. So it really is a good browsing option, and its recent flurry of growth has seen it surpass Mozilla’s Firefox browser, which currently holds a market share of just 7.95 percent.

To give you a more complete picture of the browser market breakdown, here are the top five contenders:

• Google Chrome: 67.14 percent
• Apple’s Safari: 10.11 percent
• Chromium Edge: 8.03 percent
• Mozilla’s Firefox: 7.95 percent
• Edge Legacy: 0.44 percent

With a constellation of other, smaller browsers (Brave, Opera, and a handful of others) each claiming a tiny slice of the market.

When Microsoft first released their latest version of Edge, it was believed that Google’s Chrome browser would take the biggest hit, but the reality is that Google’s market share barely budged, but Firefox seems to be slowly dying.

Later this year, Microsoft will begin forcibly retiring Legacy Edge, which should see it vanish from the list entirely, and it’s likely that most of those users will stick with the new Edge browser. At this point, it’s impossible to say what the future holds for the market long term, except to say that Google’s browser should retain its title of King of the Hill for the foreseeable future.

When It Comes To Your Technology Policies, Don’t Forget These Three Details

If you haven’t kept your most up-to-date policies and procedures written down somewhere, you absolutely must correct this as soon as possible. A written guide to your business’ policies and procedures is crucial, as it is intended to give your team a resource to turn to for an answer to any questions concerning their employment. Let’s go over some things you must include in your written employee handbook.

All Business Requirements and Responsibilities

It simply needs to be said: your employee handbook should be the consummate resource for any questions your employee has about their employment and the conditions of such. This ensures that each member of your team will at least have access to a resource that provides a lot of information that they will need, such as:

• FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act) information
• Non-discrimination policies
• Sexual harassment policies
• Worker’s compensation policies

Furthermore, it should also provide them with a guide to your internal policies, like:

• Paid-time off policy
• Payment times and promotion/review policy
• Employee behavior expectations
• Employee dress code
• Benefit structure
• Remote work policy
• Social media and employee device policy

It also isn’t a bad idea to include some content to help set the tone of your organization for your employees. For instance, including your company’s mission and history into your handbook and endorsing the company culture you want to encourage is a good way to set the tone from the get-go.

Consider Your Layout

For your handbook to be optimally useful, you need to organize it so that it is as useful as you can make it. Arranging its contents to feature the most useful information at the very beginning can make them, well, more useful. Explaining all your policies in great detail and summarizing them in depth will help to do this, as well.

Update It

Here’s the thing: circumstances change over time, which means that you may eventually have to amend your policies to match. This is especially the case when the cause of these changes is based in the development of the technology that is available to businesses. As these changes are important to keep up to date with, your handbook will need to be adaptable… which, as you may have predicted, means it should be digital.

While it may seem silly to focus so much on what seems to be such a small detail, a good handbook can set the tone for your entire administrative and IT strategy. For assistance in creating the IT policies that will do your business the most good, give Net Activity a call at 215-503-5150.

Avoid Burning Out While Working from Home

A lot has been made about the newly remote workforce that has been doing their best for nearly a year…or more.

One issue that many ignore is burnout. Sure, it happens in the office too, but there is something unsettling about getting up and going to work walking distance from your bed. Today, we will take a look at at-home worker burnout and give you a few tips to help you keep from suffering the same fate.

What started as a short-term leave from the office has transformed into an entire workforce transition. Remote work has been on the rise, with a peak of 62% of employed US adults working part or full time from the confines of their home. But remote work isn’t the only thing that has been on the rise… Burnout is hitting an all-time high. More than two-thirds, or 69%, of employees, are experiencing burnout symptoms while working from home, and this influx is impacting both business productivity as well as the overall health of the workforce.

If you think burnout just means being exhausted from your job, think again… Burnout is known to cause a litany of physical and mental conditions: high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, a weakened immune system, anxiety, depression, cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s disease, and even death.

What Does At-Home Worker Burnout Look Like?

It looks a lot like worker burnout always looked like, except there is no place for the worker to escape to. Let’s face it, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed a lot of things for a lot of businesses (and a lot of people for that matter), but nothing has changed as much as asking the same people that have been pleading for the ability to work remotely for years, to now work remotely because it’s mandatory. In this case, it isn’t hypocrisy, but that doesn’t stop your staff from viewing it that way.

The number one variable that leads to remote-worker burnout is the sensation that they are working all the time. Each of your employees has a life to live, and some live it differently than others. The ones that are diligent about most of the aspects in their lives can find it maddening to work from home, then work on their house, their car, etc… They feel like they aren’t accomplishing anything with their time because they don’t have any real downtime to speak of. That leads us to our first tip:

Keep Your Professional Boundaries

If your business has moved its operations remotely, there is a pretty good chance that the hours of operation haven’t changed. This means that if you feel like you are working all the time, you have probably let the boundaries that you typically operate under lapse and are doing more work off the clock or outside of work hours. After all, it is simple to check your email at 11 p.m. and get ready for the next day. Just leave the work until regularly scheduled business hours and enjoy your off-hours.

Another variable that is sure to create stress for the remote worker is the inherent distractions that they have while they operate from home. You may have a spouse or live-in significant other also working from home, you may have children that don’t have much to do since their school year (and all extra-curricular activities) have been canceled due to the pandemic. You may have pets that need a certain amount of attention. You also may be prone to distracting yourself with social media, streaming videos, or video games. We suggest:

Keep Distractions to a Minimum

This may be easier said than done, but if you can, have a dedicated workspace that is away from all of the distractions listed above. You need focus to do your job proficiently and continuing to distract yourself (or continuing to allow yourself to be distracted) is going to cut down on the time you are actually working. This leads to you getting behind and results in much more stress than you’re typically used to dealing with. This can result in you working longer hours to compensate, leaving you with the feeling that you are working all the time.

Finally, when dealing with mental health it can often be a matter of internalizing someone else’s expectations of you. Of course, many employers do have a certain amount of expectations, but they are flying by the seat of their pants too. Do you really think they would have crushed your work-from-home dreams for so long if they didn’t have legitimate concerns about the effect it would have on their product or service? In this case, they may have been wrong. Expecting you to work from home was the only card they could play in order to fulfill their responsibilities to their consumers, while still taking care of the people they depend on to make business happen. You may find that when this situation is resolved that the work flexibility you’ve always wanted will remain. You may also find that you won’t mind going into the office that much.

Understanding that your employer is doing their best to keep you safe and employed while other small businesses are struggling to re-open, will give you some peace of mind. Here are a couple of tips to help you…

Stave Off Work-At-Home Burnout

• Get dressed – A good practice is to get up and do your morning routine as you would. You don’t have to wear a suit and tie but get out of your PJs and get yourself ready for work. You may not have the long commute right now, but that time can be spent catching up on sleep, taking the dog for a walk, or some other activities that make you less apt to be scurrying around after work.
• Watch your diet and exercise – Stay-at-home orders haven’t been great for a lot of people’s waistlines, but now that things are starting to slowly re-open there will be more opportunities to get out there and enjoy the things you typically do. You will want to make sure to stretch and move around a bit while also watching your intake. Good diet and exercise help your mental health.

Until there is an available vaccine, this situation isn’t close to over. Some companies will reopen and forget they ever had a remote workforce, but many businesses will prioritize the mental and physical health of their employees and keep remote work open until there is a reason to stop it; and, your ability to keep your head screwed on straight will be a big determining factor in the use of remote work in the future.

If we can assist you in managing your remote workforce technology, reach out anytime.

Why Marketing Automation Should Be A Top Priority For SMBs

It can be challenging for small- to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) with limited resources to get their marketing efforts off the ground, but marketing automation can help them gain a competitive edge and achieve success easier. By automating repetitive tasks and marketing more effectively on multiple online channels, you save money and provide a better experience for your customers. Here are other benefits of marketing automation for your SMB.

INSTANT RESPONSES TO EMAIL REQUESTS

If a customer or prospect sends your business an email via your website or a “Contact Us” form, any delay in response could ultimately cost you a client. But if you have a marketing automation plan in place, you can customize automatic email responses to respond to these leads as soon as an email is received. This either provides potential customers with the information they requested or informs them that you will be responding in greater detail soon.

AUTOMATIC FOLLOW-UPS

There’s a reason most people prefer to communicate via email: keeping in touch over the phone can be tough if both parties are always busy. An automated system solves this by logging the time and date of your contact with the leads, then automatically emailing them about follow-up times. The call, email, and responses are all logged in your customer relationship management software and calendar without a single minute wasted on inputting information.

INBOUND LEAD ASSIGNMENT

When you have phone calls, emails, and meetings piling up, it’s hard to keep track of who is working with a customer. With marketing automation software and tracking, customer service representatives are automatically assigned to inbound leads based on specialties and demographics so they can begin working on building profitable rapport right away.

EASIER CONTENT DISTRIBUTION

Potential clients and leads get dozens, sometimes hundreds, of business emails every day. You need something to set your business apart from the rest. By offering valuable content such as how-to guides and total cost of ownership tools in exchange for contact information, you can provide prospects with content they actually want.

All it takes is a web form and some creative writing that will ultimately lead visitors back to your products and/or services. Your automation software delivers content to anyone who provides contact information, and it downloads metrics that can be tracked and analyzed by your solution.

ORGANIZED CONTACT LIST

Networking events generate new contacts and new leads. This used to mean having to keep track of thick stacks of business cards, but cutting-edge marketing tools has made it possible to take a picture of contact information and automatically store it as part of a cloud-based database. Call-ins, scanned business cards, and received emails all get organized into a single digital Rolodex with recommendations on whom to contact and when it is best to do so — without one minute of tedious data entry.

Every business owner knows that automating mindless tasks is a worthwhile investment. But not everyone knows just what tools are available to help them cut down on wasted work. Our team specializes in using technology to add value to your business, and we believe that if you’re not utilizing any of the solutions above, that’s the best place to start. Get in touch with Net Activity today to make your marketing technology work for you.