Coleman Technologies Blog

Two-Hour Solution

Roger Seip, author of Train Your Brain for Success, took a proactive and prepared look at productivity by developing his Two-Hour Solution. The idea is to take two hours to plan out a schedule to follow each week, based on how your plans and goals culminated the week before. Investing this time should allow you to make the most of your available time to accomplish what you want to accomplish.

The reason that this is different than simply going over your calendar each week is the fact that, if guided by the Two-Hour Solution, you’re figuring out how the time you’re spending contributes to your goals. “Green time” is time that helps you generate financial capital, while your “red time” is the time that you spend preparing for green time, without generating any profit. To account for the wrench in the works that would ordinarily throw off your schedule, you also include “flex time” to provide a buffer. What’s left is your “re-creation” time, where you recover from your productive endeavors by doing the things you want to do.

Prioritizing

Steven Covey is an educator and a businessman who came up with a philosophy to living a full life that can also apply to life in the office.

Consider your big priorities, your more flexible responsibilities, and your rote tasks in the workplace as large rocks, smaller stones, and sand, respectively. Your time is a bucket, ready to be filled with these items as you see fit.

Let’s say you decide to start with the “sand,” before trying to cram in the “rocks” and “stones.” Chances are pretty good that you won’t be able to accomplish very much at all, at least nothing of any circumstance. However, if you prioritize the more impactful rocks, then the stones, and fill in the rest of the space with your sand, your bucket—or workday—is then used as productively as possible, and anything you didn’t get to complete isn’t of consequence.

Two-Minute Rule

While there are countless variables that can potentially influence the amount of time a task will take to complete, you eventually get a feeling for the typical duration, right? So, some tasks can predictably take a significant amount of time, while others take almost no time at all to make it through. The idea of the Two-Minute Rule, thought up by productivity consultant David Allen, takes advantage of that difference. His strategy: if a task will take two minutes or less, do it.

If that seems too simple, it kind of is. The philosophy behind the Two-Minute Rule is to build up your motivation to tackle the larger responsibilities by successfully completing smaller tasks. Think about it—every task, regardless of how large it is, can be broken into smaller, more manageable chunks, chunks that can take mere minutes to complete. Once you’ve completed enough of these two-minute tasks, it only makes sense to see the greater responsibility through… and with the progress you’ve already made supporting you, completing it seems that much more feasable. 

The Blastoff Method

Entrepreneur and motivational speaker Mel Robbins devised this practice to help overcome the mental blocks that encourage us to procrastinate rather than doing things that are good for us. Robbins posits that, by hesitating, we put the brain into “protection” mode—by thinking about everything that needs to be done between point A and point B, your brain ultimately prevents you from doing what you need to do. However, if that hesitation can be avoided, your productivity (or, by Robbins’ original theory, your well-being) will see benefits.

Her solution is to close the gap that hesitation creates between your capability to do a task and your perception of that task. Her recommendation is to, quite literally, treat yourself like a rocket and count down to your action. Focus on counting down…5,4,3,2,1… and act immediately, before your thoughts get in the way.

Scientifically, by doing so, you are bypassing a behavioral process and resetting an established habit loop… allowing better, more productive habits to be created instead. Give it a try next time you encounter a task you want to avoid starting.

Create a Time Crunch

We’ll wrap up with another method that Roger Seip came up with. If you really feel you work better on a deadline, add a bit of a hurdle as you are scheduling your “green time” … give yourself less time than you think you’ll need. The pressure can help you to focus. Naturally, you need to avoid any flex time you have assigned for this to work.

What methods do you use to keep yourself focused and productive? Do any of these approaches sound like something you want to try? Let us know in the comments!

For the technology solutions that can also help you improve your practical productivity, talk to us! Give us a call at (604) 513-9428 to discuss your options.

To do so, we’ll be discussing the concept of cloud security, which is pretty much what it sounds like: security concerning the data, infrastructures, and applications that are hosted in the cloud. In many ways, these considerations aren’t all too different than the ones that would be involved with your local IT. When really boiled down, any security you have implemented should meet a few benchmarks:

• Assurance that data/solutions are safe
• You have a transparent view of your security’s status
• Instant alerts to unusual events and issues
• These events and issues can be followed back to their source and addressed

Of course, we don’t mean to say that everything is identical between the security of your local infrastructure and a cloud system. We just wanted to establish this as the foundation of any security you implement.

Demystifying Cloud Security

By its nature, cloud computing can be intimidating, especially when you start to consider how it has impacted the business technology landscape. Fortunately, many of the security considerations that cloud now demands aren’t necessarily huge leaps from what your security should be normally. Let’s walk through a few differences between traditional security and what is required in the cloud.

Different Perimeters to Protect

Consider how data can be protected when it is localized. You can effectively prevent a lot of threats just by preventing access to the area where your data is stored. The cloud makes this significantly more difficult by being so very connected.

However, if you know this moving forward, you can adjust your security to meet these needs. One effective way to do so is to make sure that all data to be stored in the cloud is encrypted, and that access to the cloud itself is protected with multi-factor authentication requirements with the appropriate best practices baked in.

More Advanced Threats

Unfortunately, not even cloud providers are immune to attacks. The development of Advanced Persistent Threats (which you may see referred to as APTs) and other means of breaching data make it difficult to be sure that your data is truly safe. While the jury is still out on how these threats can be overcome, you need to accept the responsibility of keeping up with the practices that can help in the meantime.

Software Challenges

As the cloud relies on software to deliver hosted data, there is an assortment of potential variables that need to be addressed. Therefore, the cloud needs to have security controls in place to address these variables as they present themselves. This is the case whether data is being transported at the time, or if it is filed away.

Coleman Technologies can assist you with your data security needs, as well as assist you with whatever cloud implementation you decide to put into place. To learn more, reach out to us by calling (604) 513-9428.

What is “Blockchain” Anyway?

Blockchain is defined as a distributed ledger system that creates a single encrypted and unalterable file whenever any transaction is made to help preserve its continuity. As every device involved in the blockchain helps to store it, the blockchain itself is unprecedentedly transparent. This allows business systems to be both more accountable, and secure.

Accountability

Let’s return for a moment to how the blockchain works—each time a transaction of any kind is made, be it adding new data or revising some that already existed, a new “node” (think of it as another link in the chain) is created to document the transaction and encrypt it. As a result, you wind up with a running record of reliable data. As you might imagine, this offers itself quite well to many industries.

Banking and Financial Services

With the importance of the record-keeping that these organizations maintain being so apparent, it only makes sense that blockchain is used to automatically keep track of where funds are being moved.

Real Estate

Real estate processes are notoriously intricate and confusing. Blockchain provides an option that could make the entire experience of buying and selling real estate much more transparent.

Wills and Inheritances

Tragically, wills and inheritances can be very hotly contested, and their veracity may be called into question. The transparent and immutable logs of the blockchain could eventually lead to many fights being averted in the future.

Voting

Elections now face more scrutiny than ever before, as votes are counted, recounted, contested, and recounted again. Using the blockchain could help to eliminate most challenges and issues that call the integrity of an election into question.

Supply Chain Management and Logistics

Managing all the moving pieces of a supply chain could be made much simpler by integrating blockchain technology. Goods and resources could be easily tracked and directed where they need to go, with confirmation when they arrive at their destination.

Security

Communications have gone digital, with unprecedented numbers sent and received each day. As more people than ever rely on these communications for a variety of reasons, data sharing needs to be more reliably secure. The blockchain is well suited for this task, as each transfer of data remains fully transparent, while the data contained in the nodes remains undisclosed. This technology can even be safely used to hold parties to their shared agreements by facilitating proper compensation once certain requirements are met. These capabilities will likely lead to advancements in:

Education

Consider how many files any educational institution needs to maintain and verify, and the amount of personal information shared in these records. Blockchain makes it so that these paper files are no longer necessary, while also making it easier to verify registration, management, and financial aid-related data.

Healthcare

Any patient who needs to see multiple physicians knows the frustration of working with providers who operate in different healthcare networks. However, healthcare has a good track record with embracing innovative technology solutions. Introducing blockchain could ultimately lead to self-managed healthcare records.

Stock Trading

There are many ways that stock exchange processes could be made better with the assistance of blockchain technologies. Two clear improvements: convenience, and of course security.

Public Records

Many states are still overly reliant on paper documents, which are very easy to alter and otherwise manipulate (never mind steal). Shifting to digital documents that are supported by blockchain could do a lot to reduce fraud, ensure accountability, and generally improve security.

The Internet of Things

IoT devices are overwhelmingly insecure, but if they were decentralized through the blockchain, some of this insecurity could be resolved.

To learn more about blockchain technology, feel free to call Coleman Technologies to discuss it, as well as the options you currently have to leverage for your business. Reach out at (604) 513-9428 today!

How to Minimize General Exposure in the Office

Based on what is currently known about the coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have some recommendations as to how to keep the potential impact of coronavirus to a minimum:

• Encourage employees who are ill to stay home. This will help to minimize the spread of infection within your business. Make sure that your employees are aware of this policy by reiterating it verbally, and by posting notices around the office encouraging them to stay home if under the weather.
  
  Emphasize hygiene and etiquette. Properly stifling coughs and sneezes and keeping hands clean are surprisingly effective ways to keep your workplace healthier. Rather than using their hands to catch a cough or sneeze, your employees should use a tissue or--if unable to do so--use the upper part of their sleeve.
  
  The CDC recommends that tissues and alcohol-based hand sanitizer should be made readily available. Make sure your employees are washing their hands with soap and water for the recommended 20 seconds.
  
  

• Engage in keeping the workplace clean. There is a chance that coronavirus (and other illnesses) could be spread via infected surfaces. Make sure that all surfaces that are touched frequently, like desks, workstations, and doorknobs, are kept sanitized. Provide your employees with disposable wipes so they can proactively disinfect these surfaces before use.

If you find that one of your employees is confirmed to have been infected with coronavirus, make sure that you inform their coworkers of their possible exposure while still maintaining the confidentiality that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires. These employees and those who are living with a sick family member should assess their risk of exposure using the CDC’s guidelines.

Coronavirus as a Cyberthreat

Unfortunately, coronavirus will also require you to also keep an eye on your network security, particularly if you operate within the healthcare industry. Hackers and cybercriminals have taken advantage of the widespread concern that the disease has caused. For example:

• Scammers have phished healthcare providers with updates that appear to have come from the World Health Organization or hospitals local to their area, but actually introduce keyloggers into their systems.
• Those involved in the medical supply chain have been targeted with emails referencing the coronavirus that install malware to steal information.
• Ransomware has been introduced into consumer systems by promising recipients of an email information about COVID-19’s spread.

While the current climate may not make it easy, these emails and other threat vectors can be overcome through the same best practices that foil other cyberthreats. In addition to comprehensive digital protections, training your employees to spot these threats will be crucial.

Of course, you should also maintain a comprehensive backup in case you need to recover from a successful attack.

How to Maintain Productivity with Your Team at Home

With today’s technology, sending an employee home sick doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be sacrificing that employee’s productivity. We now have many ways that your team can work effectively from home, still contributing to your organizational agenda without exposing their coworkers to their illness.

Equipping Your Employees

Remote access solutions, paired with virtual private networking technology, can allow your employees to securely continue their work from home, safely accessing the applications and data their tasks require through an encrypted connection. As collaboration will certainly be necessary, you will want to be sure that your employees are also equipped with the communication tools that facilitate this collaboration as well.

Network Protections

You will also want to thoroughly secure your network infrastructure to help prevent threats like phishing attacks and other methods from being successful… as well as preparing for a potential breach or emergency with data backups and disaster recovery policies and procedures (including contact information for your employees) to help mitigate a worst-case scenario.

Employee Awareness

Finally, make sure your employees are on the lookout for any suspicious activity that could be a cybercriminal’s attempt at using the coronavirus as a means to an end. Not only should your employees know how to spot these attempts; they should also know the proper procedures for reporting and handling them.

Is the coronavirus scary? At this point, it is safe to say that it is, but does it have to interrupt your business operations entirely? Not if you are properly prepared.

For more assistance in preparing your business for any kind of disaster, reach out to the professionals at Coleman Technologies by calling (604) 513-9428.

What is COVID-19?

COVID-19, better known as coronavirus, is a respiratory illness that first appeared in Wuhan, China, and was reported in the United States on January 21st, 2020.

As of March 3rd, 12 states have reported 60 total cases of coronavirus and six confirmed deaths, with no vaccines or specific antiviral treatments for the illness. Symptoms of the virus include fever, shortness of breath, and a cough, while those with complications from the virus can experience pneumonia in both lungs, failure of multiple organs, and death. 

VoIP Allows You to Do More

While at its core, a VoIP system is a telephone system, it allows for many more options. Since it uses an organization's available bandwidth rather than a dedicated RJ-11 connection, there are more dynamic options available. It may raise the cost of the solution a bit, but VoIP can come with instant messaging, conferencing, and call archival built in.  

VoIP is More Secure

VoIP is far more secure to use than the traditional landline because it is easier to secure a digital connection than it is to secure an analog one. The use of encryption protects all information transmitted through the system.

VoIP is More Portable

This is a big benefit. VoIP solutions can be linked to mobile applications. This means that any smartphone can become a work phone, and can be linked to the same number as the user’s business phone. This allows people to get calls on their phone without having to give over their personal number. This is either done through forwarding or by installing a simple app on the phone.

VoIP Offers Automated Client Interaction

A VoIP system can be configured to support an entire business. There are integrated automated menus that can offer a lot of value by directing calls to voicemails, alternative members of your team, and allowing employees to avoid distractions and not neglecting their incoming calls. Call forwarding, parking, and many more options can be tied to a VoIP account for additional costs.

VoIP is a technology solution for all of your business’ calling needs. Call Coleman Technologies today at (604) 513-9428 for more information about VoIP and you can get the telephone system you’ve always wanted for your business.