Coleman Technologies Blog

Support for these two titles ends on January 14, 2020. If your business has neglected to upgrade away from the technology after Microsoft ended mainstream support in 2015, time is finally running out in which to do so. It is important to have a strategy to move to a more up-to-date operating system. By not completing a full migration away from these titles your business will not have the protection it needs to keep your company’s data secure. Vulnerabilities will begin to present themselves pretty quickly and you will see your ability to maintain data security wane. Let’s take a look at these titles, and what needs to happen to successfully remain secure.

Windows 7

Windows 7 is one of Microsoft’s most popular operating systems of all time, and is still used by millions of people from all over the world. In fact, it wasn’t until last December that Windows 10, Micrsosoft’s latest OS, passed Windows 7 in number of users. The software giant has started a major ad campaign to inform people of how to upgrade away from Windows 7 as soon as possible.

The most obvious option is to upgrade your business’ workstations to Windows 10. Windows 10 is constantly supported, offers many features that Windows 7 is incapable of, and features a profile that isn’t significantly heavier so most systems that you have will run Windows 10 effectively.  If you are in a position where you need to move over a lot of workstations, our consultants can help you calculate the best route forward. 

Another option Microsoft provides is called Microsoft 365. This cloud-based service deliberately targets the millions of Windows 7 users as it doesn’t require huge capital costs to move to Windows 10. At Coleman Technologies, we can help you determine the pricing of a migration either to new onsite infrastructure or a hosted solution. Either way, your business will need to have upgraded before January 14, 2020.

Windows Server 2008 R2

In addition to Windows 7, in January 2020, Microsoft will be retiring the entire Windows Server 2008 R2 suite. If your business utilizes Windows Server 2008 R2 for data and application hosting, you will need to have a plan in place to upgrade prior to the end of support date. Just like Windows 7, Microsoft will stop delivering security patches to Windows Server 2008 R2, meaning that there is a very real possibility that your organization could go without security updates if you fail to upgrade.

Microsoft has since released two new versions of the Windows Server software, as well as implemented a cloud-based option in Azure. It might be able to help you save money with cloud-based server management, but you won’t know for sure if it’s the right call to make without talking to the IT professionals at Coleman Technologies. Call us today to find out more at (604) 513-9428.

Don’t worry… we don’t expect you to try and work while you’re running as fast as you can. What we mean by “sprinting” is that you commit to focused, intensive work for a period of time, followed by a shorter period of rest.

The Science Behind Sprinting

The human body has certain capabilities, and is subject to certain limits. The way we are designed, we are meant to spend our time either spending or accumulating energy. These cycles are known as ultradian rhythms. Using our brains counts against this energy.

As a result, our focus is limited to somewhere between 90 and 120 minutes. Research indicates that, in order to perform well again after that, you need to take a 20-to-30 minute break so your brain can recover.

A sprinting methodology fits this pattern to a ‘T.’ By narrowing your focus to a single one of your tasks and blocking out distractions, you are better able to commit yourself to your goal. Once you hit the end of your sprint, you spend your recovery time refocusing yourself and preparing for your next foray into intense productivity.

Various authors and researchers have provided anecdotal evidence as to the efficacy of this approach:

• While writing The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working: The Four Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance, Tony Schwartz used 90-minute blocks of time to break up his day, only writing for a daily total of four and a half hours. Six months later, his book was finished.
• In 1993, performance researcher Anders Ericsson discovered via a study that the most skilled young violinists all followed a similar practice schedule: three 90-minute sessions of morning practice, with breaks in between.
• In his book, Schwartz tells the story of how Leonardo Da Vinci would put down his paints while working on The Last Supper and daydream for hours at a time. When he was questioned about it, Da Vinci is said to have replied, “The greatest geniuses accomplish more when they work less.”

Why and How to Leverage Sprinting

One of sprinting’s biggest benefits is something that many people are very familiar with: the feeling of being in “the zone.” It’s that time when you are fully committed to your task at hand, and are enjoying yourself as you apply yourself. Psychologists refer to this as “flow.”

One psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, has committed his career to studying flow. As he said in his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, he wrote:

“The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen.”

To make flow happen, sprinting once again fits quite well. Incorporating these patterns into your daily routine will help you to work more productively and ultimately, be more successful in your work.

What methods have you used to boost your productivity? Share some in the comments!

Team Building Benefits

Many modern businesses have employees who don’t always work in the office, instead electing to operate remotely. However, it is important that these employees are still assimilated as a part of your team as a whole. A conferencing solution can allow you to keep your remote employees on the same page as your on-site employees, building camaraderie between coworkers despite any distance between them. The better your team is able to collaborate, the more effective they will be able to be in accomplishing their tasks, as they will have each other as a resource to lean on as needed.

Keep Your Team On-Task

Let’s face it, it can sometimes be hard to be sure that your employees are focused on the task at hand. This is especially true when you can only hear their voice, or see the responses they send back to you. A conferencing solution fixes this difficulty by giving you and your team a visual of each other, keeping everyone involved accountable and engaged.

Increase Your Collaborative Footprint

It wasn’t all that long ago that collaborating with someone a distance away was only possible over the phone or by physically traveling to meet with them. However, collaborative conferencing solutions have taken this distance and shrank it down to effectively nothing. Like the team building benefits we discussed earlier, your team is no longer restricted to one place, or to dealing with exclusively local coworkers, partners, and other resources.

Promote “Face-to-Face” Communication

A sizable portion of communication is non-verbal, which means that your solution needs to account for this balance. More traditional solutions didn’t take this into consideration - or rather, couldn’t. Modern collaboration solutions, on the other hand, allow you to communicate more completely by allowing you to witness these non-verbal cues. 

Conferencing Can Simplify Your Solution Set

Compared to legacy solutions, modern conferencing tools offer a much more comprehensive selection of features. As a result, you can reduce the number of solutions that your operations rely upon, cutting expenses and streamlining your processes. This makes it much easier to find success in communicating with your team, without sinking all of your capital into your solutions.

Coleman Technologies can assist you in establishing the collaboration solution that fits your needs, as well as any other IT implementation your business requires. Learn more by calling (604) 513-9428.

Let’s explore some of the risks that the IoT can present.

The Security Issues of the IoT

The Internet of Things has added utility to many devices, expanding their potential in ways that would otherwise be impossible. This has only been further augmented by the access to personal devices that many employees enjoy through Bring Your Own Device policies.

However, these benefits have come with an assortment of considerable risks alongside them. Devices that are a part of the IoT are notoriously vulnerable to many cyberattacks, which means that they could potentially be used as a point of access to your business’ network. From there, a cybercriminal has plenty of opportunities to create issues - whether that’s by stealing your data, hijacking your devices to be used in a botnet, or whatever their goal may be.

This problem is only exacerbated by the tendency for IoT devices to go without updates, whether through the negligence of the manufacturer or of the consumer. Without these updates, security flaws go unresolved, and the devices are thereby left vulnerable.

Consider how many devices are now manufactured that connect to the Internet. Smart watches and other wearables, smart speakers and televisions - really, almost anything with the word “smart” in its name - we have more or less surrounded ourselves with the Internet of Things. This includes the time we spend in the workplace, despite many of these devices not being visible on the network to IT. As a result, it has become almost impossible to track all the devices that attach to a network, which has developed into a new issue for businesses.

Shadow IoT

Thanks to the public demand for convenience and advanced functionality, more and more IoT devices are being manufactured all the time. If any of these devices makes its way into your office without the knowledge and approval of IT, you have a shadow IoT problem.

If you do, you aren’t alone.

In 2017, 100 percent of organizations surveyed by an IoT security firm were found to have consumer IoT devices on the network that qualified as shadow IoT. Another report, from 2018, stated that one-third of United States, United Kingdom, and German companies have over 1,000 shadow IT devices on their networks every day. Combine this with the security shortcomings discussed above, and you have a recipe for a cybersecurity disaster.

You may remember the Mirai botnet, which struck back in 2016. This botnet was built up of over 600,000 devices at its peak and focused primarily on IoT devices. Once these devices were identified by Mirai, they would be attacked and infected, adding more computing power to the botnet. Mirai is far from the only example, too… cybercriminals have been known to hack into IoT devices to gain network access, spy and listen in on conversations, and otherwise prove themselves to be a nuisance.

How to Minimize Shadow IoT

Clearly, shadow IoT isn’t a good thing for any organization. There are a few things you can do to help protect your business from the security issues that shadow IoT can cause.

• Accept IoT devices in the workplace. If your employees really want to use one of their devices at work, they’re going to. Instead of shooting down requests to bring in these devices, make it easier for your employees to do so through the proper channels - and make sure your employees are aware of these channels. Openness and cooperation can be effective tools as you try to get your team on the same page you’re on.
• Keep IoT devices separate. To better protect your network, you will want to consider utilizing a dedicated Wi-Fi network for IoT devices, configured to allow them to transmit the information they generate while blocking any incoming calls to them. This will help prevent threats from being transmitted to IoT devices.
• Seek out potential threats. Not all shadow IoT necessarily can be found on an organization’s network, as over 80 percent of the IoT is wireless. This means that you need to be monitoring your wireless signals for shadow IoT devices and networks.

Your business’ security is important - too important to be undermined by an insecure consumer device that was brought in without your knowledge. You need to get out ahead of shadow IoT, as well as the other threats that could do your business harm.

Coleman Technologies can help. Our professionals are well-versed in cybersecurity best practices and how to use them to your benefit. To find out more about what we can do for your business, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

Why Effective Communications are So Critical

There are a few reasons that you want your business’ internal communications to be clear and effective.

Fewer Errors

Miscommunication is rarely a good thing, but in the business setting, it has the potential to be crippling to your operations. If the correct information isn’t shared at the right time, with the right people, productivity will suffer. On the other hand, proper communications can help minimize, or even avoid, many potential workplace errors.

Increased Accountability

When an organization keeps its communications open across the board, it is prone to see an associated increase in companywide accountability. From owner to intern, being responsible for (and being held responsible for) certain milestones in a process keeps each member of a team on-task and motivated.

Improved Teamwork

Naturally, when members of a team communicate properly, they are better able to work cooperatively. As a result, problems often become easier to solve, as ideas may more easily flow and develop. Additionally, potential issues between departments are more easily resolved, preventing interpersonal concerns from affecting the work.

Efficient Problem-Solving

The ability to communicate clearly enables a team to better pool their talents to much more efficiently overcome any issues that may arise. Whether a problem is strategic or technical, having the capability to swiftly solve it will only benefit a business’ operations.

Instant Messaging in the Workplace

Naturally, all of the above outcomes can (and often do) result from the use of an instant messaging application… as long as it’s the right one.

You need to make sure that your chosen solution is intended for business purposes, which means you need to use an enterprise-grade instant messaging application. In addition, you also need to be sure that you and your staff are properly leveraging your solution. Try to encourage the following practices and behaviors in your staff to ensure that your instant messaging solution doesn’t turn into an instant messaging problem:

• Keep it in check. You don’t want a solution that is meant to be a productivity booster to actually harm it. There’s a very real difference between your staff properly leveraging instant messaging capabilities, and aimlessly chatting all day. Encourage your staff to keep their conversations pertinent to the workplace and the task at hand (at least as much as possible).
• Remain professional. Again, conversations on your instant message solution should be far and away focused on workplace matters. It is important that your staff knows this, and resists using the solution to share jokes, GIFs, or memes excessively. Moderation is key.
• Don’t rely too much on it. Not all conversations are appropriate for an instant messaging platform, especially those that contain sensitive or overly complicated details. Some conversations are better shared in person, or in an email, where lengthier messages can be sent.

Have you ever utilized instant messaging in the workplace? Share your experience with us in the comments!