The IoT—the Internet of Things—is a fascinating technology, as it exemplifies just how much can be accomplished when Internet connectivity is used to augment the capabilities of otherwise “dumb” devices. Unfortunately, as fascinating as it is, the IoT is also infamous for its security issues…a reputation that attackers have been perpetuating as these devices grow more common.

When your technology gets older it has a tendency to get less effective. This can be a major roadblock to organizational productivity, and have devastating effects on your business. These include major downtime events and overwhelming inefficiency. Let’s take a look at some ways that you know that it’s time to focus on reinvestment. 

Each year, we take some time and take a look at the most interesting new smartphones that are being released. Over the past few years, fewer companies are making smartphones and throughout the whole industry, innovation has seemed to slow. Whether this is a result of rigid market dynamics, supply shortages, or the extraordinary costs it takes to manufacture and source components, it has taken some of the largest technology companies in the world—such as Amazon, LG, and HTC—out of the market and presented limited opportunities for other global technology leaders such as Microsoft, Sony, and Nokia. 

Every office has that one person that doesn’t seem to care that they are working in a room with other people. You know the type: They have day-old food on their desk. There are papers and other unnecessary items strewn about the desktop. Things are sticky and smell strange. The funny part is they seem comfortable with that mess. They may be the only one that is. In this week’s blog, we discuss the benefits of keeping your workspace clean.

Sustainability is a hot topic nowadays, from how we conduct ourselves in our personal lives to how businesses go about their respective business. If this is something that you want to promote in your business, we figured that the day before Earth Day was as good a day as any to share some of the ways you can do so.

Technology fatigue is the mental grinding that comes with the overwhelming use of technology in our lives. Many people in the workforce haven’t had to use technology as much as they do today and the ever-growing demand for technology in business creates problems for employees (and therefore businesses). This week, we thought we’d discuss the truth behind technology fatigue and how individuals can do a better job of not getting burnt out from tech.

The thing about technology is that, regardless of how miraculous or otherworldly it may seem upon its introduction, it can quickly become so very familiar to us. Hard as it may seem to believe, someday (maybe even soon), things like ChatGPT and other bleeding-edge technologies will seem typical, perhaps even humdrum.

The increase in wearable technology that you see coming into your business has substantially increased over the past couple of years. People are doing a better job of tracking their health and using wearable technology to improve their work lives. This creates a problem for the business because every single device brought onto a network is a potential threat and threats have to be managed. Let’s take a look at how people are using wearable technology and what you can do in response to this trend. 

We’re no strangers to talking about artificial intelligence. It’s been a somewhat regular topic on our blog and in our newsletters. AI is interesting—it’s sort of this odd technology that for many years, the average person didn’t know what to do with it. Now, it feels like AI is the dominating new technology of the year. What happened? Will it stick? Can a business take advantage of it? 

Critical thinking skills are universally useful to have, particularly in the business setting, and especially when it comes to your business’ information technology management. Let’s discuss how these skills benefit your business, and how you can work to foster them.

The blockchain has been a hot topic in the past few years, if only tangentially. With all the buzz around cryptocurrencies, it can be easy to forget about the underlying technology that powers it and its other applications. Let’s pivot to these other applications for a moment and discuss how the blockchain could potentially be involved with security needs at some point in the future.

The keyboard that you may very well have used to access this blog is, in a word, gross. While we aren’t going to go into too much detail about what makes keyboards so grimy, we did want to outline how you can easily clean up your keyboard every so often, just to make sure that it’s A: more hygienic, and B: less likely to malfunction at some point.

For a long time, businesses that didn’t have any cybersecurity problems would never consider investing in additional cybersecurity tools. The decision-makers of these companies simply didn’t find it necessary; and many of them had a point (until they didn’t). Today’s threat landscape is much, much more complex than it was only a few short years ago and therefore businesses need to make a point to set up the security tools that will help them secure their network and infrastructure from threats. Let’s take a look at some strategies that work to help modern businesses secure their digital resources:

It’s no secret that technology is a big part of today’s business, but how much money should your organization really expect to spend on your IT? Of course you need to stay competitive, but can you justify dropping huge chunks of capital on solutions that may or may not come with a visible ROI, or is that total cost of ownership (TCO) going to affect your ability to spend elsewhere? This month, we’ll talk about what technology your organization definitely needs, and go into the corresponding cost of that technology.

Business has changed dramatically over the past decade. Costs have been rising. That means that businesses, just like everyone else, have to pay more for everything. This creates a situation where they may need to scale back on some things and not be as aggressive as was once possible. One way that most businesses can get around this is by investing in collaboration. Luckily for them, technology has been getting more collaborative. Let’s take a look at three ways collaboration has found its way into business.

It’s a technology-driven world. We are surrounded by technology all the time, and some people literally couldn’t do what they do without it. More than would admit, anyway. So with all this technology all over the place, are we happier? This is a big question. Far bigger than we have time for in this blog, but we thought we would unpack the question a little bit and discuss some elements of this new technology-run society that can give us some insight into people’s feelings.

All jobs have aspects of them that are simply dull or unengaging. After all, nothing can be exciting all the time. This week we wanted to focus on these rote tasks and what you can do to make them less of an impact on your time and job fulfillment. Turns out, the key to solving this issue stems from technology, specifically the ability to automate said tasks.

If you become the victim of a hacking attack today, how would the hackers go about it? Would they try to find vulnerabilities in your network and infrastructure? You need to do what you can to answer the questions surrounding the strength of your existing network and infrastructure so you don’t have to deal with potential hacks. This month, we will talk about one really great way to find out where your security is light: by getting a penetration test completed on your business’ IT.

There’s no denying that the economic forecast at the moment is a bit bleak, with murmurings of a recession growing louder by the day. As this situation develops, many companies are likely seeking out opportunities to trim the fat. Despite this, however, we anticipate that artificial intelligence will actually see a bit of an uptick. Let’s go over why.

For the average business, the database plays a big role. How big of a role? Your business won’t function the way you want it to function without it. In order to manage your databases correctly, you need a solid database management system (DBMS). This week, we thought we would discuss the DBMS and how it works to assist your business computing.