When your IT team logs onto a server, the server’s screen looks similar to what you would experience looking at a Windows workstation’s screen. The display on the server’s screen would remind you of your desktop or laptop computer’s screen.

Your IT professionals can remove this desktop experience and produce significant benefits. Your servers need less storage space, are faster, need fewer security patches, and are more reliable. Additionally, there is a smaller attack surface for attackers to exploit. Those benefits will help you, as an executive, sleep better at night.

Your IT team will install the server’s core software, and omit all of the programs that produce the desktop experience.

For your IT team to control and configure the server, they can use a server manager program that runs on their computers. Your IT team might use Windows PowerShell or even Project Honolulu too.

Please forward this message to fellow executives who want to make changes that will help them sleep better at night and, in the future, save money too.

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First, IT Professionals need to know that the boss is always right. If the executives say that they do not want to use passwords, then that settles it. Of course, IT Pros should make recommendations, but let the boss decide. IT Pros need to document the executive’s decisions, especially decisions that go against what the IT Pro feels is best, and move on. They should not bring them up again. If bosses feel unsupported in the decisions they make, the IT Pro will soon be looking for a new job.

Second, bosses get frustrated when they feel a project is moving slower than they believe it should move. It is necessary to keep them up to date on existing projects. Otherwise, the boss may decide to hire someone else that they perceive as being able to bring more value and get things done. IT Pros need to send the boss a monthly, if not weekly, bulleted list of completed, current, and planned projects; even small ones. If the boss even hints that they would like to know more about a project’s progress, the IT Pro needs to jump on reporting that. A verbal conversation is often faster and much more effective than an IT Professional writing and re-writing a long defensive email.

Third, IT Pros need to ask the boss how they can improve their service to the organization. They need to ask how IT fits into the big picture, and ask how they can support the business strategies. They need to listen and do what the boss says to do. They need to have that conversation every month or so. They need to ask themselves what they would want if they were in the boss’s shoes.

Many IT Pros are confident that, and maybe they are, so valuable to an organization that they would never be fired. The only thing that feeling guarantees is that there will be no advance warning to the termination, because the executives of an organization don’t want to risk any kind of retaliation from an IT Professional that feels so indispensable.

Forward this to all IT Professionals that you care about.

The post IT Professionals: 3 Things IT Professionals Must Do to Avoid Being Fired appeared first on Foster Institute.

The secret is to use Windows 8 but make it look like you are using Windows 7. Everybody’s happy, you have the huge power, speed, and security of Windows 8. Maybe nobody will ever know you upgraded.

Be sure to have your IT pro go into that “tiled interface” one time, right-click the programs you want to use, and choose “pin to taskbar.”

Remember to ask your IT Pro to start by upgrading one computer to Windows 8, iron out any bugs – and there may be no bugs, and then your IT Pro can upgrade the rest of your machines.

Use this tip to reduce the resistance your users may have about moving from Windows 7 to Windows 8.

Please post your comments below…

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