professionals Archives - Foster Institute

How to Cause IT to Fail

Mike Foster — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 06:00:19 +0000

Many organizations reward IT professionals for solving IT problems. That is not only ineffective, it is counterproductive. Become aware of what you are incentivizing IT to do.

From now on, when an IT professional solves a problem, instead of saying “Good job for fixing that” ask “what could you have done to prevent this?” That will refocus IT on what is most important—preventing problems before they even happen. This involves strategy, not just tactics.

Try it—you’ll see what I mean.

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Executives, Grab the Reins of IT!

Mike Foster — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 06:00:10 +0000

If you aren’t careful, your organization’s IT capabilities may fall behind your competitors. You may wonder what happened. Avoid being on the “bleeding edge” buying every technology as soon as it is released, but your IT advisors may be holding you back out of their own best interests.

Take charge of IT. Many IT departments, including outsourced IT support companies, by nature, are focused on keeping systems up and running, on avoiding problems, and keeping your existing technology running. When you need to upgrade your IT systems, they generally try to stretch your existing technology grow with your business.

They will often avoid changes that involve making big changes in the way your IT systems function. They are already “too busy” with other tasks taking care of your system the way it is; even if your system is terribly out of date.

Often, IT professionals are more focused on tactics than on strategy. This is exacerbated when you reward them after they “fix” what is “broken.”

For example, workstation virtualization technologies might help your business tremendously—or not. It is sure worth finding out, and you may need to bring in a workstation virtualization specialist for the implementation.

Guess what else: IT professionals, at least the ones confident about their abilities, appreciate your taking an active role in making strategic decisions. Take the reins.

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Al-Qaeda Can Wage Cyber-Warfare Against You

Mike Foster — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 06:00:46 +0000

Al-Qaeda does not need IT gurus in order to attack US business’ and the governments. All they need to do is buy IT weapons for their arsenal.

IT professionals invest a lot of time working with systems. Some IT professionals, either accidentally or on purpose, discover a “weak link” in an operating system or application. Terrorists will pay “big bucks” to be able to exploit those vulnerabilities. That means terrorist organizations can launch attacks without needing advanced IT knowledge.

There is a “middle-person” known as a broker. Brokers pay the IT professional and then sell the exploit information to the highest bidder—which could be a foreign government or a terrorist organization. With pricing in the millions, you can see why IT professionals would be tempted to sell to a broker.

The “high resale value” exploits are the ones that the vendors such as Microsoft, Adobe, Google, etc. do not know about yet. These are called “Zero Day” exploits since attackers can launch attacks knowing the vendors have not yet released patches to prevent the attacks.

For more information, Forbes magazine ran two stories that you can either Google or use these links:

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2012/0409/technology-hackers-government-security-zero-day-salesmen.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/03/23/shopping-for-zero-days-an-price-list-for-hackers-secret-software-exploits/

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Do you want to save 100’s of hours this year?

Mike Foster — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 04:00:36 +0000

How many times do you receive an email and need to phone the person back, but the person does not include their phone number in their email signature line?

I’ve been at work for 2 hours today and returned around 15 phone calls in response to email messages I received.

Since many of them are new prospects, they aren’t in CRM yet. I probably wasted an average of one minute looking up each person’s phone number since it was not in their email signature line. That easily translates into an hour of wasted time EVERY DAY.

When I see an e-mail signature with a phone number, I rejoice! Are you willing to set the example?

Does your phone receive email? If the person put their phone number in their email signature line, you can click the email to place the phone call.

Set an example by setting up your automatic email signature line to include your phone number. When you email someone, they can just tap on your phone number in your email signature line to call you.

I receive so many email messages that say, “Mike, call me!” and there is no number to click on. I can look up their number, but it would be so much faster if it was included in their email signature line.

Please post your comments on this blog.

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What are your favorite apps?

Mike Foster — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 04:00:37 +0000

Here are a list of favorite applications created from polls of CEO groups. You may wish to try out some of these yourself, and I will GREATLY appreciate you responding with YOUR favorite apps—especially those you use in business. It is okay if they are in the list already—I’m keeping score of how many people like them.

Apple, Android—all apps are welcome. These are some of the applications other senior level executives like:

Around Me
Bestparking
Camera
CNN
DBM with Family
Doc Scanner
Doc Scanner Great Quality
Docs To Go
Documents To Go
Evernote
Fire 2
Flixter
Words with Friends
Glipse
Google Voice
GoToMyPC
Group Chat
GroupMe
Harvard Business Review
Hipmunk
Next Gen of Kayak
Intellicast

Logmein for iPad
Map my Run
Movie Phone
Notepad
NPR App
NPR Podcasts
Oprah
Pandora
Pulse
Slacker Radio
SlingBox
SugerSync
Task thing
TED
TripIt
Tunein
Vocatel
Weather and News
Weather Channel App
Yelp
YouSendIt

Please post your favorite apps on this blog.

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Big benefits of using the cloud

Mike Foster — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 04:00:11 +0000

There are major benefits for executives to consider about the cloud.

The most important include your cloud provider doing the following:

Making backups of the data you host with them.
Installing patches to the applications they provide you.
Performing upgrades to their software and provide business continuity solutions to prepare for when disaster strikes their service.
Blocking spam for you if you are using hosted e-mail.

Generally with cloud services you and your users can access the cloud applications from practically anywhere using practically any device that has a browser—even a smartphone.

Many cloud services allow month-to-month contracts and they also offer instant scalability so you can add or remove employees/users anytime you like. This means your fees are adjusted accordingly and instantly as your number of users dynamically increases and decreases.

The next two posts will address both cautions and dangers of using the cloud.

Please post your comment on this blog.

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Build a better firewall?

Mike Foster — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 04:00:30 +0000

Your IT professionals can protect you even more than they are now.

In the experience of auditing, most organizations know to use a DMZ that functions as a buffer zone between your internal network and the public Internet.

Sometimes it is even better to have a buffer zone in-between your local network and the DMZ. In other words, for traffic to get into your network, the traffic will have to get past at least three firewalls.

Since this blog post is directed towards an executive level audience, I’ll invite IT professionals to contact me for more details. And, for any of you who are interested, click here to download a diagram that provides both a clear visual and also the details you will find helpful.

Please post your comments on this blog.

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Cloud computing problems and concerns

Mike Foster — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 04:00:14 +0000

Just how important is “moving to the cloud” for your organization?

Executives who use Dropbox regularly were concerned to learn about a security event at Dropbox. You can read the details here:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/06/dropbox.html

As some of my consulting clients move towards the cloud, others are digging their heels in and refusing to turn loose of their security. They do not want to trust the security of their private data to services, nor are they sure their data will be available when they need it.

Still, some very large organizations are moving to the cloud.

What are your feelings? What applications do you use in the cloud?

Please post your comments on this blog.

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Microsoft’s new management tool

Mike Foster — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 04:00:28 +0000

Microsoft is expected to release Windows Intune later this month. For an expected $10 per month per computer, Intune provides your IT professionals a way to centrally manage your computers.

I promote central management constantly because it is a huge way for your organization to save time, money, and be more secure. It is so much better for your IT professionals to be able to support your users and manage your Microsoft patches no matter where the computers are located. In fact, your IT pros can be anywhere too.

When your organization changes size, since Windows Intune is cloud based, just change your subscription accordingly to instantly support your new computers.

Expect even more of the other main stream companies to offer a similar cloud based management service soon. Click here to discover more about Windows Intune.

Please post your comments on this blog.

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Do you use video on your website?

Mike Foster — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 04:00:08 +0000

In case you haven’t noticed video clips are becoming very important on websites. If your website does not have videos and your competition does you could be missing out.

In fact some users append the word “video” to the end of their searches in search engines. Whether your video is a how-to video, a video showing off your products, or even a funny video, this can attract viewers to build traffic on your site. Video is very important.

Be sure to tag your videos with keywords that will lead people to your products and services. Drawing traffic to your website through videos can make a big difference in your organization’s success in search engines.

Videos don’t have to look super professional either. You can even use videos made with a webcam, a cell phone, or a small camera such as the Flip camera. Even short, one-minute videos on your website can be very helpful. In fact, keeping the videos short can encourage more people to watch them.

Talk to your web design company today and get some videos on your website if they aren’t already there.

Please post your comments on this blog.

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