The Wall Street Journal released an enlightening article entitled “Six Subtle Signs You’re About to Lose Your Job – For Busy and Confident Executives, These Warnings Are Easy to Miss” by Joann S. Lublin.

Like executives, many outsourced IT firms are so incredibly busy that they do not catch the hints that they are about to lose a customer.

Many executives loathe considering the fallout of changing outsourced IT support companies. Sometimes they say, “I don’t want to fire our outsourced IT firm – it is so helpful that they’ve learned how our business works.”

Because outsourced IT firms have their finger on the jugular vein of your business, executives prefer to wait until the last possible moment, after making all the preparations, and sever the relationship without warning.

There are many wonderful outsourced IT firms out there. If you have one, keep them.

Technology is an essential component for most companies, and you must feel confident that you have excellent IT service providers. Moreover, most service providers want to be excellent. As Stephen Covey said, it is a win-win when your service providers exceed your expectations.

Next week, expect 3 questions to ask your service providers in order to see how well they are delivering.

Would you advise every executive you know to tell their outsourced IT firm what they do and do not appreciate about their experiences while working together? Please post your comments below…

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He surprised me when he said that, once a laptop is 18mm thin, users don’t care about having a computer that is thinner than that. Today’s computers are “fast enough” to run applications (except for big servers—they will always need speed). Many applications “run in the cloud” anyway. Additionally the weight is light enough that other priorities take over.

“So what’s more important than thinness,” I asked. He said there are three things that people want, in this order:

First, and this is the big one, is battery life. Users want to maintain the same “thinness” and same light weight, and they want their computer to work for at least 12 hours without needing a charge. Basically, grab the computer in the morning, use it all day at your desk, around the office, at lunch, on a plane, in the hotel, etc. without ever needing to recharge. This might be working and/or playing. Writing letters, working on email, using the Internet, watching videos, using social media, and perhaps even playing games—that is what users want to do all day.

Second, the next lower priority, users want a better screen. This mimics televisions—people always want higher resolution with more vibrant colors. Sure this helps gamers, people who watch videos, and even business users who need the sharpest screens to reduce eye strain and improve the entire work experience.

Third most important, beneath the other two, is “the radio.” Users want to be able to connect their device to the many different flavors of Wi-Fi, have access 4G, and use other budding technologies in the future such as WiMAX which may be replaced by LTE. In today’s world, “being connected” is what it is all about.

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When an executive asks their own IT professionals or service providers for advice, the executive wonders if the IT professional has some kind of “agenda.”

When executives talk to their peers and get advice on technology, keep in mind that they may not fully understand how the same technology they tried can help or hurt your organization’s situation.

A qualified independent third party has no “agenda” other than to help you. Most IT professionals, and even IT vendors, appreciate your choosing to seek advice from the qualified third party since then the IT professional doesn’t feel they have to “convince” you of necessary changes.

Most of the time top-level executives have 20/20 hindsight after security event or IT failure affects an organization. I hear questions like, “Why weren’t the IT professionals prepared—why didn’t they do something to protect us from something like this from happening?” Often the executives are very angry at their IT professionals. Wise ones know to go look in the mirror to see who to blame.

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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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Second, use a long passphrase (known as a pre-shared key or PSK)—up to 64 characters. As of now, to discover your WPA2-AES passphrase, attackers will have to “brute force” your password—but they can make guesses 100,000 times every second. So use a long passphrase that makes no sense to anyone else but you. Don’t share the key with others. Attackers will trick people into giving away the passphrase. If you do share the passphrase with someone such as a guest, change the key when they leave. Your IT professionals can set up WPA2-Enterprise which is even more secure.

And third, hide your access point or, even better, lock it up so nobody can push the reset button to restore factory defaults.

There are other steps as well, but those will get you started and provide a great deal of security.

Please post your comments on this blog.

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The same with sharing data between your local applications. Moving one of your most important applications to the cloud may eliminate the ability to share data with your other applications.

It may be expensive to convert your systems to run in the cloud.

Using a cloud service just adds one more entity to the finger pointing game of “the hardware guy blames the software guy, who blames the cloud provider, who blames the Internet Service Provider” etc.

In the past, it was easy to define the perimeter of your network as existing at your firewall. Everything outside your firewall is “out there” and everything inside your firewall is “in here.” Utilizing cloud services for your private data blurs the delineation.

In the next blog post I’ll focus on the dangers of the cloud.

Please post your comments on this blog.

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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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• Live “in person” presentations by a qualified presenter capture attendees’ attention and will improve their security awareness dramatically more than attending a web meeting.
• It is easy for a qualified presenter to keep attendees’ undivided attention for 90 minutes and increase their security awareness significantly.
• Qualified presenters know how to “read” the audience to know when to speed up or slow down, to use specific people’s names if that person starts to doze off since they were up all night with their newborn baby, etc.
• Require your qualified presenter to use live demonstrations. Nothing can replace “seeing the process in action.”
• Live presentations provide a unique opportunity for attendees to experience the reactions of their peers—and especially the reactions of the mangers they report to.
• Live presentations make it easier for attendees to ask questions and have them answered immediately. Usually when one person asks a question, several other people had the question too, so they benefit from the answer as well.

I’ve presented both online and in person many times. Experience has shown that in almost every case you will have a higher ROI with live training. ROI is measured based on feedback from my clients who say the live presentations dramatically increase user retention and they feel that retention provides the organization with increased protection against social engineering attacks.

Please post your comments on this blog.

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• Provide 60 minutes maximum to help avoid losing attention.
• You can lose attendees’ attention before the meeting even starts.
• Attendees may choose to multi-task during the presentation anyway.
• If you have a qualified presenter, then videotaping a live presentation is generally better than recording a web meeting. Viewers often feel the presenter’s recorded presentation is more interesting than a web meeting.
• Experience with other organizations strongly suggests that your ROI will be better via a live presentation. Users “get it.”
• If you do choose to present a web meeting and/or video recorded live presentation, I suggest you notify the remote attendees ahead of time that they will be required to fill out an answer form (basically a test) afterwards. This may encourage them to pay even more attention during the presentation.

Next time I will focus on using a live presenter as the delivery method.

Please post your comments on this blog.

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Will our kids tell theirs, “When I was young, all we had were iPads and Blackberries?”

It is hard to imagine where technology will be in ten or fifteen years from now.

I’m happy I used calculators, and loved my TI-59C covered with buttons, but I feel reluctant to allow my kids to spend hours and hours using iPads.

As a teen, I learned the resistor color code, designed schematics, etched PC boards, and built fascinating gizmos using integrated circuit chips like the 555 timer. This technology may never be needed again!

Do you allow your kids to use computers and other electronic devices? If so, what limits do you set? Do you monitor their use?

Please post your comments on this blog.

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