cpoturkovic

Christy Poturkovic

cpoturkovic@commprod.com

Infrastructure: The Heart of Your Office Communications Systems

Posted by Christy Poturkovic
Jul29
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In 1982, in the early days of the telecom industry, I sat at a teletype in an office in Indianapolis and programmed a PBX in Columbus, Ohio, over the phone lines, at 300 baud (a recent upgrade from 110, by the way). I’d type a three digit code then several seconds later the system would prompt me for the next code. (For you youngsters out there, 300 baud: 300 bits per second, which is equivalent to 37.5 characters per second, or 6.8 words per second. A 10,000 word file would crawl across the phone lines in 1,470 seconds, or 24.5 minutes! Forget about graphics or video). So maybe it took us all day to program a couple hundred phones, we were just happy to not have to travel to Ohio.  It was amazing and fantastic!

Today if I have to wait a nanosecond for a response from my computer, I’m irritated. How times have changed! Now instead of being a convenience, high speed technology is a requirement. Computers are faster than ever with more storage than we ever imagined we’d need on a personal computer. And the demands increase annually. We want our technology to be more, in fact we expect it, we demand it. Office equipment is upgraded regularly, new technology is implemented, new applications are constantly developed.

But what’s at the heart of all that speed and capability we demand for everyday life? What is it that really enables us to get on the internet and download a video from YouTube, or email a file to a customer across the country, or even to a coworker in the next cube? There’s one element that your entire office communications system is dependent on, whether it’s voice, data, or video. It’s something that can slow down the fastest computer, make the best video unwatchable, even impair a telephone call. It’s something that’s unseen and largely not even thought about, but can bring all your communication to its knees.  The critical component I’m talking about is your cabling infrastructure.

Cabling isn’t sexy, it’s not something IT guys brag about to their friends  -“Hey, we just installed high density CAT6 angled patch panels  in our office”.  But without the proper infrastructure, none of the rest of the components are going to perform the way you want them to. Why? Let’s compare it to the human body. View the cabling that runs throughout your building as the veins and arteries that run throughout your body. What happens if one of your arteries is clogged or too small? Enough blood doesn’t get to your organs causing all sorts of potential problems. The same with your infrastructure. If your cable is unable to carry the volume of data that’s trying to pass through, it causes all sorts of potential problems.

Your cabling infrastructure must be well designed, installed and documented. While downtime is obvious to everyone, degradation in performance often goes undetected. In turn, that can lead to chronic problems that may prevent your company from ever realizing the full potential of your IT strategies. Which can then have a negative impact on your entire business.

This isn’t a challenge that’s going to fix itself. The more users you add, the faster speeds that are demanded, the more applications that are added are just going to compound the problem of an already inadequate infrastructure. Now is the time to plan and implement a structured cabling system into your overall IT strategy.

Important considerations when making decisions about structured cabling:

  1. Since this is a critical component of your overall IT strategy, you want to work with a company who knows what they’re doing! Require the company to have Registered Communications Distribution Designers (RCDD) and certified cabling technicians on staff.
  2. Consider how long you’ll be in the facility. Do you own or lease? Or are you building a new building?
  3. What kind of applications will you be running, today and in the future? In other words, how much bandwidth  do you need now and how much are you likely to need in the future?
  4. Oftentimes cabling decisions are made based on the lowest price. However the lowest initial price may not ultimately result in the lowest total cost of ownership.

The bottom line is infrastructure is probably one of the most long-term business decisions you’ll make with regard to technology. It’s likely to be in your building for many years to come, through numerous upgrades and expansions. So don’t sell yourself short, make sure it’s well designed, implemented and documented.

Workshifting – How the Changing Face of “the Office” Can Expand Your Business

Posted by Christy Poturkovic
Jul21
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Workshifting is a term coined by Citrix Online to define the growing trend of working from anywhere other than a traditional office. To me it’s a more descriptive term than telecommuting, virtual workers, home office or any of the other terms that are regularly used to describe working from somewhere other than “the office”.

Though this concept was introduced three decades ago, it’s a trend that has seen dramatic increases in the last few years. One of the reasons for that is today’s technology makes it so much easier for a remote worker to stay in touch. In the early to mid-1980’s I had a home based office, and in those pre-internet, pre-cell phone days, I was truly an island unto myself. I had a land line with call waiting and an answering machine, a pre-MS Office computer, with a monochrome monitor, and a dot matrix printer, then a few years later I got the most amazing of all office tools (of the day) —– a fax machine! For all practical purposes, I was chained to my office – if I wasn’t there the only thing people could do was leave a message on my answering machine, and the only thing I could do was wait until I returned to my office to deal with everything.

Today however, people can work wherever, whenever they want with the same convenience as if they were sitting in a traditional office. Manufacturers such as Cisco are building solutions that enable employees to have all the capabilities of a “bricks and mortar” office, regardless of where they are physically located.

How feasible is it to have employees working from home or wherever? Very, according to recent surveys.

- 33% of employees said they could do 60% or more of their job from a location outside the office (WorldatWork Telework Trendlines, 2009).

- 72% of employees say flexible work arrangements would cause them to choose one job over another. 37% specifically cite telecommuting. (The Edge Report, 2008 Robert Half International Survey).
Gen Y’ers are more difficult to recruit (as reported by 56% of hiring managers) and to retain (as reported by 64% of hiring managers) but they are particularly attracted to flexible work arrangements. (The Edge Report, 2008 Robert Half International Survey)

- 25% of employers plan to offer telecommuting as an option for retiring Boomers. (2008 Robert Half International Survey)

- 29% have begun offering telecommuting as a way to improve staff retention rates in the last 12 months. (2008 Robert Half International Survey)

What are some of the potential benefits to your business if you start to “workshift” some of your employees?

- Potential reduction in footprint resulting in savings for real estate

- Productivity gains from eliminating day-to-day office distractions

- Eliminating the wear and tear of commuting

- An important business continuity strategy  (consider threats such as swine flu or transit strikes )

- Reducing carbon footprint and energy usage

- Expands the talent pool

Though the technical aspects are easily and cost-effectively addressed,  workshifting isn’t for all companies. Success depends largely on a company’s culture and the willingness to abandon the “I’ve got to see you to manage you” mentality, and instead shifting the focus to outcomes. An individual employee’s self-discipline is also a key factor.

“What makes it doable or not is whether you have a results-based organization,” says Diane Krieman, a senior consultant with human resources consulting firm Hewitt Associates. “Do the managers themselves support it,  and is there role-modeling from the top down?”

The bottom line is, the idea of “the office” is going through some dramatic changes, and in order to stay competitive today, it’s something you may need to consider for your business.


By the way, I finished writing this while I was at the dealership waiting on my car to be serviced – time that otherwise would’ve been wasted.

Saving Your Assets: How to Save Money and Protect Your Small Business with IP Video Surveillance

Posted by Christy Poturkovic
Jul12
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For a small business, knowing what’s happening in your storefront, warehouse, or parking lot at all times can make all the difference in your company’s physical and financial security. In the past, securing your company with video surveillance would have been a daunting, and expensive prospect. But with today’s technology, small businesses can easily and inexpensively implement physical security systems to protect their businesses and employees.

The most common applications for video surveillance systems include:

  • Deterring theft and vandalism in your building or parking lot
  • View arriving or departing guests at office entrances
  • Collecting evidence in the event of theft or vandalism
    • Reduce risk of liability by providing a record of everything that occurs in the workplace
    • Simplify incident investigation by making it easy to jump to any date and time
    • Enhance operational effectiveness by allowing business owners to directly supervise multiple locations from anywhere
    • Add to peace of mind by allowing business owners to receive alerts of any problems and view real-time surveillance video from anywhere
    • Reduce operational costs of supporting separate surveillance and business application networks
    • Improve profitability by providing a tool to understand customer behavior and traffic patterns

An IP video surveillance system operates over the IP network that is already in place and delivers features far beyond what conventional closed-circuit television systems can provide. This also provides tremendous flexibility, ease of installation, and reduces cost.

Cameras: There are a wide variety of high quality, relatively inexpensive cameras today, which provide a lot of flexibility in placement and the areas covered. Business owners can choose camera models with pan, tilt and zoom capabilities. This allows remote monitoring from virtually any angle, providing a cost-effective alternative to deploying multiple fixed cameras. Additionally, some camera models have sensors that can provide excellent image quality even in low light conditions. For ease of installation, there are wireless cameras, or Power over Ethernet (PoE) wired cameras.

Remote accessibility: With an IP video surveillance solution, users can access real-time video from any Internet-connected PC or mobile phone at any time, allowing them to monitor and respond to alarms in real time. They can also receive automatic alerts (including video clips or still images) whenever motion is detected on the premises after hours. Owners can virtually manage the business’s security and  operational efficiency from anywhere, at any time.

Advanced application support: IP based video surveillance solutions include cameras with integrated speaker output and microphone for two-way audio, and input/output ports to support a variety of applications. Customers can link the video surveillance system with door sensors, motion sensors, alarms, lighting systems, phone systems, or virtually any other business system.

Installing an IP video surveillance system can make the difference between saving your assets and risking burglary, vandalism, or employee theft.

Server down? You’ve Just Lost Potential Customers… A Timely and Relevant Article by Rhonda Abrams.

Posted by Christy Poturkovic
Jul5
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I just read an interesting article in USA Today by Rhonda Abrams. Ms. Abrams is president of The Planning Shop, publisher of books for entrepreneurs. She makes some important points about how critical the network is for a small business. Her article was so timely and relevant I thought I’d re-post it in its entirety:

“Pay attention: I’m going to discuss something today that’s critical for your business, but that you probably never think about. Your network. Yes, I know it’s geeky, but stick with me. This is important.

Consider the following scenarios:

• You’re running a small hotel, it’s the week before Memorial Day, and suddenly, your connection to the Internet goes down, and you can’t accept reservations.

• You’re on deadline for a report to your most lucrative client, and suddenly, you can’t send e-mail.

• Your e-commerce store is up and running, but suddenly, you can’t download orders to your shipping clerk or upload payments to your bank.

• You’ve got a critical file to share with a team member who works remotely, but suddenly you can’t access your server.

• You use the Internet to get cheap phone service, and suddenly, you’ve got no dial tone.

Today, the network is a mission critical component for small business. We turn on our machines, and we expect the network to be there. Until it’s not. Then we panic. Worse, we don’t know what the problem is: “It’s the router. It’s the modem. It’s the DSL. It’s the software.”

All I know is that in my business, I just need the network to work. And I need it to ALWAYS work.

That’s why networking giant Cisco is on a mission. The corporation known for enterprise-level networking equipment — all the dull stuff like routers, switches, hubs and the like — has created an entire group within Cisco to serve companies with fewer than 100 employees.

I recently visited their Small Business Technology Group, (SBTG) which fills more than a large building in Milpitas, Calif. Their task: develop new products and services especially for small companies to give those who run small companies the technologies we need to build and run competitive businesses. And, make sure those technologies work together seamlessly, all the time.

“When you get to the point when you realize your connection to the network is critical, then it’s important that it’s dependable, reliable,” said Ian Pennell, senior vice president, SBTG. “You don’t have to tinker with it.”

“The killer app of the Internet is the Internet,” said Pennell. And that will only be more true as we increasingly use Web-based services for our bookkeeping, payroll, contact management. “The heart of Cisco is all about connecting everything to everything on the network.”

You may not realize it, but your network now is probably built on a patchwork of products. Cisco’s goal is to have everything integrated. “Now, you may have four-to-eight different vendors,” explained Pennell. That makes the chances of problems greater.

Take me: I just walked into our server room. We have a modem, router, switch, hub, backup system. All from different companies. And mine is a simple network. No wonder it goes down about once a month. That doesn’t have to be the case.

“It just works,” that’s Cisco’s value proposition, according to Rick Moran, Cisco’s small business vice president of marketing. According to Moran, Cisco is integrating products enabling small businesses to:

1. Connect — get on, and stay on, the network with stuff like routers, switches, wireless access

2. Secure— both their data, with firewalls and backup, and their physical property, with products like surveillance equipment

3. Communicate— using telephony, video, collaboration tools and more.

The goal: make all these products work together seamlessly, easily, reliably.

Cisco understands that most small business owners and managers aren’t going to build or manage their networks themselves. They’re going to turn to a technology provider — someone who knows about all that geeky gear. That’s why Cisco has created their partner network — to make it easier for small businesses to find qualified technology help. Cisco is also offering, for a limited time, 0% financing on their equipment for small business.

Your network connection is like your plumbing. If your home plumbing goes out, it’s an inconvenience. But if your plumbing goes out at your restaurant, you can’t do business. At home, lose your Internet connection for a couple hours, go without surfing the Web. At the office, even a couple of hours may mean you lose a customer, miss a deadline.

The network IS your business. Pay attention.”

Here’s a link to the article: http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/columnist/abrams/2010-03-19-networks-key-for-small-business_N.htm?POE=click-refer

Can You See Me Now? Leveraging Video in Your Small Business

Posted by Christy Poturkovic
Jun30
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Are you looking for ways to make your remote employees part of the team? Or wonder how you can add a more personal feel to meetings with clients whose office is hundreds of miles away? Are you trying to reduce travel expenses and save time? Try adding video to your next conference call.

With the explosion of IP based video options, it’s easier and more cost effective than ever. You no longer have to have a boardroom with tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, but can easily add video telephony or web-based services without a lot of capital investment.

Here are some of the benefits:

1) Video gives your business a more professional image and allows you to meet a higher level of business expectation. Not only does it provide face to face communication, the ability to easily share any type of information results in faster decision making; bringing products or services to market quicker; and enabling you to stay ahead of your competitors.

2) It’s cost-effective and convenient. With sky-rocketing travel costs, video conferencing makes more sense than ever. In addition to saving travel expenses, productivity increases bring about an intangible value.

3) Video conferencing has grown beyond a time and cost savings, it’s become a business opportunity and a strategic advantage. It can be used to easily and conveniently reach a large and geographically diverse audience. Meetings can even be recorded for later playback.

4) It provides a better way to scale resources with limited availability, such as subject matter experts and executives.

The improvements in, and increasing accessibility of, video conferencing technology, in conjunction with an increasingly mobile and geographically dispersed workforce, will cause video conferencing use to continue to grow. The research firm Gartner predicts revenues to grow from $7 million in 2008 to more than $200 million by 2015.

In today’s business climate, the question is no longer if a business can afford video conferencing, but whether they can afford not to use it.

9 Ways to Stop Irritating Your Customers with Your Business Phone System!

Posted by Christy Poturkovic
Feb22
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Technology is a beautiful thing and it can help your company be more efficient, productive, organized and profitable – BUT it can also alienate your customers.

Think of all the times you’ve called the doctor’s office, the cable company, insurance claims, car dealers, etc.  I’m sure you’ve seen hundreds of examples of irritating technology.  Don’t be tempted to do the same thing to your customers. If you follow the tips outlined below, you’ll be able to avoid the annoying pitfalls that plague so many other companies:

  1. Your automated attendant is the “front door” to your company. Make sure it’s user friendly. The first place to start is with the person who does all the recordings. Choose someone with a pleasant and friendly voice.  I don’t mean “commercial quality”, just not a whiny, nasal or monotone voice.  It presents a negative image.
  2. Don’t even think about trying to route every possible call type that comes in (for example, press 1 for….press 5 for…..press 9 for…..).  People don’t have that long of an attention span and by the time the 4th choice is offered, they’ve stopped listening and forgot which option to pick. Choose the top 2 or 3 things that people call for and route those.
  3. DO NOT provide lengthy broadcast messages for your greeting. When someone calls your company they are prepared to talk, not listen, so chances are they aren’t even hearing the information you’re trying to provide anyway. Besides that, it’s boring, it’s irritating and people don’t want to waste their time listening to it, especially if that isn’t what they called about in the first place!
  4. If your company gets a lot of repeat callers, try to avoid changing your menu all the time. Repeat callers learn the short cuts and when you change them all the time, you’re just making it harder for them to conduct business with you.
  5. ALWAYS provide a way for callers to exit your automated attendant or voice mail to reach a live person. Maybe none of the options you’ve offered on your menu will solve their problem, and sometimes callers really do need to talk to someone right now, so give them a way to transfer to a real live human being, even if they have to wait in queue first.
  6. If you’ve implemented technology that expedites call routing and handling by having customers enter information (phone number, account number, etc.) before the call is transferred to an agent, then make sure it works properly so that when the call is answered, the agent has the requested information and the customer doesn’t have to repeat it. Don’t waste their time!
  7. Don’t make callers give you their name, rank and serial number just to make an appointment (think doctor’s offices, field services companies).   If I’m a new patient/client/customer, I first want to find out if you’ve got a date that works for me, I don’t want to give you all my pertinent information before I even find out if I’m going to see you.
  8. If a caller has to wait in queue before being answered, let them know an expected wait time, so they can decide if they want to wait or not. Don’t force them into voice mail or to call back. And if they do choose to wait, please provide something for them to listen to so they know they haven’t been disconnected. What it is doesn’t matter as much as that it not be repetitive. If a caller has been on hold five minutes and has listened to the same message that’s only 30 seconds long repeated 10 times, it gives them the perception of waiting much longer. Also, be careful how frequently you provide the “thank you for waiting message”. Every 20 – 30 seconds is far too often.
  9. Avoid routing service calls to a voice mailbox. People typically call for service because they want it right now, not whenever you get around to calling them back. Having to go to voice mail makes callers feel their business isn’t that important to you. If it absolutely cannot be avoided, check that voice mailbox religiously and make sure you return calls within an hour ideally, or worst case, the same business day (but that’s only acceptable if you’ve set that expectation in your  greeting , for example “….all calls will be returned before the close of business today.”).

The bottom line is, before implementing new technology or processes, have several people in your company give it a test run. Not just to see if the technical aspect is in good working order, but really try out the “user interface”. It’s been a successful implementation when it makes it easier for your customers to do business with you, and that’s really the whole point.

If You Want More Business, Create Loyal Customers!

Posted by Christy Poturkovic
Feb11
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In today’s highly competitive business environment, ensuring customer satisfaction is not enough. In fact, satisfaction is a measurement of mediocrity. If a customer tells you he’s satisfied, what he’s actually saying is things are “fine”. You know the translation of fine, right? It means “not that bad, but not that good either. If something better comes along, I’m going to check it out.”  So instead of one satisfied customer you could  have one less customer!

It is critical that your business create loyal customers. The difference isn’t just semantics and it can have a tremendous impact on your bottom line. Here’s why: satisfied customers go anywhere, loyal customers come back and tell their friends about it. Loyal customers think of you first when they are ready to buy, the sale is usually higher, and they rarely go out to bid or search for sales; they are so happy with you they tell all their friends about it, which helps generate even more sales.

So in these maxed out, stressed out, stretched too thin times, how do we start creating customer loyalty?

I’d love to tell you to the first thing you’ve got to do is implement the latest and greatest technology. But the truth is, before you shell out the capital to deploy new technology, you’ve got to first start with your “human capital”. No matter how you slice and dice it, the bottom line is business is all about people and relationships. We buy from and work with those we like and trust, and who are easy for us to work with.

So before you do anything else, take a close look at how your company (i.e. you, your management team, your service people, your sales people, your receptionist, every single employee) treats your customers. Creating loyalty isn’t done just by the service people or the “front line” people, it’s done by everyone in the organization. And it starts with the basics: Are the people in your company responsive? Do they do what they say they will do? Do they operate with integrity? Are they helpful? Would you want to do business with your company?

After you’ve ironed out any kinks in your “human operating system” then you can look at implementing new technology to start improving efficiency. A high tech contact center, a first rate marketing campaign, or the latest and greatest business communications system will only do part of the job. It’s the people behind those systems that make all the difference for your business.

In this highly competitive marketplace, creating loyal customers is key to growing your business and maintaining profitability. In the words of Jeffrey Gitomer, “Customer satisfaction is worthless, customer loyalty is priceless.”

Is Multi-Tasking Killing your Small Business?

Posted by Christy Poturkovic
Feb2
cpoturkovic

“To do two things at once – is to do neither,” Roman philosopher Publilius Syrus wrote in 100 A.D., and modern science has been proving him right.

It’s been found that:

- People who multitask are less efficient than those who focus on one project at a time

- Managing two mental tasks at once reduces the brain power available for either task

- Trying to do two or three things at once, or in quick succession, can take longer than doing them one at a time

Turns out that our capacity to multi-task is far more limited than most of us think!

I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent the better part of my career multitasking – typing a proposal while talking on the phone, “listening” to a colleague while reading a report. Not only was that my main way of handling things, I was darn good at it – or so I thought.

Have you ever seen a performer balancing plates on the end of a stick? In order to keep the plates from falling to the ground he has to keep spinning each stick, but what happens when he can’t keep them all going? Usually one starts to wobble, then bumps into the one next to it and pretty soon they’ve all crashed to the ground. Now imagine that you’re the performer and all day, every day, you rush from plate to plate to keep them all going. Do you think that would get a little stressful? How effective are you with so many plates spinning?

The problem with multi-tasking is if that’s your main approach to your work or your life, you’ll frequently end up with too many plates spinning. Then the challenge is you can only touch each task long enough to keep it going, but usually not long enough to complete it adequately. And if you do stop to complete a specific task, the stress caused by ignoring the others can cause a less than satisfactory effort – and outcome – on the task you’re trying to complete. How many spinning plates are you attempting to manage each day? How many should you get rid of?

We’ve all heard of the 80/20 rule – 80 percent of our results come from 20% of our efforts. I think we all intuitively understand it, but we often fail to apply it. Let’s look at a typical work day. Assuming you work 8 hours a day, 20% of your time is 96 minutes. What if you developed the habit of spending 20% of your time each day – 96 minutes – focused on your top priorities? That’s an hour and a half of focused, uninterrupted time accomplishing your most important tasks or projects for the day. What if you started as early in the day as possible, and didn’t allow yourself to be interrupted or distracted by e-mail, ringing phones, your co-workers, or anything else for 96 minutes? What could you get done? How would that affect the rest of your day? Your week?

As author and speaker John Maxwell says, “The secret to your success is determined by your daily agenda. We over-exaggerate yesterday. We over-estimate tomorrow, and we under-estimate today.”

What actions are you taking today to offload your repetitive, time draining tasks? Technology? Personal discipline? How we spend our time each day is a matter of choice. Are your choices leading you closer to your goals?