Human Beings First

Following the news these days makes one frustrated with all the behaviors.  Why do some people get so passionate about politics that they lose all human decency?... That story next….Last week, in the heat of the fight over defunding Obamacare, the communications chairman for the Democratic Party of Sacramento tweeted to an aide to Sen. Ted Cruz that he hoped her children “die from debilitating, painful and incurable diseases.” There were other, unrepeatable tweets, before the state party intervened and he took it back. But some people are immune to shame. After the Navy Yard shootings, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Kansas tweeted that he wished the children of NRA members would die in a mass shooting. It’s fine to hold strong opinions, but when you become so inflamed that you wish death on the children of anyone who disagrees with you, it’s hard to take your claim that you’re the enlightened one seriously.

By the way, that professor adamantly refused to take back his hateful comments, and University of Kansas officials stood behind him. That’s because colleges are defenders of free speech. Unless of course, it’s hate speech. That’s defined as advocating violence against any group that liberal professors LIKE. Make you sick?

How about in the technology field, do you get the sense that a former colleague or a direct report has strong opinions on something of the past that they wish you failure and will do what they can to facilitate failure?  Are we not human beings first and should we not have the motto of "for the success of others?" 

I encourage everyone to be engaged in the issues of today, and that includes technology.  That engagement should be positive, constructive and respectful.  Debate your views and opinion but do it in a manner that keeps you part of the solution.  Like grandma said, think before you speak, words of wisdom we can all live with.

Keep it positive!

Scott Arnett
www.arnettservicesgroup.com

BCP Plan Ready?

There are a few questions I get asked at every engagement with customers, is our Business Continuity Plan ready for any event?  The first thing to discuss is when was the last time it was reviewed, updated and tested?  The BCP Plan is not one thing you do, put on the shelf and it is ready to go whenever we need it.  Organizations change throughout the year, technology changes, staff changes, and threats change.  So you have to work on it throughout the year. 

The one thing I like to do it is an audit of the plan.  Take an audit questionnaire or template and walk through it with the management team, and based on those results, determine some focus areas.  Ensure the plan is ready when needed, and that the plan is offsite as well.

One more recommendation, and that is staff training.  You need to take the time to train your staff on the plan, what to do in the event of a crisis.  Once the training is complete, test the plan and ensure everyone knows what to do.  If you can not come to the office, you call this message hot line for instructions, you VPN into the office to work from home, you report in hourly, whatever the instructions need to be.  Staff need to know, understand and be able to act as needed. 

Senior Management needs to take this issue serious, and ensure their organization is ready for any event coming their way.  Plan, Prepare and Test will make sure you are ready to execute as needed.

If you need help with your plan, reach out.

Keep it positive!

Scott Arnett
www.arnettservicesgroup.com

Cloud Services - Still A Good Deal?

Everyone is still talking about Cloud Services, and many organizations are making decisions on whether to put systems and data into the cloud or leave it in their own data center. 

Let me tell you a little story.  Ever have an internet connection from an ISP, which came with an email address from them?  I think we all have and many still do, and nothing wrong with that.  At some point though, some of these ISP companies passed all the management of these email addresses to Yahoo, where they became standard, free (advertising-supported) Yahoo webmail addresses in all but name – run on Yahoo servers, with the Yahoo front end. When the ISP Internet contract ended, the ISP email service carried on at Yahoo.

All this was fine until the ISP informed many customers that it would close the account and delete all the mail, contacts,  etc. from a certain date unless they started to pay them money per month for a premium mail service - which they don't want.

So the question comes up who owns that data?  Can they keep your data for ransom to get more fees from you?  How hard will it be to move all your data to another service?  Email is just one example of many scenarios.  How about another potential - the cloud service provider goes out of business.  Where is all your data now, and is it business critical data?

IT is the steward of the company data, but the business still owns that data.  The business has to understand and assume some of the risk.  My suggestion always is that IT still owns the backup of that data, even in the cloud.  There are solutions out there that would pull down some of that data to your data center for safe keeping.  You can't outsource your regulatory responsibility of the security of the data and availability.  

Proceed with caution.  Understand your new cloud partner, ensure your have all your questions answered and you clearly understand ownership of the data, backup of the data, and availability.  Do the due diligence necessary to ensure you have a positive experience and get the results you are looking for.

Perhaps, your core systems and critical data is better left right in your own data center or private cloud.  Develop a strategy that includes cloud, but where appropriate and at the right risk level.

Keep it Positive!

Scott Arnett
www.arnettservicesgroup.com

New Phone System Challenges

It was with great pleasure to get invited to a breakfast meeting with a customer the other day.  The pancakes sure hit the spot, but so did the conversation on technology. 

Customer is frustrated with an old on premise phone system that no longer meets all the business needs.  The CEO is tired of hearing all the complaints, and frustrations from the staff, and looks at me to say, what do we do?  We need some call center features, some wireless phone features, and a better voice mail system.  I hear and read all these options out there, but none of them make sense to me.

So I took out a piece of paper to start listing all the business requirements he could think of.  My feedback to him was don't worry about budget yet or technology, but let's just list out all the capabilities you are looking for or your staff is asking for.  Then we took that list and start to prioritize the list so we can match technology solutions to the wish list.

This quickly brings up the discussion of on premise solutions or cloud solutions.  What are the benefits of both and challenges.  For the SMB clients, the cloud voice solutions sure give them a lot of capability, and you can quickly have a voice solution for home based employees, ACD and other options that would otherwise be a great deal of hardware on premise. 

I assured this CEO we can get them to where they need to be with the right technology solution.  My point to him was to be open minded and look at all options.  There are a lot of opinions out there, and confusion.  Let's spend the time to work through the strategy and then approach the tactical with the right solution.  Letting the voice experts sift through all the industry options and bring forward only that which matters will save the client time and money. 

There are many great solutions on the market today, let us help you find the right solution for you at the right price.

Keep it positive!

Scott Arnett
scott@arnettservicesgroup.com

www.arnettservicesgroup.com

Business Continuity - A GREAT Place to Start

I was recently asked to participate in a strategy session with a client on their IT infrastructure strategy. The CIO called and asked if I would come spend the day, and the driving question is, where should we go with infrastructure. So during the first hour of the session, I asked all the questions, and the big question is, what do you have for a BCP or DR plan? No one answered for the first few minutes, everyone had that blank look on their face. Not that uncommon I assured them, and said, that is a great place to start.

During the BCP definition stage, your infrastructure requirements start to take shape on the white board. If your business leaders and application owners are asking for high availability, no data loss, low recovery point goals, then you now have some requirements to define your infrastructure design. Plus, start looking at other business capability objectives, like mobility, customer portals, and the list will go on, now you can align infrastructure to the business. Take all your notes from the white board now, and start to build your 2014 design, goals, objectives and technology solutions. Keeping BCP and DR right in the mix, and when you are done, your plans are defined right along with your infrastructure efforts.

The best way to do Business Continuity Plans is to make them part of your day to day operational tasks, architecture tasks, and a line item in all IT projects. Then it is not a burden project anymore, but something that maintains itself as part of all staff daily tasks. Now don't get me wrong, someone still needs to own it, maintain it, and train new staff on it. I propose to all my customers that BCP and DR plans is woven into the fabric of all IT functions.

Keep it positive!

Scott Arnett

www.arnettservicesgroup.com

Mobile Applications

Good afternoon everyone!

I am proud to say that the Arnett Group has really taken a leadership role in mobile application development.  There are many organizations out there wanting a mobile application developed for internal consumption or an external application for their customers.  We even offer it a step farther and do machine to machine mobile applications.  Controlling equipment, lighting, or special vehicles, we can develop that mobile application for you. 

This month we are focused on an application for customer to help their sales staff become more efficient.  More information and workflow at their fingertips, in the field, on demand.  How can we take all the information for several different backend systems, and present it on a mobile device to help the sales staff quickly respond to customer requests, or complete the sales process.  Fun project!

So how can we help your organization utilize the technology your employees walk in the door with everyday?  How can you take that smartphone and turn it into a leading edge tool for your organization.  Give us a call, and let us help you look at some mobile application solutions to drive your business.

Keep it positive!

Scott Arnett
scott.arnett@charter.net
www.arnettservicesgroup.com