When I worked for a Fortune 100 company years ago, I figured our ‘IT’ would be up 24/7/365. I mean, we had 40+ people watching our ‘IT’, and the data center was state of the art. Then ‘IT’ went down. For 5 hours. It was amazing to watch 800+ people running around asking ‘what should I do?’

They got us back up after 40+ people worked on IT for 6 hours straight. Ouch.

Most people call it ‘IT’ and treat ‘IT’ like a noun.

Many business owners think you can buy one ‘IT’ and be done. ‘IT’ is actually a verb. It is quite dynamic. ‘IT’ needs to be updated, upgraded, monitored, measured, backed up, etc.

But really, how important is ‘IT’?

We’ve heard it many times: “I don’t know why I have all this crap. I wish we could go back to the way it was in the old days.”

Go ahead. Close your eyes and imagine what your business would be like with no computers. I know you have them, but imagine that they don’t work. Imagine that they haven’t worked for 2 hours. How about 6 hours? Now one day. Then, one week.

• Could your business function with pencil and paper?
• Will your employees be able to handle a quick change to pencil and paper?
• How would you communicate effectively without email?
• How do you quickly research issues without Google and Wikipedia?
• Would your customers be able to tell you don’t have computers?
• What is the potential loss in opportunity?

Hopefully, (for us) you have realized just how important these computer systems are to your business, and you know that there is no going back to the ‘good old days’ before computers.

You own the ‘IT’, but who is performing the ‘IT’?

We’ve established that ‘IT’ is critical and that it is both a noun and a verb. Chances are that you own your workstations, servers, routers, switches, backup systems and the cabling that hooks it all together – the noun usage of  ‘IT’.

Who is actually making sure that all of those things are working properly – the verb usage of ‘IT’?

These things need to be done regularly:

• Event log reviews to spot small problems before they become big ones.
• Security patching to ensure that the latest threat can be prevented.
• Backup system monitoring and testing to ensure you can recover.
• Disk space checks and other preventative maintenance tasks.
• Process review to make sure your employees are as productive as they can be.

And, even when you have someone watching all these things, you still need someone to call if/when something bad happens.

Choose DedicatedIT to be your ‘IT’

If any of these sound familiar, your company may have outgrown your computer guy:

• You keep having the same problems over and over with no good explanation of why.
• You are told “I’ll be there really soon; I’m just finishing up with another client.”
• The last time you needed to recover data, it took days, not hours, to get back to normal.
• Your computer guy is at your office so much, you are thinking about inviting him to the holiday party.

We have a better solution. It’s a proactive, unlimited network support plan.

Our network operations center will watch your network 24x7x365 and proactively respond when something doesn’t look right. Additionally, between the hours of 7AM and 7PM, Monday through Friday, you may call our South Florida based support line as much as you want. NO EXTRA hourly charges. Period.

Adam Steinhoff from DedicatedIT will be a guest on the Business 360 radio show hosted by Rob Jager on October 22, 2009 at 2PM [edit: Eastern].

Adam and Rob will be discussing growing businesses from very small (<5 employees) to small (5-15 employees). Adam will draw on his experience moving from a 5-person to a 15-person firm and some of the mistakes he made along the way.

Tune in to the show on W4CY’s website.

[edit: The show was a great success and actually, rather listenable]

Listen to the show

Rob and Adam talked about:

• Differences between running a three-person company and a five.
• Revenue growth for the sole purpose of revenue growth.
• Too many plates spinning with no plan on how to hand them off.
• Understanding that YOU may not be the leader you need.
• Hiring people better than you.

If you liked the show, let me know. If you hated the show, also let me know. I’m considering doing a weekly show like this. I am interested to know whether you think it will be worth my time.

Latest Bad Email Going Around

I just received an email in my inbox that looks very convincing. However, Microsoft does not send out update notifications via email. Official updates are pushed down to your computer from Microsoft directly.

DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK.

FROM: noreply@microsoft.com
SUBJECT: Microsoft Outlook Update

Update for Microsoft Outlook / Outlook Express (KB910721)
Brief Description
Microsoft has released an update for Microsoft Outlook / Outlook Express. This update is critical and provides you with the latest version of the Microsoft Outlook / Outlook Express and offers the highest level of security and stability.

Instructions
• To install Update for Microsoft Outlook / Outlook Express (KB910721) please visit Microsoft Update Center: [BAD ADDRESS]

Quick Details
• File Name: officexp-KB910721-FullFile-ENU.exe
• Version: 1.5
• Date Published: Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:17:06 -0300
• Language: English
• File Size: 100 KB

System Requirements
• Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000; Windows 98; Windows ME; Windows NT; Windows Server 2003; Windows XP; Windows Vista
• This update applies to the following product: Microsoft Outlook / Outlook Express

How to Protect Yourself

• Use common sense.
• Always hover over a link before you click on it in Outlook.
• Delete the message, instead of forwarding it to someone else or replying.
• Ask your network administrator to add this email to the blacklist (although, this is like playing that Whac-a-mole game at Chuck-E-Cheeses).

What’s Really Going On

If you look at the image below, you’ll see that the actual address that it brings you to is NOT microsoft. What it is doing is ‘Phishing‘ for information.

Article for the South Florida ALA

The South Florida Chapter of the Assoication of Legal Administrators (ALA) asked DedicatedIT to pen an article for their October 2009 Newsletter. You can download just the text here.

We touched on two of the biggest trends in the IT industry right now: Cloud Computing and Managed Services.

Here is an excerpt:

What does cloud computing mean to your firm?

Imagine walking into your firm tomorrow and being able to reclaim the space that those noisy, pain in the ass servers and networking equipment take up. Never needing to hire an IT company to come out and perform maintenance on your servers again. No need to pay for the electricity to RUN those servers. No need to beef up your air conditioning systems to keep all those delicate machines happy. Never having to pay Microsoft for their latest email server ever again. And, very likely, having better performance and fewer problems. That is what cloud computing promises.
Cloud computing is sold very much like electricity from your power company – you pay for only what you use and you really don’t care how many power poles, transformers, generation plants and linemen they have to use to get you your power. You just want it to work when you turn on the light switch.

Download just the DedicatedIT technology portion of the article.

What do managed services bring to your firm?

You’ll have a technology partner watching over your network and doing what is best for your company. Many of the little annoying problems that your employees have can be fixed without you watching the bill-o-meter clicking away time and material dollars. Your managed service partner will fix the little problems before they become big ones that can put you out of business for hours or days. You’ll have a team of people ready, willing and able to respond within an hour if there is a problem. Many times, with managed services providers, these features come at no additional charge.

Download just the DedicatedIT technology portion of the article.