The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has sparked excitement, innovation, and, let's be honest, a fair bit of anxiety. It's a conversation happening in offices, factories, and even around dinner tables: "Is AI coming for my job?" It's a valid concern. We've seen incredible advancements, from AI writing articles and generating art to automating complex data analysis. So, how many jobs are truly at risk, and what does this mean for the future of work?
Many businesses find themselves allocating their time for IT in a particular way—70 percent to maintenance, with only 30 percent dedicated to innovation and development. For real growth, the opposite is far preferable.
Fortunately, you can embrace better IT by simply reallocating some of your resources. Let’s explore how.
You can invest all you want in security software and firewall systems, but how much will these systems help when someone physically breaks into your office and steals data or destroys property? This is why you need to shore up weaknesses not just in your digital infrastructure, but physical infrastructure as well. Today, we want to go over how even a passing thought at physical security is better than the alternative (and how it can make a big difference in your approach to business continuity).
With the way things are today, you need to consider ways to prioritize not just your mental and physical wellbeing, but also your digital wellbeing. This involves taking a look at how you use technology and the role it plays in your workplace; which, if we’re being honest, is probably a big one.
Here are some simple best practices to ensure that you are promoting workplace wellness to help your employees achieve a healthier balance in their day-to-day life.
Running a small or medium-sized business means wearing many hats. But is "Chief IT Firefighter" one you want to wear? Constant tech issues, cybersecurity worries, and wondering if your IT is holding you back. Sound familiar?
For many local businesses, IT feels more like a necessary burden than a strategic tool.
Automation makes sense from an operations standpoint, and people see this despite the many who advocate for scaling back to save jobs. For every task that can be completed, however, less than half can be automated. When you consider all the tasks that a human might be responsible for at their job, that number further dwindles, resulting in surprisingly few jobs that can be fully automated by artificial intelligence. Today, we want to look at reasons why you shouldn’t implement automation for certain tasks and why working with humans is still the right call for many.
We are the first to understand that nobody really likes reaching out for support. It’s time-consuming, for starters, and there’s something uniquely humbling about having to ask how to use the tools everyone relies on nowadays. However, there is nothing to be ashamed of when turning to help, especially if you can do so as effectively as possible.
We’re willing to bet good money on the fact that your business suffers more technology problems than you’d like (but don’t hold us to that). Sometimes the problems are more complex, but many are simple and can be addressed quickly without the need for a professional. Today, we want to help you with some of the basics so you can know for sure when something is outside of your wheelhouse.
Compressed files, or ZIP files, are great for certain tasks in the business environment. That said, many individuals simply don’t know what they do and what benefits they offer. Today, we want to change that. We’ll discuss what a ZIP file does and how you can make one.
Spreadsheets are a staple in the workplace, but even with these tools to help manage data, it’s easy to lose track of it as the size and scope grows larger. Today, we want to help you better reference your spreadsheets through the use of naming cells.
Productivity fuels your business and its profits, so it makes sense to consider it when examining your business’ performance. Small and medium-sized businesses, or SMBs, have opportunities to improve operations through the use of productivity technology. Let’s explore some of these strategies!
Laptops are powerful tools for office productivity, particularly due to their mobile nature. In the workplace, however, more users prefer to have the screen real estate offered by multiple monitors and traditional desktops. You can get more bang for your buck, however, by using a laptop that can work while it’s closed, thereby transforming it into something like a PC tower.
You might recall our blog last week on smart chips, a term used to describe some fun and useful Google Docs inserts. Today, we want to take a closer look at these smart chips and what you can do with them in Google Docs and Sheets.
As comfy as it can be at times, sitting for all hours of the day isn’t something we’re built for. As a result, not only does sitting all day impact our overall health, it can functionally hurt our productivity as well. Fortunately, there are some simple exercises and activities that can be done at the workstation to help mitigate these negative outcomes.
The out-of-office email is a great tool…provided, that is, that it is used to its full potential. Let’s talk about a simple adjustment you can make to the ones you send to ensure they are much more effective, and much less likely to be ignored as a result.
As critical as it is to make sure your business’ IT remains in good shape, it is just as important that you and your team members are in good shape as well. Otherwise, the aches and pains that can settle in could easily have a detrimental impact on your productivity.
We could (and usually do) talk about managed services all day long…and to be honest, it’s easy to do, just because there are so many ways that they benefit a business. Today, we wanted to focus our attention on one specific benefit that managed services offer: the inherent proactivity they feature.
Microsoft Excel is a really useful tool for organizing data. Using something called a heat map strategy can help you get more out of the solution. If you actively use spreadsheets in your business to contextualize data, you will find this easy-to-use tip for using heat maps really useful.
Nowadays, technology and business are intimately interconnected, the success of your operations and processes largely informed by the tools you have in place. Let’s go over three ways you can help boost your potential success even further by implementing the right methods.
During the holiday season, people are out of the office quite often, but unless this is properly conveyed to those reaching out to them, it could look like negligence on the employees’ part. To make sure you are as transparent as possible with your out-of-office time, be sure to set up a message. Here’s how you can do it in Microsoft Outlook.
