August Tech Talk Newsletter

Databranch Monthly Tech Talk

IT Solutions for the Workplace

August | 2020

What's Inside?

01 - Monthly Update from David

02 - Should I Replace My Phone System?

03 - Is Your IT Stealing Your Staff's Time?

04 - 3 Ways to Avoid WFH Burnout

05 - What Exactly is the Cloud? And is it Safe?

06 - What Will Computers and Phones Look Like in 2030?

Did you know?

Google rents a herd of 200 goats to keep the lawns mowed at their Mountain View HQ 😮

Testimonial of the Month

I highly recommend using Databranch as your IT partner!

Databranch recently replaced our server and the changeover was seamless with very little downtime. Their engineers are always helpful and efficient. I highly recommend using them as your IT partner.

Mike DeRose, President

Pierce Steel Fabricators

MONTHLY UPDATE

FROM DAVID

It's tough at the moment. We don't know whether things are getting better. Or getting worse. It feel like we're all stuck in limbo land.

Personally, I'm choosing to ignore the mainstream media constantly reminding me about things I can't control. And, instead I'm doubling down on things I can control that will make the world a better place.

Things like: Working on my business to deliver an even better level of service to our clients, helping our clients work ON their business and helping our team improve their skills - ready for the recovery.

If you'd like to map out a plan for working more ON your business and how to better use Technology to be faster, more efficient and more innovative when we hit the recovery, give me a call at 716-373-4467 x 12 and let's chat.

Until then, stay safe,

David Prince

President - Databranch, Inc.

Should I Replace My Phone System?

Did you know that you can save money, offer better customer service AND boost staff productivity –just by upgrading your phone system?

Your office phones can’t afford to sit still while the rest of your business modernizes and adapts to the current situation.

We've seen how rolling out a VOIP system designed for 2020 can completely transform a business like yours.

Are your phones due for an upgrade?

(if you got them in 2015 or earlier, then yes they are)

Upgrading your phone system is quicker and easier than you may think.

The benefits of switching to a Databranch Hosted VoIP solution include:

It’s scalable: Giving you all the tools you need to easily add or remove people as your business changes

It’ll save you time and money: There’s no need to pay an engineer to spend time at your office disrupting people. It’s all done with software

It’s future proof: Your team increasingly needs the best tools and ongoing flexibility to work remotely.

Get in touch today at 716-373-4467 x 15 or reply to this email for more info on Databranch's Hosted VoIP Solution and how we can help your business!

Is Your IT Stealing Your Staff's Time?

At some point in the last six months, maybe you’ve been on a Zoom call or chatting away in Microsoft Teams. And you’ve wondered what would have happened if Covid had come along in the 1980s or even 1990s.

Let’s be honest… the world would have totally shut down. Business would have completely ground to a halt.

We couldn’t have done the last 6 months without the amazing technology that we now totally take for granted.

Depending how old you are, what we can do easily today was literally the stuff of dreams just 20 years ago

But as much as great IT has made working from home easier and enabled many businesses to keep going, we also must remember that bad IT can still be a massive time thief.

We’ve all become so reliant on computers that we’ve forgotten how to perform simple tasks ourselves. And we go into panic mode when they stop doing what we expect of them.

Most businesses find that even the most committed staff in the world will jump at the chance for a little bit of office down time. So, when computers aren’t doing their job that’s a great opportunity to down tools and do very little.

If they’re in the office, people sit around chatting or go home early, whilst every second your business is losing money.

That’s not to say that all employees want to take the easy way out. There will be others who like a challenge and want to try their best to make things better, using their own limited IT knowledge or good old Google to guide them.

We can make a video call anywhere in the world, from an affordable and always connected supercomputer that we carry in our pocket!

Unfortunately, IT set ups are complex. And if you don’t really know what you’re doing you could end up digging a far bigger hole for you and your entire organization.

Well-meaning staff, no matter how lovely and helpful they might be, can cause more problems than you could ever imagine.

Just like you wouldn’t want someone who did a biology class 20 years ago to perform open heart surgery on you, you really don’t want someone who’s just watched a couple of YouTube tutorials fixing your business’s computer system.

This is what we do, day in, day out. And we’re the local experts.

If you want to ensure that your workforce doesn’t grind to a halt when things stop running smoothly, it pays to invest in experts who can:

a) Stop most things from going wrong in the first place, and

b) When they do go wrong, get you back on track quickly and reliably

That means minimal downtime, less chatting and more Getting Things Done.

3 Ways to Avoid WFH Burnout

The lines between work and non-work have blurred for so many people.

For those who are still working from home (WFH), they may now be in their sixth consecutive month where there’s little balance between what they do professionally, and personally.

Because when the work is sitting there in your personal space, it’s far too easy to work early, or late – or both. Accidentally spotting that “urgent” email just before you’re about to go to bed really is incredibly damaging.

Added pressures of childcare have made this worse. Some parents feel that working all

hours is the only way they can make up for the perceived reduced quality in their work.

The stress of constantly working (or constantly thinking about work) is dangerous. Our bodies and minds simply aren’t designed to be “on” all the time.

This is bad for our mental health. Which can easily have a negative effect on our physical health too.

Here are our top 3 suggestions to avoid WFH burnout.

1) Have physical ways to transition from personal you to work you, and back again:

The easiest way to do this is with a dedicated workspace that’s strictly only used for work. Even a specific seat at a table can be dedicated to work, even if you sit in other seats to do other things, like eat or play games. Some people dress for work each day, so they can change their clothes to mark the end of the working day.

2) Set strict work hours and stick to them:

9 to 5 might be impossible. But you can still have set work times, even if they’re scattered throughout the day. Make sure your family knows when you’re working or not working. This is where having a set physical space can really help. In your non-work hours make sure you only do non-work things. And do… not… check… your… email 😀

3) Prioritize what really matters:

The other downside of sitting surrounded by work all the time is that there’s always something else that can be done. There’s no point working on minor tasks at 11pm at night, because the chances are, you’re not actually achieving anything meaningful. Assume you have 3-4 hours of truly productive time each day. And make sure you get and stay organized to achieve the most important things in this time.

TECH TIP: What Exactly is the Cloud? And is it Safe?

It’s the kind of question you’d think would be easy to answer, until someone asks you: What exactly is the cloud?

Put simply, it’s using someone else’s computers over the internet to do things we used to do in our own computers. Like run software or store data.

When you run software in a tab in your browser, that software is still running on a computer… it’s just not your computer. That means you can run very powerful applications without needing a powerful computer.

Excellent.

So, is the cloud safe? The answer is that it depends.

Whilst there's no technology that is 100% safe - working with the larger cloud providers is often safer than running things on your own network. Simply because they have dedicated teams of security experts.

You should also focus on making sure your business’s use of the cloud is safe too.

Such as by:

Never ever sharing logins (even amongst your team members)

Making sure you use randomly generated passwords protected by a password manager, and

Keeping all devices 100% up-to-date at all times with Updates and Next-Gen Anti-Virus tools

What Will Computers And Phones Look Like in 2030?

This is a fun game to play. Because none of us knows what our relationship

with technology will be like in a decade’s time.

But we can make some educated guesses. There are our 3:

1) Our phones will be even more important than they are now

We’ll rely on them more and more. And they’ll get smarter, automating more of our lives for us. Little things like, your phone will unlock your car automatically as you walk to it, because it’s read your calendar and knows you need to head out. Perhaps it’ll even load the route into the navigation for you

2) Artificial intelligence (AI) will be everywhere

It won’t be the kind of AI that we talk to. But the kind that makes our lives easier. We’ll constantly be pushing for more apps to just talk to each other and pass information to make things easier for us

3) All our data will be in the cloud

So long as we’ve got fast enough internet to access it quickly, more and more data will be in the cloud, because it’ll be more convenient for us to access it there.

What do you think business technology will look like in 2030? Shoot us an email at info@databranch.com and let us know!

NEED A LAUGH?

Me: Knock Knock.

You: Who's there?

Me: Control Freak.

You: Con...

Me: Ok - now you say “Control Freak Who?”

Technology Trivia

Social Media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram are a HUGE part of our world now days.

But did you know the first social media site started way back in 1994?

Can you guess what it was?

The first person to shoot us an email at info@databranch.com with the correct answer wins a $25 Amazon Gift Card 🤓

WE LOVE REFERRALS

The greatest gift anyone can give us is a referral to your friends. Referrals help us keep costs down so we can pass the savings to our clients.

If your friend ends up becoming a client - we’ll gift them their free first month of service (for being a friend of yours) AND we’ll gift you a $100 Amazon Gift Voucher.

Simply introduce me via email (dprince@databranch.com) and I’ll take it from there. I personally promise we’ll look after your friend’s business with a high level of care and attention (just like we do with all our clients).