We here at Vectrocon would like to wish all of our readers a Happy Thanksgiving. We would also like to especially thank all of our clients for their patronage throughout the year. We will not post again until after the holiday!
Archive for November, 2011
Happy Thanksgiving
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011The Old Folks of IT: 40 Years Old and Over the Hill
Monday, November 21st, 2011In an article, Computerworld described some research that seems to indicate that by age 40, certain IT workers are already subject to age discrimination, and that by age 50, the problem seems to become acute. Why the qualification “seems” in that sentence? Because there doesn’t appear to be a lot of evidence, other than the anecdotal variety, to support this. Yet, some of the evidence that is available definitely paints a picture that those in IT, as opposed to other careers, have shorter “life expectancies”.
In many professions, the older you become, the more your experience is thought to count. Maturity means something, as does general experience. In IT, however, age can mean outdated skills, less energy, higher wages and overall lower productivity. Much of the article presents a view where IT people are said to become less valuable over time, as opposed to the general opinion that personnel should become more valuable over time.
One method of avoiding this, according to Vivek Wadhwa, one of the individuals who is cited as an expert by the article, is to transition from “hard IT” to management, where maturity continues to be valued, and rapidly changing skills are less valuable to the task at hand. Another method is to become a consultant.
Part of the problem, as many IT people have discovered, is that they simply don’t have the personalities or the inclination for these very people focused jobs. If you’re an introvert by nature and practice, you either need to overcome your inclination or you’re barred from this path.
Small business IT shops have seen this problem for years. Although larger firms have the budgets to keep their IT staff up to date with newer technologies, if the employee is willing, smaller firms lack these budgets. Hence, if you’re an IT worker in a small shop, you either keep your skills up on your own time and using your own money, or eventually you find that your skills are outdated. We’ve found many small business clients that encounter this problem. They start complaining about how their IT infrastructure is old, how new approaches to business are either rebuffed or discounted out of hand, how questions about new technologies either cannot be answered or the answers default to narrow mindedness. As the article states, sometimes this is simply an effect of someone becoming set in their ways. Sometimes, however, this is the result of a lack of training, and a fear of the unknown.
At Vectrocon, we employ a number of people above the age of 40, myself included. Our environment is such that it is a requirement for anyone we employ to constantly learn new skills. As a consultant, you either become very familiar and comfortable with change, or you find your business slowly slipping away from you. Because of this, our employees tend to have a very forward thinking mindset, regardless of their age. Additionally, because they are not infatuated with every new idea, they do temper the enthusiasm for the latest hype to hit the market, often striking a balance between the hype of marketers and the reality of what a new technology can do in the trenches. In this way, our clients receive a very balanced view of technology, neither being oversold or undersold on the potential for change. This is one competitive advantage that we seek to emulate, and when we hire new employees, regardless of age, we look for people that can evaluate technology with a mind toward value.
If you’re a small business, remember that IT employees, like those in any other position, need guidance, grooming and encouragement; regardless of age. Also remember that personnel who seek challenges, look for new opportunities and work hard tend to do so regardless of whether they are 22 or 82. If your IT staff isn’t performing up to what you think they should be at your small business, remember that the employee’s age isn’t the issue, it’s the employees attitude.
No Relief for Small Business Network Admins: Microsoft Only Patches Own Software in Win 8
Thursday, November 17th, 2011We have long lamented the fact that Adobe and Oracle do not have the same tools to patch their widely used software as Microsoft does, and that this imposes hardships on small business administrators to keep their software updated. If you want to have users do the work themselves, you have to first rely on the fact that they will actually perform the patches (a dubious proposition) and then you have to give them the privileges, usually administrative, to do so. If you want to patch from a central location, you have to figure out how to push an update (or complete reinstall of the latest patched version) using Group Policy or a login script. Both of these methods can prove problematic for small businesses.
Many people were hoping that with Windows 8, Microsoft might take cue from Apple and patch third party products as part of their patching system. Many small businesses use WSUS, Microsoft’s patching system, to control patches on their networks. It’s free, it works well and its easy. If that system was allowed to work against some other widely deployed packages, like the ones listed above, small businesses would have a great way to finally solve the problem of patching these other pieces of software without enlisting a lot of time and money. Alas, this was not to be the case.
Microsoft recently buried everyone’s hopes when it announced that Windows 8 would not support patching of third party applications. Developers would need to handle their own patches. I can see why Microsoft would do this, but at the same time I must confess to be disappointed. Without an inexpensive, easy to use patching tool, most small businesses will continue to have a very large hole in their security. We’v been lamenting over this problem for what seems to be years, and once again, a solution appears to be out of everyone’s grasp.
Small Businesses and IT Outsourcing: Part 1: Why Outsource
Monday, November 14th, 2011The Question of Outsourcing
Vectrocon generates most of its revenue from network management and IT Support Contracts (Outsourcing) for small businesses in New Jersey (Ocean, Monmouth, Middlesex, Somerset Counties) and Southern Florida (Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade Counties). Recently, our sales force has received numerous calls asking about IT Support and Outsourcing. These number among the questions most frequently asked: Does Vectrocon offer these types of agreements? How do you transition from an in-house person to an outsourcer? How much does it really cost? What are the advantages and disadvantages? How do you transition from one network support firm to another? What is the difference between a “Managed Service Provider” and other forms of network support and IT outsourcing? Before Vectrocon can answer these questions, however, we need to understand something first.
The Big Question to Small Businesses: What Prompted A Change?
Different firms outsource their IT for different reasons. The reasons vary depending upon whether there is a full time employee, part time employee, or if there is dissatisfaction with the current network support team.
Full and Part Time Employees
Sometimes the idea is that a full time internal employee just doesn’t have enough to do to support the business. Sometimes, employees hired from larger firms don’t fit in culturally at smaller ones. Sometimes the skills obtained by an employee in a small firm grow stale. Conversely, the employee decides to leave because there is little or no opportunity to learn new skills, or they feel trapped in the position and feel there is no career path at the firm. Part time employees are offered full time jobs and decide to leave, or the firm finds that part time employees are never there when a problem strikes, resulting in either overtime to bring the employee in off schedule or having to wait until the employee becomes available to handle the problem.
Network Support Dissatisfaction
Sometimes, firms become complacent, charging more while delivering less. Sometimes they are sold to larger firms and no longer provide personalized service. In the same vein, sometimes they expand and their new personnel lack the skills previously enjoyed. It also happens that firms obtain too many clients and cannot service them effectively, resulting in slower response times and shoddy service. There are also cases where the business focus changes, and market segments previously served are dropped, or specialized services are adopted or curtailed that render the business relationship dysfunctional.
Identify Your Reason to Outsource
Before you contact a support specialist like Vectrocon, you need to think about and have a solid answer as to why you want to outsource. ”Saving money” sounds like a good answer, but you need to understand how you intend to save money. If your current IT person has enough (or too much) work, has kept your company up to date with technology and offers good council, you probably can’t save money by outsourcing. If, however, you can’t figure out what that employee does all day, you might be able to save some money. If you think you’re receiving poor support, or it takes too long to solve a problem, or when you meet competitors they seem to be able to get to their information faster and with higher levels of accuracy, that is another reason to consider outsourcing. They key is to identify exactly what business benefit you expect to receive, and quantify what that is worth to you.
In my next piece, I will start answering the how and whys of outsourcing Information Technology for small business.