June 11th, 2019 → 8:11 am @ KAMIND IT // No Comments
Businesses are always looking for ways to increase employee productivity in order to increase revenue. In the highly competitive business world, business owners often find themselves asking, “how is our office space impacting employee productivity, and what can our business do about it?” It’s no secret that businesses lose money when employees aren’t productive. Many employers believe that employee productivity is the sole responsibility of the employee. While there are many things that an employee can do to help increase their productivity in the workplace – such as getting more sleep, eating breakfast, etc. – there are things businesses can do to help as well. In the workplace, the way offices are set up plays an important part in how productive employees are. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution that will work for all businesses, but understanding employees and the way they work can help create an office layout and environment that […]
June 6th, 2019 → 4:43 pm @ KAMIND IT // No Comments
We must talk more openly than we have done in the past about fear and trust at work. Fear and trust are the chemical currents that power every good or bad thing an organization does, but we seldom talk about them and it hurts us not to. We pretend there are no currents. We focus on particles instead of waves. We are obsessed with numbers in cells on spreadsheets and with graphs and algorithms, while the real energy that powers your success (and without which you are going nowhere fast) has nothing to do with particles! It is an energy wave. As leaders we need to turn our attention away from the particles that we love so much to measure and focus on the waves instead. When we talk about corporate culture, we are really talking about your organization’s ability – or lack of ability – to acknowledge trust and […]
May 14th, 2019 → 8:40 am @ KAMIND IT // No Comments
Think about your workspace, what makes it unique, what benefits are there for working the same space as your coworkers. In an office you can walk over to a co-worker and show them a document you’ve been working on; need to hold a meeting? just grab a conference room down the hall, want to plan a lunch outing with coworkers? they are usually within earshot. The atmosphere of the office is something engrained in us from grade school through college, entered on the task at hand, hardcopies of all documentation, doors closed, butts in seats; full steam ahead. Just like classrooms, the workspace is unrecognizable to what it was 20 years ago. According to a study by Swiss company Zug 70% of the global workforce telecommutes at least one day a week, while 53% work remotely for at least half the week. As communication technology advances, it allows humans to […]
May 9th, 2019 → 10:46 am @ KAMIND IT // No Comments
Azure offers a robust set of networking services and tools. Connectivity options allow linking your datacenter, other Cloud environments, or remote users to Cloud resources. There are also a variety of services and tools that allow you to inspect, direct, and troubleshoot traffic. This article focuses exclusively on Azure resources and offerings, and how they connect with both physical and Cloud environments. Windows Firewall, third party VPN clients, and OS level route tables are not covered as these elements are not unique to the Azure experience. Connecting existing environments to the Cloud is almost always the first step in a new deployment. This is so foundational that we automatically deploy a VPN Gateway with all new deployments as standard practice. All VPNs we configure are IKEv2 IPSec. These provide route-based, Site-to-Site tunneling capability and Point-to-Site connectivity through the installation of an Azure VPN client on individual systems. Policy based VPNs […]
May 1st, 2019 → 3:52 pm @ KAMIND IT // No Comments
New platforms can be tools for connection with colleagues and outside experts, but can also serve as distractions while on the job Social media influences and permeates many aspects of daily life for Americans today, and the workforce is no exception. These digital platforms offer the potential to enhance worker productivity by fostering connections with colleagues and resources around the globe. At the same time, employers might worry that employees are using these tools for non-work purposes while on the job or engaging in speech in public venues that might reflect poorly on their organization. A Pew Research Center survey of 2,003 American adults (including 795 who are currently employed on a full- or part-time basis) conducted Sept. 11-14 and 18-21, 2014, finds that social media plays some role in the lives of many American workers – but that role is not always clear-cut or entirely positive. Workers turn to […]
April 4th, 2019 → 8:12 am @ KAMIND IT // No Comments
A National Concern United States Attorney William P. Barr recently stated that crimes against the elderly target some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Because of their stage in life, they don’t have the opportunity frequently to recover, and the losses are devastating to them. Whether as the result of isolation, diminished cognition, financial insecurity, trusting too much, being ashamed to report being scammed or concerned about how relatives will react, serious concern for health or other causes, many of these crimes go unreported. The more we learn about elderly fraud and abuse, the better we are at protecting ourselves, our families and friends, and helping first responders and the FBI succeed in their efforts to counter this type of crime. According to research by the Stanford Center on Longevity and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s Investor Education Foundation, those over the age of 65 are more likely […]
March 27th, 2019 → 11:28 am @ KAMIND IT // No Comments
Company success and growth now more than ever hinges around how a company deals with its clients. Companies which thrive and survive will be those for whom the client relationship sits at the very heart of business strategy. Every process within the company must revolve around providing a positive client experience. This is especially relevant to b2b companies whose clients are often large, complicated organizations. You may have heard about client journey mapping – and you might consider it just a ‘nice to have’. There are, however, good reasons you should look at the journey your client take through your organization. Improving the ease of your client’s experience will help your organization become more client focused and will improve relationships and client loyalty. Keeping your client’s journey smooth will also help to improve your client retention. You may know the journey they made to choose you as a supplier – […]
March 21st, 2019 → 9:40 am @ KAMIND IT // No Comments
With the majority of jobs shifting to remote positions, and a major shift from single management structures to team-based cooperation, the need for collaborative tools is on the rise. Roughly 70% of jobs will become remote by 2025, and with that face to face meetings will become a rare occurrence. So how are employers preparing for such a massive shift in the dynamics of a workplace? Through modern collaboration tools, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, and 100’s of other apps popping up almost daily. This presents its own challenges; how do you know which one works best for your team? Well fortunately enough; the field has been narrowed to two all-encompassing options. The start up company that helped kick start the game, Slack, and the heavy weight corporate hitter who secured it, Microsoft Teams Slack, launching in August of 2013, is an American cloud-based set of proprietary team collaboration tools […]
February 26th, 2019 → 11:26 am @ KAMIND IT // No Comments
The setting A nondescript, windowless conference room somewhere in Corporate America with exceptionally uncomfortable chairs, three of which are broken, a projector, and a Polycom phone. The players Meeting host. Host has invited you all to participate, ostensibly to get your opinions on some topic. Host begins the meeting by going over the purpose of the meeting, the objectives of the meeting, the agenda for the meeting. Host assures everyone that this meeting is a Super Important Good Use of Everyone’s Time. You’re not so sure. Spotlight hog. Spotlight monopolizes the whole meeting. He is one of those guys who clearly loves the sound of his own voice. You wonder how it’s possible for someone to talk endlessly, yet say nothing. In a way, you admire this skill. Remote participant. Remote is at home and is calling in. She often has trouble hearing what’s going on, and rarely can connect […]
February 12th, 2019 → 9:36 am @ KAMIND IT // No Comments
Business relies on IT systems and data for daily operation and even survival. Increasing threats from bad actors, physical infrastructure failure, data corruption, and human error persist in both the traditional datacenter and the cloud. Businesses strive to keep systems running, and plan for restoring services as quickly as possible when things inevitably fail. Any restoration or recovery must happen quickly with minimal data loss. But how do we qualify ‘running’, how do we measure ‘quickly’, and how to we determine ‘minimal’? What’s more, how do these definitions and goals fit within our real-world budgets? Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) goals are designed for and measured by how quickly and how completely losses can be mitigated. The Recovery Time Objective (RTO) defines the expectation of how quickly a system, service or data must be restored; in other words, the maximum acceptable downtime. The Recovery Point Objective (RPO) defines how […]
