Productivity Archives - Bellwether Technology

5 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do with Microsoft Teams

Posted on January 19, 2023 by Merrick Sloss

How has your day-to-day work life changed since the COVID-19 pandemic. Chances are good that you’re a lot more comfortable with online meetings and you’ve adopted Teams as your favorite meeting app. Teams usage blew up as the pandemic sent droves of people into remote working. In fact, from March to June 2020, Teams use grew more than 894%. Depending on how your organization is working these days, you may still be relying on Teams for meetings for your onsite and remote workers, but have you discovered what else Teams can do to help everyone work more efficiently? Teams is […]

“Is This Email Real?” 4 Questions to Ask Yourself

Posted on November 23, 2020 by Merrick Sloss

Every day every person with email is put to the test. No matter the job title or position, we all get phishing emails. And no matter your knowledge of cybersecurity, you make the initial decision of whether a message is malicious. So, when deciding whether to call the IT Help Desk, here are some solid, simple tips and tricks from the top to help ANYONE dodge bad guys’ phishing hooks, nets, and spearguns. Not everyone has the time to call their IT provider’s remote support just to check emails every morning. You can follow the ‘WHO, WHAT, WHERE, AND WHEN’ […]

Social Distancing: Learn to Maintain Your Same Productivity Standards

Posted on May 26, 2020 by Merrick Sloss

The world is adapting and reacting. With companies asking staff to practice social distancing in response to the current pandemic, both employees and managers realize the challenges ahead to ensure business continuity. While the phenomenon of “social distancing” addresses the immediate issue, practicing social distancing might not work for businesses in the long term if they do not learn to maintain productivity standards. That is to say, the dramatically changed office landscape has shifted businesses to a new paradigm, which has raised concerns about the productivity standards. From managing human-to-human interaction to structuring a typical workday under quarantine, everything heightens […]

Improved Remote Meetings: Get the most out of the gear you already have

Posted on May 19, 2020 by Merrick Sloss

Best practices for Remote Meetings Before you run out and buy an ultra HD camera and noise cancelling headsets, try these remote meetings tips to get the most out of the equipment that you already own. Tip #1. Test every earpiece & microphone combination. Microsoft Teams makes it easy to make a test call. Try every device that you own. You may be surprised by which [one performs best. It turns our that the wired earphones and mic that came with my Samsung Galaxy S6 sounded better than my two bluetooth devices. My laptop’s microphone also performed nicely. You can […]

Productivity Tips That Work for Tech Enthusiasts

Posted on May 19, 2020 by Merrick Sloss

Applying a Technology Edge There is no denying that technology has been driving improvements and innovation across different global industries for decades. Although the adoption of many technological solutions may seem disruptive at first, they are essential investments that help enterprises gain an edge. Regardless of the size, information technology helps businesses or companies remain competitive and relevant in their markets. Unfortunately, not all businesses, such as mid-sized companies and startups, are able to provide their employees with tech tools to help gain a competitive advantage. While the high cost of dynamic IT landscape is the major hurdle for many, […]

IT User Training

Posted on July 1, 2018 by Steven Ellis

Don’t Think IT Solutions Are Complete without User Training. A frequently underappreciated contributor to a well-run IT operation is the ability to communicate with and train end users effectively. Its absence too often leads to a disconnect between the way the computer guys intended a system to be used and the way that people actually use it. Several factors are widely accepted as critical to the success of IT projects and to the overall effectiveness of an IT organization. They include ensuring that IT is aligned with well-defined and understood business objectives, that executive management supports the IT department’s efforts, […]

Know Your IT Strategy Priorities

Posted on February 1, 2018 by Steven Ellis

The key to aligning IT with your business Given the variety of approaches and number of choices available in IT for small businesses, a certain amount of strategic planning ensures that your business applies technology as well as it should. To be reasonably effective and applicable, strategic planning needs context, which means you should have a very good sense of your overall priorities before you can begin to think about how IT should fit in. We have defined a set of nine IT-related priorities to help understand how our clients approach technology. We ask our clients to force rank the […]

Online Meetings

Posted on April 17, 2017 by Steven Ellis

They’re more useful than you may realize. Online meetings through solutions like Webex and GoToMeeting have been around for nearly 20 years, and not a whole lot has changed over that time. Today, as before, they allow people to collaborate in real time over the internet via audio or video conferencing and screen or document sharing. But despite their relative longevity, stability and usefulness, I find that online meetings are still extremely underutilized. Not that I don’t understand the importance of in person meetings — interpersonal relationships are surely the key to many business deals; rather I have come to […]

Data Analytics: Not Just Numbers

Posted on February 1, 2017 by Steven Ellis

Data analytics is becoming not just more prevalent, but more useful for business. As someone with a mathematical, financial and technological background, I am a strong proponent of the benefit of analyzing and using data to make better decisions. Not surprisingly, then, I am happy to see a number of trends and emerging technologies that promise to help in that effort. The first is that data sources are becoming more open and easier to connect to. This trend exists in virtually all modern applications. One example of interest to those of us who live or work in New Orleans is […]

Not Just Core Networks: The New Role of IT Services

Posted on September 1, 2016 by Steven Ellis

Demands have changed in this cloud-based world. As the cloud and other developments continue to change the ways small businesses deploy and use technology, IT departments must adapt. Long gone are the days when most IT environments looked the same — a few Windows servers in a closet and a Windows PC on every desk — when all the IT department had to worry about managing core networks. Now we see a variety of different approaches and an overwhelming number of available applications. As a firm believer in technology’s ability to make a meaningful difference in a typical small business’s […]