Mike Foster's IT Security and Best Practices Blog » professionals

Do you want to save 100’s of hours this year?

Mike Foster — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 04:00:36 +0000

How many times do you receive an email and need to phone the person back, but the person does not include their phone number in their email signature line?

I’ve been at work for 2 hours today and returned around 15 phone calls in response to email messages I received.

Since many of them are new prospects, they aren’t in CRM yet. I probably wasted an average of one minute looking up each person’s phone number since it was not in their email signature line. That easily translates into an hour of wasted time EVERY DAY.

When I see an e-mail signature with a phone number, I rejoice! Are you willing to set the example?

Does your phone receive email? If the person put their phone number in their email signature line, you can click the email to place the phone call.

Set an example by setting up your automatic email signature line to include your phone number. When you email someone, they can just tap on your phone number in your email signature line to call you.

I receive so many email messages that say, “Mike, call me!” and there is no number to click on. I can look up their number, but it would be so much faster if it was included in their email signature line.

Please post your comments on this blog.

What are your favorite apps?

Mike Foster — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 04:00:37 +0000

Here are a list of favorite applications created from polls of CEO groups. You may wish to try out some of these yourself, and I will GREATLY appreciate you responding with YOUR favorite apps—especially those you use in business. It is okay if they are in the list already—I’m keeping score of how many people like them.

Apple, Android—all apps are welcome. These are some of the applications other senior level executives like:

Around Me
Bestparking
Camera
CNN
DBM with Family
Doc Scanner
Doc Scanner Great Quality
Docs To Go
Documents To Go
Evernote
Fire 2
Flixter
Words with Friends
Glipse
Google Voice
GoToMyPC
Group Chat
GroupMe
Harvard Business Review
Hipmunk
Next Gen of Kayak
Intellicast

Logmein for iPad
Map my Run
Movie Phone
Notepad
NPR App
NPR Podcasts
Oprah
Pandora
Pulse
Slacker Radio
SlingBox
SugerSync
Task thing
TED
TripIt
Tunein
Vocatel
Weather and News
Weather Channel App
Yelp
YouSendIt

Please post your favorite apps on this blog.

Big benefits of using the cloud

Mike Foster — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 04:00:11 +0000

There are major benefits for executives to consider about the cloud.

The most important include your cloud provider doing the following:

Making backups of the data you host with them.
Installing patches to the applications they provide you.
Performing upgrades to their software and provide business continuity solutions to prepare for when disaster strikes their service.
Blocking spam for you if you are using hosted e-mail.

Generally with cloud services you and your users can access the cloud applications from practically anywhere using practically any device that has a browser—even a smartphone.

Many cloud services allow month-to-month contracts and they also offer instant scalability so you can add or remove employees/users anytime you like. This means your fees are adjusted accordingly and instantly as your number of users dynamically increases and decreases.

The next two posts will address both cautions and dangers of using the cloud.

Please post your comment on this blog.

Build a better firewall?

Mike Foster — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 04:00:30 +0000

Your IT professionals can protect you even more than they are now.

In the experience of auditing, most organizations know to use a DMZ that functions as a buffer zone between your internal network and the public Internet.

Sometimes it is even better to have a buffer zone in-between your local network and the DMZ. In other words, for traffic to get into your network, the traffic will have to get past at least three firewalls.

Since this blog post is directed towards an executive level audience, I’ll invite IT professionals to contact me for more details. And, for any of you who are interested, click here to download a diagram that provides both a clear visual and also the details you will find helpful.

Please post your comments on this blog.

Cloud computing problems and concerns

Mike Foster — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 04:00:14 +0000

Just how important is “moving to the cloud” for your organization?

Executives who use Dropbox regularly were concerned to learn about a security event at Dropbox. You can read the details here:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/06/dropbox.html

As some of my consulting clients move towards the cloud, others are digging their heels in and refusing to turn loose of their security. They do not want to trust the security of their private data to services, nor are they sure their data will be available when they need it.

Still, some very large organizations are moving to the cloud.

What are your feelings? What applications do you use in the cloud?

Please post your comments on this blog.

Microsoft’s new management tool

Mike Foster — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 04:00:28 +0000

Microsoft is expected to release Windows Intune later this month. For an expected $10 per month per computer, Intune provides your IT professionals a way to centrally manage your computers.

I promote central management constantly because it is a huge way for your organization to save time, money, and be more secure. It is so much better for your IT professionals to be able to support your users and manage your Microsoft patches no matter where the computers are located. In fact, your IT pros can be anywhere too.

When your organization changes size, since Windows Intune is cloud based, just change your subscription accordingly to instantly support your new computers.

Expect even more of the other main stream companies to offer a similar cloud based management service soon. Click here to discover more about Windows Intune.

Please post your comments on this blog.

Do you use video on your website?

Mike Foster — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 04:00:08 +0000

In case you haven’t noticed video clips are becoming very important on websites. If your website does not have videos and your competition does you could be missing out.

In fact some users append the word “video” to the end of their searches in search engines. Whether your video is a how-to video, a video showing off your products, or even a funny video, this can attract viewers to build traffic on your site. Video is very important.

Be sure to tag your videos with keywords that will lead people to your products and services. Drawing traffic to your website through videos can make a big difference in your organization’s success in search engines.

Videos don’t have to look super professional either. You can even use videos made with a webcam, a cell phone, or a small camera such as the Flip camera. Even short, one-minute videos on your website can be very helpful. In fact, keeping the videos short can encourage more people to watch them.

Talk to your web design company today and get some videos on your website if they aren’t already there.

Please post your comments on this blog.

IT professionals have to cooperate

Mike Foster — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 04:00:08 +0000

A common complaint I receive from IT professionals is, “Senior management is using very insecure practices.” I have to explain that as long as the senior management made an informed decision and they are aware of the risks they are taking, IT needs to follow their ruling.

In other words, IT professionals do not set policy. They enforce the polices that senior management sets.

For example, an IT professional called me recently about the senior managers choosing to allow their users to plug into customer networks. This practice is an IT security risk for a number of reasons. Still, if the executives understand the risks and say to do it anyway, then IT needs to follow their direction.

As mentioned last week, the process works like this:

IT makes suggestions to senior executives, making sure the executives understand the benefits, drawbacks, risks, likelihood, and the extent of possible damages.
Then, the executives reflect a summary back to IT so the executives are certain they completely understand.
The executives make a decision and written policies are produced or adjusted as required.
IT will enforce the policies and act on them accordingly.

The key is that the senior executives make an informed decision and truly understand the risk.

And yes, in case you are wondering, it is often the CEO’s computer that is the biggest security risk in most organizations because of all the “special treatment” and “exceptions to the rule” that CEO’s demand from IT.

Please post your comments on this blog.

Executives-are you making informed decisions?

Mike Foster — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 04:00:30 +0000

Often IT provides senior management with IT options, but fails to adequately inform the executives what the consequences are to a selected action.

For example, having full disk encryption on all workstations is of upmost importance. Some executives will choose to skip using full disk encryption. The key is that the IT professional ensures the executive is making an informed decision and knows what the consequences are.

The flow looks like this:

IT makes suggestions to senior executives, making sure the executives understand the benefits, drawbacks, risks, likelihood, and the extent of possible damages.
Then, the executives reflect a summary back to IT so the executives are certain they completely understand.
The executives make a decision and written policies are produced or adjusted as required.
IT will enforce the policies and act on them accordingly.

The key, once again, is that the senior executives make an informed decision.

Please post your comments on this blog.

Your customer service experiences

Mike Foster — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 04:00:45 +0000

When you, as an executive, have to call customer service or technical support do you ever feel frustrated? I know the answer of course, and it is interesting to examine why. Here are some examples:

The “fraud early warning” department for one of my credit cards calls regularly because I often make “card present” charges in at least five different states every week. I’ve had this same conversation with umpteen representatives through the years but there seems to be no system in place at the bank for them to save everyone time by “remembering.”

Do you, as an executive, wish companies could get to know a little about who you are? I cannot imagine doing business without a CRM in place.

Another issue is how valuable your time is. Representatives have to read enormous scripts with everything from disclaimers to special offers for you? Maybe they will lose their job if they fail to read them all to you.

Then there are the profuse apologies about being sorry for messing up, sorry for putting you on hold, sorry they have to leave you on hold a little bit longer, sorry for not getting back from hold soon enough, sorry for the problem you experienced, sorry for apologizing so often, etc. Sometimes these are mixed in with a plethora of excuses, defenses, and justifications. This extra talk just interferes with you wanting to have as short of a call as possible.

Another notable moment is when the representative asks, “Do you have something to write with?” What kind of customers do these poor customer service representatives who support business professionals have to deal with on a daily basis that don’t have a pen and paper, if not a computer, handy at all times?

And we all know about the dreaded hand-off, the hold times, and the many other problems that lead executives to dread calling customer service or technical support.

Two things I know:

You, as an executive, are busy – too busy to deal with long winded seemingly unhelpful technical service representatives.
I have tremendous compassion for the representatives. They are in, what seems to me, one of the most thankless and unpleasant jobs in the world. I certainly appreciate their efforts and my heart goes out to them.

Maybe the answer is to allow people to qualify themselves somehow. Maybe if you have been a customer for more than 5 years you get to call a secret phone number where representatives don’t have to read long scripts and you can just get an issue resolved quickly. Maybe if you’ve always paid your bill on time they won’t ask if you have a pen and paper handy.

Maybe there will be an option:

Press 1 if you want to speak to a representative that will apologize to you every other sentence or
Press 2 if you already know how sorry we are for your inconvenience and you just want us to solve the problem so you can get on with your life.

I think my favorite customer service experience is when I call my airline. If you fly often, then you have an unpublished number to phone customer service. There is less time on hold and the representatives handle the call professionally. Hooray!

Is it possible for credit card companies, mobile phone providers, insurance companies, and other organizations to have tiered customer service that allow some customers to have a better experience?

At the same time, when I need help at the airport counter, I’ve learned to avoid the first class because the first class customers seem to be high maintenance compared to the rest of the customers. Consequently, the first class line can move at a crawl compared to the other lines.

Furthermore, I wonder if the bad customer service keeps executives and IT professionals alike from getting issues resolved that affect their IT security. If contacting “customer service” is deemed so unpleasant that you will settle for low security, that is a big issue.

Since we cannot change other companies, I’d love to know success you’ve had that improves customer service!

Please post your comments on this blog.