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30% of in-house IT pros admit to snooping!
Alexander Muse , June 20, 2008
According to a Cyber-Ark survey reported by Reuters, one in three IT professionals abuse admin passwords by gaining access to their colleagues salary data, personal emails or board-meeting minutes. Ironically, 1 in 3 admit to the snooping and 47% said they had access to information not relevant to their job.
“Paraskevidekatriaphobia”
What is it? No its not a word I made up. No, its not a Russian word that I would say growing up either. It actually describes people afflicted with a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th (today) - and according to psychologists, there are about 21 million of us in America. Roughly 8% of our population wants to stay in bed for fear of bad luck on Friday the 13th. Some sources say it may be the most widespread superstition in the United States. Some people won’t go to work on Friday the 13th; some won’t eat in restaurants; many wouldn’t think of setting a wedding on the date.
Why do we have a fear of Friday the 13th anyway? What started all of the devilish discussion about the freaky Friday, bad luck day? There is a history actually, its quite amusing to read about. These kinds of myths and legends were essentially created by one religion demonizing another. One story about Fridays is from as early as the sixth century. Christian missionaries from England traveled to Germany or Russia (go Russia!) to stamp out other religions like the Norse goddess Frigg?, goddess of sky, love, fertility, and motherhood. As Christianity gained popularity throughout Europe, missionaries demonized her and demoted her to a witch even though many saw her as a beautiful woman. But, there were some who still believed in the power of Frigg and wanted to remain as her followers. As the Christians continued to shun Frigg even more strongly, her followers started meeting secretly in caves to worship her. This only added to society fearing Frigg and the speculation is that followers gathered in the caves on Fridays. Later, her name was linked to the derivative of the word Friday, which became known as the day of worshiping the witch. The belief that Friday was an evil day followed.
So is this really a reason to fear the actual day of Friday the thirteenth? Not for me, but others maybe. My thought is that if I pretend to be superstitious like this then maybe I can go home. Just a random thought.
Alexander Muse: Entrepreneur of the Week!
VenturePad selected our very own Alexander Muse as their Entrepreneur of the Week. Here is a snippit from Jerry Bowles who wrote the profile:
To say that Alexander Muse is a serial entrepreneur is like saying that Warren Buffet is a guy who buys stocks. Surrounded by diverse team of more than 50 business people, engineers, software developers and assorted creative types the 36-year-old ex-Marine is actively involved in the day-to-day operation of more than ten businesses including: Architel, an IT services company; Big in Japan, a social software company; WhiteBox, a finance and collection company; ServiceGuy, a contractor referral service; and SocialTones, a social ringtone service.
Check out the full article here.
Smoking = Brain Damage!
New studies out of France prove that smoking presents an increased risk for memory loss in people at mid-life. The study found a strong link between smoking and cognitive and memory problems later in life. The study explains,
“First, smoking in middle age is associated with memory deficit and decline in reasoning abilities,” they wrote in a report in the June 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine “Second, long-term ex-smokers are less likely to have cognitive deficits in memory, vocabulary and verbal fluency.
If you smoke, consider quitting before you forget how…
Managed Services Audit Program
Earlier this year we launched something we call our ‘Managed Services Audit Program’. The program is designed for business owners who employ their own in-house IT staff. To start our engineers will install our network monitoring device within the business owner’s network. The alerts and notifications will be delivered to the business owner’s IT staff via email or SMS. Next we set up our online backup service (up-to 100GB of backup) offering the business owner’s IT staff access to the same tools we offer to our fractional IT clients. Finally, we conduct a complete audit of your systems each quarter, providing the business owner a third-party’s opinion of your IT infrastructure. All of this for $5,000 per year (paid in advance). To summarize:
- Network and System Monitoring
- Online Backup (on-site and remote storage of data)
- Quarterly audit of IT infrastructure
Businesses who purchase our Managed Services Audit Program can switch to our fully managed fractional IT solution at any time and we will waive our installation fees. Contact Scott Ryan at 214.550.2010 if you would like to schedule a meeting to discuss our Managed Service Audit Program.
How well can you type?
Shannon Barrett , May 27, 2008
Most folks in the office spend a large part of their day behind a keyboard but how good at typing are we really?
I took typing class in grade school and wrote dozens of 20-page papers in college but it wasn’t until I was sitting in front of my computer everyday that I really started picking up speed. These days I hardly have to think about what specific letters I’m typing but I know several people (my wife included) who still use some sort of variant on the hunt-and-peck typing method.
Thankfully there is a new keyboard for folks who are confident in their typing 
and want to take it to the next level. The Das Keyboard comes without any letters, numbers or symbols on it. It has slight curves on the F and J key but otherwise it is completely blank.
So what do you say? Do you think you’ve got the typing chops?
Rituals can create a culture. . .
Josh suggested in a post today that, “Your culture can be one of the hardest assets for you to protect.“ We certainly don’t have the whole culture thing figured out at Architel, but we have attempted to create culture through the creation of rituals.
For example, each Friday we turn off the phones at noon and keep them off until two for an all hands meeting and a communal lunch. All employees are required to attend the meeting where we discuss issues facing the company, individuals or the market in general. We reward employees who have gone above and beyond with certificates and gift cards. Finally, we serve lunch to the entire team. We have shared lunch with each other since 2003 and while it may seem like a small thing it is something many of us look forward to each week. Of course, we won’t be able to do this forever (i.e. we will eventually get too big).
Both current and former employees have told me that getting together as a group is/was their favorite part of work each week. Does your company have a ritual?
I get no respect I tell ya…
“I’m tired of chasing my dreams, I’m just gonna ask where they’ll be and hook up with them later.”
It’s very hard to be successful in the IT field. There are a lot of “fakers” out there that are mostly incompetent so how do you stand out as a diamond in the rough without coming off as a “suck-up”?
Tip #1
Pick what you talk about carefully and don’t be Mr. Obvious. Techs whom point out the obvious are usually incapable on some level(compensating for something) unless mentioned as a variable to be controlled in a given applicable scenario. For instance if you are casually talking about the SMTP protocol and mention that it runs over port 25 I (as an extremely intelligent and talented tech 
) will assume that your experience with SMTP is limited because you are taking the time to mention such a “mundane detail”. This may seem ironic and it is but, none the less, the less you say the more you probably know or at least the less I know you know.
Signed,
Elitest Computer “GURU”
Tip #2
Don’t call or refer to yourself as a guru.
Sell Yourself.
Sales is a hard job and not everyone is going to be good at it. Just like anything else it takes time and persistance to perfect. Over the years I have learned many things. No matter what industry you are in, getting tips from others has always been the best tool of success for me. Bouncing information from one another helps an individual grow. Below are some tips that anyone can use; because no matter what we are doing, we are selling ourself.
1. Don’t do the bulk of your business prospecting during prime business hours. Often the call that is placed at 8AM or 6PM will be received by a decision-maker that has more time to talk. And don’t under-estimate the value of leaving voice mail messages at night. These will be the very first messages that your prospect will hear in the morning, thereby increasing the odds of them placing a returned call.
2. If you want to present products and services that are of value to the prospect and that meet their needs, you have to ASK questions. Ask the right questions and the prospect will tell you what they want and how they need to be sold. Ask open-ended questions.
3. Too many sales reps launch into a conversation by discussing the features of their products and services. Features never sold anyone. The only thing that a prospect cares about is what these features will do for them. In other words, speak in terms of benefits and your prospect will be more pre-disposed to listening to your presentation. It’s not the typical sales pitch that way.
4. There’s no magic bullet. Prospecting takes time and patience and if your sales pipeline isn’t always filled with prospects in various stages of being worked, then you are in for a future sales slump.
5. Don’t underestimate the power of faxes. In these days of email, faxes have taken a back seat. Because of that, faxes get noticed. Carefully position faxes as part of your prospecting efforts. Another thing to consider is a hand-written note or card. It makes you stand out.
6. Follow-up and follow-through are keys to prospecting success. Just like gardening, if you don’t water the seeds, the garden will languish. And so it is with prospecting… if you don’t remain in contact, you will never break through.
7. Give a prospect something for nothing. We all like to get things for free. An article that would be of interest and value, information that you received online etc. and transferred to the prospect with a note “just thought you might be interested in this” indicates that you are thinking of them and wish to be a resource.
8. Periodically tape-record a random sampling of your cold calls. Listen to the tape and assess your tone and voice. How did you sound? Would you want to speak with a person who sounds like you? What about your words? Were they clear and benefits oriented. Taping gives you the opportunity to self-correct your presentation. Call yourself and leave a voicemail; listen to it. Would you call yourself?
9. Pace yourself. Prospecting is a very time-consuming and arduous task. Allocate a specific amount of time each day (week?) and keep to the schedule. It is always easy to put something ahead of the prospecting activity but make an appointment with yourself and don’t break it. Having a specific schedule helps break up the day too. This is something you set up just for yourself.
10. Last but definitely not least, maintain a good sense of humor. Make the prospect smile and you’re halfway there! The person on the other line has been waiting for your call…
