cM Blog

HELLO!

I hope this finds you well. With the volumes of information on the Internet, it’s very easy to miss quality information that may help to serve your business for the better. Below is a group of select articles we found valuable and will be sharing similar articles on a monthly basis. Our team values your business and considers that great information should be shared for the benefit of all. So as we find great information, you will be in the know as well. Enjoy!

Timothy M. Butkiewicz – Founder and President

  IN THIS ISSUE

10 Insider Short Cuts for OutlookMicrosoft Outlook Blog Post by Annik Stahl

Speed up your everyday interactions by using really easy to remember keyboard shortcuts that you should know. (Keyboard shortcut: individual keystrokes—or combination of keys pressed at the same time—used to execute commands.)

read more

Balance Of Work And Life Is A MythAmerican Express Forum Article by Stephen Shapirio

Struggle to maintain a balance between personal life and work life?   Instead of constantly trying to maintain that balance, another option is to integrate your personal and work life together to get more out of life.

read more

What Successful People Do Differently (podcast)Harvard Business Review Interview by Heidi Grant Halvorson

Successful people aren’t always necessarily smarter, rather they often achieve success by doing things differently than others.  Listen to a podcast by motivational psychologist and author Heidi Grant Halvorson on nine things successful people do differently.

read more

Broadcast your slide presentation to a remote audienceMicrosoft Office Blog Post by Microsoft Team

Remote presentations are becoming a standard business practice.  Watch a short, instructive video on how to broadcast your PowerPoint presentation over the Internet, even if your client doesn’t have PowerPoint.

read more

Seven Tips to Establish Rapport with Potential ProspectsYoung Entrepreneur Artcile by Michael Halper

When you’re working with prospective clients, it isn’t always enough to be the most qualified.  Studies show that building a positive rapport is often the key to winning new business. Here are seven tips on how to do just that.

read more

AND…VIDEO PICKS FROM OUR STAFF

Future Screen Technology

Advances in technology will push  new interactions on how we live. see the video

Presentation & Story Telling

Interesting data on what great presenters have in common. see the video

Phones Thin as Paper

Will ultra-thin be the next wave in phone design and convenience. see the video

cyberMIND

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Suite 225

Kalamazoo, MI 49007

Tel: 877 373 6680

Fax: 269 373 6692

As a corporate BlackBerry user for the past 10+ years we have seen RIM products come a long way from that little BlackBerry pager that could display lines of text. Lately, RIM has stepped up application development and we have found a number of apps which are 1) Free and 2) Incredibly Helpful. Most of these apps we use on a daily basis.

BlackBerry Travel – Free through App World
Quick Hit: Awesome trip management tool with automagic trip detail updates.
http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/25652

This app is up there as one of our favorite BlackBerry applications. What I love about this app is the automatic updating of flight, hotel and car information. Flight delayed? Travel alerts you. What gate are you departing from? Travel tells you. Travel scans your email for trip information and automatically builds your incoming trip. Need a hotel while on a trip? You can book a room using the app. While traveling you can check the weather for the location you are in within Travel.

BBM – Free through App World
Quick Hit: Full featured Instant Messaging to other BlackBerry users.
http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/3729?lang=en

We use this app every day. While texting is cross platform – BBM is a must if you text with other BB users. BBM is quick, and allows you to verify your message has been delivered and read. Need to conference in another BB user? Just add them to your chat. BBM also has support for groups – this is a great way to have a chat discussion room with your project team, entire company or friends. Within a chat you can send files, pictures, voice notes and more to the recipient. All features are free. If you are on a metered texting plan BBM over texting wins hands down. BBM is now integrating with applications in the most recent release of BBM.

Google Maps – Free through m.google.com
Quick Hit: Great for getting driving, walking or transit directions or an address/phone number for a location.
http://m.google.com/maps

Google Maps supports built-in GPS for real-time location info. With maps you can easily find an address for a location, get driving, walking or mass transit directions from point A to Point B. While displaying directions you get real-time mapping with your route overlaid – this is handy in that it provides you with a point of reference from where you are to where you are going. One drawback is that the map does not re-orient when you make a directional move – instead north is always located at the top of the screen. On a recent trip to a metro area I found it handy to be able to route to my destination with bus and subway info – yeah Maps even gave me a list of bus/subway stops with departure times to get to my destination.

Traffic – Free through App World
Quick Hit: GPS routing on your phone with ability to pick best route based on real-time traffic conditions.
http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/13110?lang=en

Traffic is huge. Traffic is a GPS with real-time data. Traffic can get you from Point A to Point B with turn by turn directions and will route around any traffic delays or construction. Miss a turn? Traffic automatically creates a new route to your destination – slick. One drawback is that I like to have a map when going point A to point B and Traffic simply provides a list of directions. Coming up in version 3 (currently in Beta) is voice guidance, option for toll avoidance as well as BBM integration so you can share your traffic details with other BBM users.

Vlingo – Free for a limited time through App World
Quick Hit: Voice command your BB – send emails, send texts and lookup information by talking to your phone.
http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/62816?lang=en

Vlingo is a voice activated personal assistant. Vlingo is a great way to send /reply to an email or text while driving. Nifty features such as looking up the weather just by talking – “Vlingo weather Kalamazoo”.

DriveSafe.ly Pro – Free for a limited time through App World.
Quick Hit: Reads your email and texts – great while driving.
http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/61844?lang=en

DriveSafe.ly Pro is a great app for avoiding the urge to glance at your phone while driving. DS reads your email and texts in a clear voice. You can even set it to send a message or text back to senders that you are traveling and will get back with them when you are at your destination. DS also has support for reading your calendar – so you can be alerted to scheduled items in your calendar while you are driving.

Password Keeper – Free through App World.
Quick hit: Essential for securely keeping track of passwords, CC card numbers, web site login info and account information.
Installed on BlackBerry by default

Password Keeper is one of those essential utility apps. Password Keeper allows you to store usernames, passwords, web site login and just about anything you can type. Secured and encrypted by a master password, Password Keeper provides for a handy filing spot for your usernames and passwords. Running on top of the BlackBerry you can be assured that your Password Keeper data is safe. A runner up to Password Keeper is BlackBerry Wallet which is also found in App World.

Social Feeds – Free through App World.
Quick Hit: Combines your Facebook, Twitter and BBM – great blog reader.
Installed on BlackBerry by default

Social Feeds is a nice application to bring together Facebook and Twitter posts. You can subscribe to RSS feeds – which makes for a great little blog post reader.

Recently I received an article posted in Harvard Business Review (http://bit.ly/suqsP) dealing with time management. It really was a great little article and reminded me of the ever important need to have an Action Plan.

One of the key characteristics of the cyberMIND team is that we stress having an action plan. From projects to goal accomplishments to technical troubleshooting – having an action plan is a must.

http://www.time-management-guide.com provides a good synopsis:

• Clarify your goal. Can you get a visual picture of the expected outcome? How can you see if you have reached your destination? What does make your goal measurable? What constraints do you have, like the limits on time, money, or other resources.
• Write a list of actions. Write down all actions you may need to take to achieve your goal. At this step focus on generating and writing as many different options and ideas as possible. Take a sheet of paper and write more and more ideas, just as they come to your mind. While you are doing this, try not to judge or analyze.
• Analyze, prioritize, and prune. Look at your list of actions. What are the absolutely necessary and effective steps to achieve your goal? Mark them somehow. After that, what action items can be dropped from in the plan without significant consequences for the outcome. Cross them out.
• Organize your list into a plan. Decide on the order of your action steps. Start from looking at your marked key actions. For each action, what other steps should be completed before that action? Rearrange your actions and ideas into a sequence of ordered action steps. Finally, look at your plan once again. Are there any ways to simplify it even more?
• Monitor the execution of your plan and review the plan regularly. How much have you progressed towards your goal by now? What new information you have got? Use this information to further adjust and optimize your plan.

Through the month of August we are turning our attention to technology used in the office environment. Building an efficient and effective working information technology function to your business is much like building a house. When a house is built, one of the first items in construction is the laying of the foundation. Policy specifically relating to Information Technology is the foundation of any well designed department or IT function. In this post we will be turning our attention to the ever over-looked and often costly under consequence – Internet Acceptable Use Policy.

Read on: http://bit.ly/6Xi0r

The City of Plainwell’s web site – http://www.plainwell.org, a cyberMIND development, won the 2009 MEDA marketing competition for websites for communities under 50,000.

Way to go Plainwell!

CA, this morning, put out a signature update for the eTrust Anti-Virus software. This update is causing some systems running eTrust Anti-Virus to falsely identify infected files which is causing applications to fail to launch or act erratically.

For further information and remediation – click here: http://bit.ly/2eooyo

Twitter, Facebook and LiveJournal are all combatting a Distributed Denial of Service Attack and experiencing significant outages.

Details are here:

http://www.cybermind-usa.com/phplist/lists/archive.php?x=46&listID=5&layoutID=1&pagerows=20&pagenum=1

Had a meeting today with a friend and her associate and we were discussing some needs she has with her business. One of the items that came up in the discussion was that the IT folks were rude, not team players and at times domineering in their roles.

Unfortunately I hear this to often from too many people. IT people, not all, but also not a few tend to take their positions as a power position and lord it over people. You may remember the Saturday Night Live skit – Nick Burns the Computer Guy

This is some people’s reality and it is not cool. Well the “move” thing just doesn’t fly.

She expressed that one of the reasons that she came to us was that she always found that when I was helping her with IT related tasks the I would speak plain language and explain what I was doing and why. In fact, she learned from this guidance and was able to apply what she learned.

Rule #1 – Be a Friendly and Helpful IT person

You, as an IT person, whether solo, outsourced or part of an internal department need to be a team partner. In a business, you are part of an organism. You need to work well with others. You need to be able to communicate complex realities to people in simple terms. Non-IT people realize that IT is complex and it is a reality – they are looking for you to help them understand so that they can perform their task and role. They don’t need you holding them hostage or going on a power trip because you know something they don’t. Inter-business relationships are not barter relationships.

cyberMIND staff will always be friendly and helpful. We are well known for our staff’s ability to communicate well and effectively. We are a partner. We see the partnership and we participate for the good of the common goal.

Welcome to the cM blog. We’ll be using this space to provide you with insight, news and timely information in the world of technology as it impacts small to mid-sized businesses and residential users. Let a comment if you have suggestions of topics you would like us to expand on or cover.

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