Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Overcomming challenges in Technology

One of the greatest challenges a small growing company will face in improving their technology will be the getting a healthy perspective on how to invest in technology.  When we started our company we got by on used stuff.  Our firs sever was purchased of ebay.  our second server was an obnoxiously loud home made server.  These served us well right up to the time we had several employees counting on our infrastructure every day.  Then when they went down it was more costly because more people were counting on it to do their jobs.  Not to mention our billing needed to happen weekly if not daily in order to keep the cash flowing.

Is there a middle ground between used stuff and way to expensive stuff?  I'm happy to report there is.  Like most other business problems there are strategic ways of dealing with each element of technology for a business.  The areas I see that most often need a attention while a business grows are the following for infrastructure.  1.File storage. 2. Email  3.firewall.  4. Phone system.

I'm going to break each one of these down in future blogs.  These are elements I see over and over.  it seems that in 10 years nothing has changed.  I mean the solutions have changed but the problems have not.  The great news is that there are better and better solutions and the cost of maintaining them is decreasing as well.

Thanks for reading  ~pz

Thursday, June 17, 2010

What is new?

Not much.  I know it's been a while since I've blogged.  I appreciate anyone who continues to read.  I truly enjoy blogging but I don't play by all the rules.  I'm supposed to blog at least once per week if I want anyone to follow my blog, but, I started out doing this for fun.  Guess what.  It still is.  Sometimes  I just get busy and need to go out and have more expeirences to write about.  I need to take time and learn and discern direction for myself.  Well...I think I'm getting back on track. 

Actually I think it is interesting that nothing is new.  I've actually been very busy in my new role.  I find it funny that I'm constantly rediscovering the same things.  I've been doing IT consulting for over 8 years now and I see the same probems over and over.  It got me to thinking.  Why is it? Shouldn't things be getting easier?  Shouldn't technology be advancing and improving things? The fact is that improvements have been made but adoption is slow. I think this is because decision makers count on people they can trust to help guide them and they are fearful of moving away from that persons advice even if that person is not keeping up with the changes in the industry.  Even with all the improvements that have been made in business technology making the right decision can still be very confusing.

What I've found is that companies are still fighting the same problems: 1.not enough money 2.need to make improvements that will have a large impact on productivity and stability 3. not enough time to make the decisions and implement the solutions  4. can't afford to make the wrong decision.  How can they overcome these problems and end up making the right decisions?  I'm not sure. after all, we live in America and most of the sales people who walk through your door have a quota to make.  Most of them are young and inexperieinced.  Most of them won't be there a year from now. 

We can start by setting timelines for decisons and asking lots of questions.  Look for people who have experience and have exposure to lots of different technologies.  Find companies that have a history of taking care of their customers over the long haul.  Many small companies value thier long term relationships with their customers and the owner of the company is often involved on a day to day basis.

The truth is that it is not to hard to come to the right decision once you find the right partner