Intuitive CIO

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I recently was at the 19th Annual Symphony Lovers’ Ball, and yes, I do clean up pretty nice, if I do say so myself.
 
Like many of these charity events, there were a number of things to spend money on. Drinks—yes, there was a cash bar; raffle tickets—the main prize was a set of $18,000 Tiffany earrings and bracelet;  and a live auction—conducting the VSO cost someone $10,500. 
 
Then there was the silent auction. This one had about 40 items in it, from wine to handbags, golf trips toTVs—basically, something for everyone. I was particularly interested in the silent auction; and peoples willingness to give out personal infirmation to everyone in the room. 

For the benefits of those who don’t know how a silent auction works, lets review. 
 
There is an item. It’s typically donated, but sometimes it’s bought by the charity at a reduced cost. The item is usually sitting on a table, somewhat like a coffee mug sits on a table. (for the purposes of this, lets say it is a coffee mug up for silent auction) 
 
So, our mug is sitting there, hoping someone wants it, hoping the person who wants it doesn’t have a lot of lipstick, or isn’t prone to breaking mugs, or leaves coffee in it for days at a time, basically wanting a good home. 
 
There is a piece of paper sitting in front of the mug. It describes the mug. 
 
“Blue 10 oz coffee mug, “worlds best dad” written on it.” 
 
It will often have the “value”, in order to give the potential mug owner an idea of what they should be willing to spend on the mug. Something like this: 
 
“Value $5.99″ 
 
Then, of course, a line telling you who donated the prize: 
 
“Donated by ‘Mr. and Mrs. Warren Smith’” 
 
Fine. We have our item, an idea of what we should be happy paying for it, and who graciously donated it for auction. The next part of the paper is very important. The bids. 
 
The bids are typically a line by line sheet of blank paper. Divided into three columns. First one is Name, then Phone number, then bid. Everyone who wants to bid on our mug must write down their details on 
the next line, and write the price they are willing to pay. So, for our cup, it might be something like: 
 
Walter Murray           212-555-4534            $1 
Larry Johnson           415-555-6690            $1.50 
Margo Smith             603-555-4545            $1.75 
Larry Johnson           415-555-6690            $2 
Margo Smith             603-555-4545            $2.50 
Larry Johnson           415-555-6690            $3.50 
Ken Holmes              212-555-2300            $4.01 
Margo Smith             603-555-4545            $5 
Larry Johnson           415-555-6690            $5.50 
 
So, Larry wins the auction! If he is not there at the end, then someone calls him up, and arranges to trade payment for the mug. 
 
That’s it. The charity has their money, Larry has the beloved mug, to drink from or put pens in, or whatever, and I, thanks to my digital camera, have the names and numbers of everyone who bid on an item at this auction. 
 
A rough count. I have a list of 100 of the city’s most charitable people, along with their phone numbers.  

The trouble is that part of the reason for having people write their names down allows everyone else to see how generous they are. This practice is risky. I encourage everyone to push to have this practice stopped. Give people a code or number that only the people running the auction know. If people then want to have their name on the list, then have them only write down their first name.

privacy, security charity, privacy, security, vso

We all like new toys. Well… that’s not exactly true; some of the most successful business people I know still use their computers for long periods of time (7 to 10 years), then upgrade only when the computer no longer does what it could when it was new.

In most cases, you don’t need to replace a computer before the hardware fails. Often, an upgrade is more cost-effective:

• Insufficient RAM :  If you find that the tasks you are doing have changed, or you are in a position to need more memory than the computer has available, (typically you purchased too little RAM when you bought the computer) then you may need to buy a new one. However, since computer manufactures are getting good at using standard memory sizes, it’s no longer the norm to have to buy expensive RAM only from one source. Type “upgrade ram” into google, and you’ll find hundreds of companies that will help you figure out what RAM you need for your older laptop, (and of course, sell it to you).

• Insufficient Storage: Back in the day, (and by that I mean more than 15 years ago, when there were a number of different types of hard drives), it was a tough task to upgrade anything in the hard drive world. These days, things are a lot better. If you want to upgrade your notebook, it will cost you about $100 for a 160GB drive. If you want to upgrade your desktop, it’s about $100 for a 750GB drive.

As with every rule, there is an exception:

CPU/Speed: This is the most limiting factor of computers. Sure, you can upgrade the CPU, and can make your computerrun faster than the manufacturer has tested it. In most cases, it’s not worth the risk. If you put a faster chip into an existing computer, you run the risk of the chip not working properly with the existing hardware, you may run into problems where the new chip overheats, (yes, it’s a safe bet that the more powerful the chip, the more heat it produces.) Would you rather have a less reliable faster computer, or a more reliable slower computer?

hardware computer, hardware, upgrade

I get a lot of questions these days about IT spending, and how we can reduce it.

For large companies, there are lots of options,: reduce the staff by 10%, shift more responsibilities onto the user, pull services in-house (or push them out, depending on the service), etc. all of which could easily reduce your costs by millions.

For the under 10-people businesses (which make up the number-one slot for employment in most economies), reducing staff by 10% is rarely an option. Often there is no staff at all, just outside consultants; it’s hard to make them prioritize reducing the moneys you pay them.

I have the top three things that you can do to reduce your IT overhead in these tough times.

1) Prioritize your needs. If email is critical to the success of your business, make sure your IT consultant knows that. Bring him/her in, pay them for an hour of their time to review where you can reduce. The cost of one or two hours of planning will immensely help you in the long run.

2) Educate your staff. Send out an email that starts: “In an effort to reduce our costs going into these economically uncertain times”.. and go on to explain that users should redouble their efforts to fix any IT issues before asking for the consultant to come in.

3) Update your software to the latest security fixes. These days, all major software has the ability to update itself to the latest version. With anti-virus software you are concerned about “virus definition files” with windows; with Mac it’s “service packs” or “patches”. Have each member of staff run those on a weekly basis. This will help reduce issues needing the attention of your IT consultant.

Depending on how far you need to cut, you may have to do more than that. Again, your IT guy is the key. Work with him to reduce those costs.

3 things economy, it spending

When we consider the Terry Childs debacle, we tend to overlook the lessons that small businesses can take from it.

Unfortunately, the dozens of safeguards, the policies and procedures that a huge organisation like the City of San Francisco have would sink the largest of small businesses. To put it in perspective, the 2003 city budget had 31,000 employees. More people work for the city of San Francisco than work for Apple Computers.

Lets put aside the long list of ideas about what could have been done differently, what was done wrong, who was to blame. The real question is how can I prevent it from killing my business.  Today, we take a brief look at:

Sarah Palin!

No, I was just checking if you were still awake. Would be good though.. Blogging about Sarah, those eyes, those boots, ack. Sorry. Back on track.

Backups!

Chances are, if you are a small business, you don’t back your data up properly. (note, I said properly, read below for clarification).

I was at the offices of EasyPark, the company where I park my car. I had loaned my transponder to a friend  and he promptly lost it. (Thanks Scott) Fine, $50 later, and I had a shiny new one. While I was waiting for the receptionist to get me my change, I noticed that there was a backup tape sitting on the reception desk. Clearly marked “Backup”, “Normal 1″, and “to Vault”. Now, since it’s just a tape, most people would think, “hey, neat tape”, or “someone left a tape on the desk”, but since I pay for my parking every month via my credit card, I would bet a months parking that my credit card is on that tape somewhere. When the receptionist returned I thanked her for my change, and as I left, I politely asked her to not leave my credit card number on the reception desk.

From Their Website:  ”EasyPark presently manages 38 facilities, totaling over 9,300 parking spaces and ranging in size from 20 to 1,577 spaces. We manage premier parkades within the city, including Pacific Centre, Pacific Centre North, Gastown, Library Square, YWCA & Yaletown.“

9300 Parking spaces.. That’s a lot of customer information.. Lets see who owns them.

“Since then, the Parking Corporation of Vancouver/EasyPark, as it now exists, is jointly owned by the City and the Downtown Vancouver Association (DVA). This share structure gives the City sole title to the assets of, and the revenues generated by, the Corporation; while the DVA provides the business expertise to conduct the affairs of the Corporation. It is governed by a board of two appointed and twelve elected directors.“

That was a long walk to make an important point. Making backups is not enough. I bet that they have an awesome backup system. Cleaning tapes, weekly rotations, the whole shooting match. BUT you need to also manage them, know where they are, know who are the people who have their hands on them. This is especially true if you have probably signed an agreement with, say, a bank. An agreement that states you will treat the credit cards of your clients with some kind of security. just saying..

I still think that Sarah Palin thing has legs tho..

backups, security backups, credit card, easy park, palin, security