News RSS News RSS Feed <![CDATA[Rethinking how you do business]]> We bank with the Bank of New Zealand for two dominant reasons. The technology platform they have is superior, and they are great at managing our business relationship.

The BNZ seem to be continually reinvesting in their technology platform. There are no “quantum leaps” or anything startling, but instead what appears to be a staggered approach to improving the client experience and backend processing. An example of the client experience is that you can now get balance and transaction information from other major trading banks within the BNZ system. A smart feature, which makes it just that little bit easier to do business.

On the backend system improvements, BNZ have just begun giving notices of incoming foreign exchange transactions through the online platform. Previously these were generated by a separate system and physically mailed through the postal system. The savings in transactional costs for the bank must add up. The challenge I give to everyone is to ask “can you do what the BNZ has done, using your technology more productively”? Can we help?

 

]]> Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:22:06 GMT <![CDATA[Some internet surfing aids productivity]]> Some internet surfing aids productivity

A study of 300 workers conducted at the University of Melbourne showed that whilst it is often assumed that people who use the internet at work for personal reasons are less productive, it actually increases their productivity by 9%. Addicts excluded.

A break to surf the web can provide a cognitive refresh, making the person more productive when they return to the task at hand. This study was reported in HBR.

My view is that I agree with the study, and if combined with awareness of accounting for time, is probably doubly beneficial. So, when looking at deploying web monitoring software, look at what options you have to report on the makeup of time spent on the internet. Giving staff feedback that increases their awareness of what they spend their time on is probably the best action you can take.

 
 
]]> Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:59:53 GMT <![CDATA[The Power of Twitter]]> Over the break I was asked a lot about social media by family, especially Twitter. I find Twitter great for getting a quick read on what is going on, and being updated on things that I track (technology, world news, politics etc.). I don’t think I did a very good job of convincing anyone, however the scary thing is that I believe tools like twitter are creating a digital divide in the economy. Those that can use the tools will be ahead in economic terms through greater productivity (in both a personal and business sense).

An example from yesterday I came across a tweet for a new app, that I would have never have known about otherwise. Shoebox is an app that is designed to take a photo of receipts or business cards from your Smart Phone and email them back to you in a format that you want. Have a look at the site. The app is free and very easy to use. I think it will be great for many firms, especially those who travel!

 

]]> Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:48:09 GMT <![CDATA[Being on holiday]]> A few things made going on holiday easier this year. Xmarks and iCloud made sure I had the same favourites across all my devices. LastPass helped make sure that I could access those sites that needed a password. The iPad helped keep both the kids entertained and helped me stay in touch with work when needed. Lastly having Dropbox made it possible to access work and personal documents effortlessly. I find it particularly good for when you need to have meetings away from the office, and I use it instead of carrying massive amounts of paper.

]]> Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:07:58 GMT <![CDATA[Network Progress]]> Many firms have networks that link offices to each other. Up until recently, the big Telcos had this market locked up, and pricing was horrendous. Lately, with the prospect of Crown Fibre, and technical separation between Telecom and Chorus, pricing has come down, and other providers are able to aggregate services. We had our first new HSNS network go live last week. Performance is a step up from what the client had before, and pricing is competitive. Over the next few months we will be rolling out a number of new networks. Our specialist skill is that of being able to manage and integrate them so that our clients have a seamless experience.

]]> Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:36:53 GMT <![CDATA[QR Codes]]> More and more I’m seeing QR codes around - in magazines, on books, even in retail environments. I did not know much about them, so thought I should find our more.

QR codes are 2 dimensional barcodes created by Japanese company Denso-Wave (a subsidiary of Toyota) in 1994, with QR standing for “Quick Response”.

The benefit of a QR code is the ability to store more information in the graphic than a barcode, a total of 7089 numeric only or up to 4296 characters*. 

I have so far seen the following implementations of QR:

  • Website link to product information
  • Business Card / vcard details so that you can import the information straight into your SmartPhone
  • Magazine subscription details
  • Link to online photos on real estate signs

I think the driver for greater adoption of QR codes is going to be Smart Phones, as there is a requirement to have a camera, and apps that understand QR codes.

To generate your own QR code, have a look at Kerem Erkan blog, and for more information about QR look at the website 2d code. If you have an iPhone just search the store looking for QR – there are a number of free readers and I use BeeTagg. 


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* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_codes
 

]]> Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:59:30 GMT <![CDATA[ios 5 - two great features you may have missed]]> Toby was very excited this morning about iCloud Control Panel for Windows. This provides the ability to sync your bookmarks and photos across multiple iOS devices (iPad and iPhone) along with your Windows based device.

As a business owner, I was pleased to get iMessage installed on all the teams’ iPhones and iPads, as this is an SMS-like message service that uses the data connection, rather than incurring $0.20 cent costs or use of the 100 or 500 txt plans.  I think we will be on track for savings of hundreds of dollars a year, if not thousands as IT Partners grows!


]]> Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:45:34 GMT <![CDATA[Productivity Videos]]> I took the opportunity on Monday to get really organised for the next 2 months. There is so much to do before the end of the year! One of the items I came across was a link to some podcasts that Microsoft has uploaded from its “productivity series”. The first was on copy and paste, and I thought to myself; “there’s not much I don’t know about this”. I watched it, and was pleasantly surprised. I learned about some of the additional functionality, and how I could be doing things faster and better. You can find the link here.

]]> Tue, 25 Oct 2011 09:27:42 GMT <![CDATA[Managing e-waste and risk]]> When disposing of hardware our clients are reassured to know that it doesn’t go into landfill. We commit to responsible e-waste. More importantly, we manage risk, something often forgotten about. Before anything leaves IT Partners, we perform a secure wipe, using a process which writes random data over the entire disk multiple times. Sounds extreme? You can see why we care so much in this article, where identity fraud is being committed via un-sanitised hardware.
 

]]> Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:28:57 GMT <![CDATA[The art of email]]> Good email etiquette is an art form we could all learn and do better. Email has the potential to waste so much time that we could all be using more productively, and yet when used well, it is an invaluable communication tool. Today I was forwarded this link, a new way to work with email and ten simple rules to follow to improve email communication.

The two rules that I am going to make better use of are using EOM (End of Message) and NNTR (no need to respond).
 

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