Social media has become an important part of any business's marketing strategy. By having an active presence on the main networks, you will likely see increased sales or at the very least an increase in brand recognition. So, while social media is an invaluable marketing tool, there are also other departments which could benefit from it.

Below are four non-marketing oriented uses of social media that businesses could benefit from.

Hiring LinkedIn is a social network dedicated to helping professionals and organizations connect and find jobs and new talent. Most social savvy companies will have a presence on this network and may even hire exclusively from here.

If you are looking for new employees, it wouldn't hurt to have a LinkedIn profile. To find the best talent, you need to forge and maintain connections (usually starting with people you know), and be somewhat active in groups and on message boards.

It's also important to not forget the other major networks when it comes to hiring. Tweeting a job opening on Twitter, or posting ads on Facebook could also help you find your next employee. Facebook can be particularly useful because you can pay to target ads (in this case, job openings) at specific demographics.

Internal communications Communication is an important part of business, and most people choose to communicate using email. You have probably seen emails with jokes, invitations to after work events, lunch orders, etc. sent to the whole company and also received the many replies that go with it. This can get very annoying, and also confusing.

Why not utilize social media for non-essential (aka. not related to work) communication. Set up a Facebook group where your employees can share content, invitations to lunch or after work gatherings, interesting stories, etc. That way you can limit email to more important, business-related aspects.

Using social media for internal communication is also beneficial for companies with younger workers. Most already see Facebook, Twitter, etc. as their main form of communication, some even feel more comfortable communicating over this medium as opposed to speaking out in meetings. Having a group portal or Facebook page could give less-empowered employees a way to voice their ideas, and maybe even improve on them with feedback from others.

Learning A common complaint of many business owners is that they have a tough time staying on top of ever-changing trends and what currently interests their customers. Using social media to connect with your customers can be a great way to learn not only hot trends but also about new ideas.

Customer service When it comes to social media, users will often complain publicly on their wall or through their tweets. This is bad for you, as the reach of this complaint can go a long way and make you look bad. Some companies have decided to confront this head on by having specific customer service accounts. If a customer complains, has an issue, or even compliments you, be active and respond using that account.

If done properly, over time, you will see more and more people reaching out to your customer service account through social media. This also gives you another way to please clients or turn around negative customer experiences.

Social media and the various platforms are not only great for marketing, but can be incredibly useful for other business functions. Do you have any other ways you use social media? Let us know. Or, if you would like to learn more about how it can help your company, then contact us today.

When it comes to creating a document, most business owners and managers will turn to Microsoft Word. While Word is one of the most versatile programs around, it's not perfect. One common issue many struggle with is how to format documents, especially lists. Creating an ordered list can be a nightmare, especially when Word doesn't restart numbering for a new list. It doesn't have to be so frustrating though.

Below is an overview of how you can set up ordered lists to either continue numbered lists from where you last left off, or start at #1 with new lists.

Set up numbering for all future lists

1. Open a new Word document.
2. Go to the Home tab (Press Home at the top of the window)
3. Press the downward-facing arrow beside the numbered list button in the Paragraph group. (it's located on the right of the bullet point button)
4. Select Set Numbered Value... from the drop-down menu.
5. Click the numbering option you want from the pop-up window.
6. Press Ok.

When setting numbered values, you have three options to choose from:

• Start new list - If you select this option, new lists will automatically start at one.
• Continue from previous list - Selecting this option will continue numbering from previous lists in the same document. For example: If you have a paragraph and then a numbered list with three points, and type another paragraph then enter a new list, the list will start from four.
• Set value to: - Lets you set what number lists will start at.

Change the number value of individual lists If you have a document with numbered lists already in it, and want to change the number values of one list, you can do so by right-clicking on the first number of a list and selecting either Restart at 1 or Continue numbering.

Note that if you have a document with a continuous list that is separated by paragraphs and choose to reset one list to start at one, all subsequent lists will be changed to reflect the new ordering.

It seems that there is a security threat or leak in the news almost every week. The majority of these leaks tend to revolve around account information and passwords being stolen and released on the Internet for anyone to view. In truth, most of the passwords released are secure, but not 100% secure. Anyone with a powerful enough computer and the right tools can crack almost any security measure. The only thing you can really do is come up with strong passwords.

If you want to minimize the chances of your password being hacked, here are five things you should NOT do.

1. Don't pick short passwords

While short passwords are easier to remember, they are also easier and quicker to hack. The most common way to hack passwords is by using brute force: Developing a list of every possible password, then trying this list with a username.

Using a mid-range computer like the one many have on their desk, with a normal Internet connection, you can develop a list of all potential passwords astonishingly quickly. For example it would take 11.9 seconds to generate a list of all possible passwords using five lowercase characters (a,b,c,d,etc.) only. It will take about 2.15 hours to develop a list of all possible passwords using five of any computer character. Once a hacker has the list, they just have to try every potential password with your user name.

On the other hand, a list of all 8 character passwords with at least one special character (!,@,%,etc.) and one capital letter would take this computer 2.14 centuries to develop. In other words, the longer the password, the harder it will be to hack. That being said, longer passwords aren't impossible to hack, they just take more time. So, most hackers will usually go after the shorter passwords first.

2. Don't use the same password

The way most hackers work is that they assume users have the same password for different accounts. If they can get one password, it's as simple as looking through that account's information for any related accounts and trying the original password with the other accounts. If one of these happens to be your email where you have kept bank information, you will likely see your bank account drained.

It's therefore important to use a different password for every online account. They key here is to try and use a password that's as different as possible. Don't just add a number or character onto the end of a word. If you have trouble remembering all of your passwords, try using a password manager like LastPass.

3. Don't use words from the dictionary or all numbers

This article published last year on ZDnet highlights the 25 most popular passwords. Notice that more than 15 contain words from the dictionary, and most of the rest are strings of common numbers. To have a secure password, most security experts agree that you should not use words from the dictionary or number combinations that are beside each other (e.g., 1234).

4. Don't use standard number substitutions

Some users have passwords where they replace letters with a number that looks similar, for example: h31lo (hello). Most new password hacking tools actually have combinations like this built in and will try a normal word, followed by replacing letters with similar numbers. It’s best to avoid this.

5. Don't use available information as a password

What we mean by this is using information that can be easily found on the Internet. For example, doing a quick search for your name will likely return your email address and social media profiles. If you have pictures of your kids, spouse, pets, family, their dates of birth, etc. on your Facebook profile and have put their names in captions, it's possible for a hacker to see this (assuming the pictures are shared with the public).

You can bet that they will try these names as your password. You would be surprised with the amount of personal information on the web. We suggest searching for yourself using your email address(s), social media profile names, etc. and seeing what information can be found. If your passwords are close to what you find, it would be a good idea to change them immediately.

There are numerous things you can do to minimize the chance that your passwords are stolen and accounts hacked.

 

Telecommunication has changed drastically in the past decade. The main proponent of this change has been Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) which has allowed for traditional phone systems to converted to a digital system that has positively impacted the business environment. One of the main benefits VoIP brings businesses is a sheer number of features that don't normally cost extra.

Here are five VoIP features offered by many providers that small to medium businesses will benefit from.

1. Voicemail/call forwarding Many smaller businesses simply can't be open 24 hours. This means that there will be time where you or your employees are unable to answer the phone. Most industry leading VoIP providers offer the ability to convert phone messages into emails, which could be a great help to your business.

A good VoIP solution will also provide you with a voicemail system and a feature called Find me/Follow me. This is a call forwarding feature that allows users to receive calls regardless of their location or phone number. This makes it easier for you and your managers to be reachable when they are outside of the office, especially if calls can be forwarded to their mobile phone.

2. DND DND, or Do Not Disturb is an important feature for those who work with clients on a regular basis. When you are talking to a client, the last thing you want is to be interrupted by a phone call as it can make you look unprofessional.

Many VoIP systems actually offer advanced DND features like the ability to send calls to voicemail, or transfer to another colleague who may be able to answer the call at the press of a button.

3. Conferencing You can pretty much guarantee that you will need to eventually make a conference call. Some managers and owners may even make this type of calls on a regular basis. The best VoIP systems go further than just supporting conference calls, they also enable users to send files, chat messages, collaborate on calendars, share presentations and even desktops. This is often called Unified Communications by many vendors.

4. Auto Attendant This feature gives your business a bigger footprint by allowing you to setup multiple numbers in local areas, and have a menu system like many large companies. This means you can setup a system where a caller can easily get into contact with different departments, or even a live operator.

Some users don't like this feature because they see it as an impediment to immediate customer service - think of the last time you had to navigate a menu system over your phone? It really comes down to the preference of your company.

5. Call Recording If your company operates in an industry that is regulated, you may need to record calls. Or, you may want to record calls to track customer satisfaction and questions. Regardless of your need, a good VoIP system will allow the user to easily record calls, often at the click of a mouse, and store them in an audio format that can be easily replayed later.

These are just five of many features offered by many VoIP providers. If you are looking for a new telecommunications solution, contact us today to see how we can help.

In this constantly changing world that seems to be focused on tech, communication needs to be instant and direct. Allowing this, email has become one of the most important business tools. Because almost everyone has an email account now, it's not uncommon to see inboxes with hundreds of new emails, many of which are left unread. There are things you can do to better manage your email.

Here are five tips on how you can better manage your inbox.

1. Address last Most people start an email by typing in the address of the recipient(s). While there is nothing wrong with this practice, it can lead to emails being sent before they are finished, which could mean more emails in your inbox asking for clarifications or you having to send a correction email.

To stop this, try writing the body of the email first and when you have finished, put the addresses of the recipients.

2. Merge social with email Sometimes it can be hard to know who you are writing or replying to in your email. Using an app like Rapportive, which brings social information into Gmail can help. This app puts a bar to the right-side of an email with information about the sender, including their social profiles, recent tweets and even links to their LinkedIn profile. You can look up your recipients and connect with them directly from the email.

3. Use links, not attachments With the increasing number of cloud storage and productivity apps like Microsoft SkyDrive and Google Drive which allow you to share files by sending people links, there's no need to attach files to an email. This is incredibly useful if you find yourself sending document versions back and forth on a regular basis and struggle to keep everything up to date.

These services use one version of the document that users you share it with have access to. Everyone sees the same document, which will cut down on the number of emails and confusion when it comes to version control of important documents.

4. Don't use email for everything Email is so quick and easy that we tend to rely on it for everything. However, there are certain situations when email is not the best form of communication. For example, if you have a tough problem, need to reprimand an employee, etc. it would not be a good idea to do so in email, it's just too impersonal.

As a rule of thumb: If there's any chance of human emotions entering into a response or being affected by an email, it may be a better idea to communicate face-to-face.

5. Cook all your bacn at once Bacn (pronounced Bacon) is solicited email; email you want, just not right now. Social media updates, newsletters, website update notifications, etc. are all forms of bacn. Checking these takes time and can be a distraction if you have work to get done. It would be a good idea to schedule a set amount of time where you focus on reading, deleting or archiving these emails.

Alternatively, you can unsubscribe from these alerts or set up a new email account that is just for this type of emails.

There are thousands of things you can do to make your email easier to manage. What do you do? Let us know. If you are looking for even more ways to manage your inbox, contact us today.

Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR for short, is the idea of integrating social and environmental ideas into your company, daily operations and interactions with all stakeholders. One of the more common CSR practices adopted by companies of all sizes is the idea of 'going green', or helping the environment. This is a great idea, not only does it make the Earth a better place, it makes your company look more caring; human even. The thing is, it can be hard to actually go green, but there are some apps that can help.

Here are four great apps that can help you and your employees make your company a little more green.

1. GoodGuide

GoodGuide is an app that can help you find out more about products. Utilizing a barcode scanner, it can provide you with information like where the product comes from, whether it's safe and if it's green.

With over 170,000 ranked products in the app's database, it's a great way to start learning about sustainable and environmentally friendly products. The only downside of this app is that it currently focuses on the US only, and there is no word as to when, or if, service will expand. You can download it to your Apple and Android device for free.

2. PaperKarma

While we are currently living in a digital age, we still get a lot of paper-based junk mail. This is incredibly wasteful, as most people just throw it away. PaperKarma is an app that aims to reduce or eliminate waste paper.

How it works is you take a picture of unwanted mail, the developers will then contact the distributor and ask that they stop sending mail to you. This app could go a long way in helping reduce the amount of paper your office uses, which will mean lower costs for you and less trees felled. It's really a win-win. You can download it to your iPhone or Android device for free.

3. iRecycle

An important part of any green initiative is recycling. The problem is, it can be hard to find out what, how and where to recycle. iRecycle is an app that aims to set this straight. It provides information on how to recycle almost everything and the nearest recycle points to you.

The app also provides you with recycling centric updates, news and tips to help encourage you to do more. It's available for Apple (iPhone and iPad) and Android devices for free.

4. greenMeter

If your company has a fleet of vehicles, you are probably always on the lookout for ways to make them more efficient. Whether it be switching tires used, driving at slower speeds to conserve gas or carpooling, finding a way to cut costs is important. greenMeter is an app that could help. What it does is use your iPhone's accelerometer and manually entered data to assess your vehicle's power and gas usage.

While driving, this app provides real-time feedback on how efficient your driving is and how much gas you are using. This will help you conserve fuel (as you can see when you are burning more than usual) which will reduce operating costs and negative environmental impact. It's available for the iPhone and costs USD$5.99.

These are just four apps that can help your company go green. What other CSR initiatives do you take in your company? Let us know! And if you would like more tips on how technology can help you reduce your environmental impact, let us know, we can help.

It's safe to say that every business has goals, some are more clearly defined than others, but there is always something managers and owners strive for. During operations, you need a way to figure out how and if you are reaching your goals, this is usually done through the use of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The question many ask though, is what exactly are KPIs?

Below is an overview of KPIs for business.

Define: KPI The Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a tool used to measure performance of a business or employees. Many businesses use this tool to look at either the overall performance and success of all or specific operations. To many, the terms performance and success are synonyms.

How do KPIs work? Most modern versions of this tool come in the form of software applications that track specific data and criteria set by managers or owners. The software allows them to compare these criteria, commonly referred to as Score Cards, with the established goals and gauge overall performance or success.

This data, usually collected from spreadsheets, databases or even manual data entry, is displayed to the user in an easy to read format called a dashboard. The dashboard is typically a graph or similar visual display.

A common dashboard is the traffic light. Let's say for example that a company is measuring the success of their latest marketing campaign. A green light indicates that the expected number of conversions is being met or exceeded, yellow means actual conversions are slightly below normal and red means actual are well below expected.

Benefits of KPIs The biggest benefit of these tools is that they allow users to easily gauge the performance of a business. Beyond that you can set many KPIs with triggers that will alert you when the measurements are poor. This will allow the company to figure out ways to fix issues before they can cause bigger problems.

Effective KPIs For many businesses, effective KPIs are tailored to the needs of the business. For the majority of businesses, KPIs need to be: Measurable, achievable, specific and result-oriented. The best way for a business to figure out the which will be the most effective is for the manager or owner to look at the aspects that are most important to a business.

This can be hard to figure out, especially for business owners who often think that everything related to their business is important. A business intelligence expert or IT partner can help define what really matters most and help to implement the tools needed.

If you are looking for a better way to measure the success or performance of your business, please contact us today.

Tablets, like their smaller smartphone cousins, are a hotly debated tech item. Some people love them while others refuse to use them. One thing that's certain is that they can be useful, if used correctly. The tablet of choice for many business owners is the iPad, largely because it's easy to use, and it can help improve productivity. One area where productivity isn't generally improved is typing, but luckily there is way around this.

Here's a tip on how you can improve typing on your iPad through the use of keyboard shortcuts.

What are they? Keyboard shortcuts are a built-in feature of iOS that allow you to type in a few letters and have your iPad input full sentences or words. This is similar to a Web browser's autocomplete feature which will fill in forms when you enter a few letters or even a word.

How it works Keyboard shortcuts require manual setup, you will have to set a phrase, sentence, word, etc. as well as the letters that will input the phrase. For example you can set the letters 'beml' to be a shortcut for your business email; when you type 'beml', your iPad will input your email address.

These shortcuts could be quite useful, especially if you find yourself continually entering the same word or sentence. This will make you more productive and, as long as you have the correct information, will ensure that there are no typos in important words or phrases. How to set it keyboard shortcuts Taking the business email example from above, here's how you can set keyboard shortcuts. Note: These instructions relate to iOS 6.1 (the latest version of the operating system.)

1. Open the Settings app (gray box with three cogs).
2. Select General followed by Keyboard.
3. Scroll down and select Add New Shortcut.
4. Enter the full word/phrase/sentence in the Phrase section. In this case you would enter your full email address.
5. Enter the shortcut letters that will be related to the Phrase. In this case you would enter beml.
6. Tap Save in the top-right of the window.

When entering shortcuts, it is a good idea to not use common letters or combinations that make up words. For example if you set a shortcut as 'mai', everytime you type 'mai', the phrase will be entered. To come up with a good shortcut, try using the first letter of the first word, a middle letter and the last. Or, you could enter three consonants or vowels in a row e.g., 'eee'.

How to edit keyboard shortcuts You may notice that when you navigate to the Keyboard section in the Settings app, there is a number of existing shortcuts. You can edit these by:

1. Opening the Settings app (gray box with three cogs).
2. Selecting General followed by Keyboard.
3. Tapping Edit and selecting the shortcut to edit from the Shortcuts box.
4. Editing the phrase and shortcut associated to it in the window that opens.
5. Pressing Save in the top-right of the window.

The next time you need to enter a phrase that you have setup a shortcut for, try entering the shortcut. This should make typing on the iPad a bit more efficient and save you time.

If you are looking to learn more about the iPad, or how using one can help improve your productivity at work, please contact us today.

Winston Churchill once said, "To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often." This saying is something almost every company in the tech industry takes to heart. There are very few products that stay the same, software included. Because of this rapid pace of change, there will come a time when older software is no longer supported. Microsoft has made a recent announcement that businesses should be aware of.

For businesses running Office 2003 or Microsoft XP SP3, you need to be aware that Microsoft has announced that they will stop supporting these products on April 8, 2014. This could have far reaching consequences for businesses that use these platforms.

What does this mean for my business? When a company like Microsoft says they will 'stop supporting' what they mean is that they will usually stop providing updates, paid support, security updates and maybe even online based support.

The biggest problem with a move like this hinges on security. If a hacker finds a security exploit on an older system that a developer has stopped supporting, your systems could be open to attack. Beyond that, if you have paid for support, you will no longer have it if the software stops working. These two reasons alone will eventually lead to higher IT costs.

When it comes to programs like Office and XP, there is another downside to this withdrawal of support: It is highly likely that future versions of the software will be incompatible with what you are running. This means you likely won't be able to open newer versions of Office documents, which could create problems especially if you have clients who use newer versions; you won't be able to read/edit the documents. What can we do? The easiest thing to do is to upgrade your software. This may be easier said than done, especially if you have a tighter budget. Luckily, you have more or less one year to upgrade, and in this modern age you have more than one way to update. Possibly the best is to work with an IT partner who can help develop a solution that will fit your business and budget.

If you're still using Office 2003 or XP SP3 in your office, contact us today to see how we can help.

It's pretty safe to say that Microsoft Office and Office 365 are the most popular office productivity programs. A word processing document is simply called a Word document and most presentations are simply known as PowerPoints. While these programs are useful, there are so many features that often go unused. For example, did you know that you can create a PowerPoint presentation from Word?

Here's how to use Word to create a PowerPoint presentation.

How does this work?

The idea here is to use Word to establish the outline and basic text of a PowerPoint presentation. This outline can then be opened in PowerPoint and converted into slides. The way the program does this is through the use of heading styles in Word. Assigning a different heading style (we'll explain how below) will create the outline of your presentation. For example, Heading 1 will be the title of each slide, while Heading 2 becomes the text.

There are two ways you can create an outline. Here's both:

Using Outline view

1. Open a new Word document.
2. Click on View in the menu bar and select Outline.
3. Type your outline - enter the title of each slide, hit Enter to create a new entry. You can also enter the text in the slide under each title.
4. Select each line and hit either Promote or Demote (they look like the indent text buttons, and are located in the Outline menu bar).
5. Click on File and Save As when you have finished the outline.
6. Name the file and under the Format section select Rich Text Format (.rtf). You can also just save the document as a normal Word File, but saving as a .rtf file will ensure that PowerPoint can read the outline properly.

Using Heading styles

1. Open a new Word document.
2. Enter your outline. The best way to do this is to enter the slide title, hit enter and insert the body/bullet points. Don't leave empty spaces as these may be read as empty slides.
3. Highlight the first title and look at the main ribbon for the Styles section. Press the down arrow beside the box that says body and select Heading 1.
4. Highlight the related body text (if any) and press Heading 2. This should be just below the Heading 1 option above.
5. Repeat for the rest of the slides.
6. Click on File and Save As when you have finished the outline.
7. Name the file and under the Format section select Rich Text Format (.rtf). You can also just save the document as a normal Word File, but saving as a .rtf file will ensure that PowerPoint can read the outline properly.

Creating the presentation

When you are ready to create the presentation you can:

1. Open a new PowerPoint presentation.
2. Create the title slide and in the navigation bar (left side of the window), click on it.
3. Click on the gray arrow beside New Slide which is located in the Home bar, under the Slides section.
4. Select Insert Slides from Outline.
5. Locate the outline file you saved and double click on it.

The slides should automatically be created below the title slide. If you didn't apply any formatting to the text, it will likely show up in a slide on the left-hand side with no spacing. You will have to go in and edit it.

By creating an outline in Word first, you can cut down the time needed to format and edit slides in PowerPoint. Of course you will have to edit the slides and add color, themes, images, etc. But, this should help you create more professional presentations.

If you are looking for more tips on PowerPoint, Word or any of the other Office programs please contact us today.