July 2011
In this issue
> Building
Connected
Work Teams
> The Power of Email
> Never Lose Another
File
> Make a
Decision!
> Business
Resiliency
>
Business Continuity Tip
> Cartoon/Did You
Know
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Business Resiliency Prevents Downtime, Data Loss &
Disaster
Used
with permission from IBM ForwardView
For years, midsize
companies have protected themselves against downtime and data loss
caused by disasters such as hurricanes and fires. But in today's
intelligent and interconnected world, where information is one of
the most valuable assets a business can have, many midsize companies
are not doing enough to protect themselves from the full range of
risk.
Despite reminders from
experts that most businesses at some time will experience an event
that results in serious data loss, significant numbers of midsize
companies' IT managers acknowledge that they do not have an adequate
backup strategy for their critical data.
Read more
Business Continuity
Tip
Heat Wave
Fire up the AC; the hot and humid
days of summer have arrived.
As temperatures rise,
it's important to remember, extreme heat can produce electrical
brownouts. Having a backup plan for power loss can prevent
short-term interruptions from becoming long-term pain. To avoid
unexpected interruptions this summer, protect your technology with
an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) and have charged laptops, with
back-up batteries, on-hand for employees. While extreme heat can
wreak havoc on computers and other electrical devices, it also poses
a serious threat to the well-being of your family and your
employees. During the summer months, more people in this country die
from extreme heat than from hurricanes, lightning, tornadoes, floods
and earthquakes combined.
Click here for some informative tips on how to
stay safe and cool this summer.
Please forward this newsletter to anyone else in your
organization who might be interested!

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5 Tips for
Building Connected Work Teams with Online Collaboration
Tools
Used with permission from Microsoft Small Business
Site
Anyone who has
tried to manage a geographically dispersed work team knows how
challenging it can be to keep the lines of communications open
and efforts well-coordinated. Time zone differences delay
communications, different communications styles cause
misunderstandings, and activities are difficult to schedule.
To complicate matters, it's not easy to make sure that
everyone has the latest progress updates, project information
and changes to customer requirements.
Too many companies
are still relying on phone calls, emails and expensive on-site
meetings to manage their team collaboration and keep projects
on schedule. That's unfortunate when current technology can
help build a connected work team and make long-distance
collaboration so much simpler.
Here are five tips
for using online collaboration tools to build connected work
teams:
Read more
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Unleash The Power
of Email
Used with permission from the Microsoft Small
Business Site
Can you imagine
running your business without email? Probably not, and even if
you can, you surely can't picture going back to those bygone
days of telephone tag, snail mail, and scribbled notes left on
colleagues' desks. Not to mention the frustration of trying to
schedule meetings without access to your coworkers' calendars,
or fumbling through a stack of business cards to find a
client's phone number.
Whether you're
contacting customers or suppliers, scheduling a staff meeting
or tracking down a critical message, email has become the
backbone of business communication. But a growing mountain of
email has made it increasingly difficult for users to organize
and manage their mailboxes and has turned up the heat on IT to
protect and maintain critical business communications. Now is
a good time to ask yourself: Has your email solution kept up
with demands for larger mailboxes and easy access for mobile
workers? Does it provide the security, reliability and ease of
use you need to be safe, competitive and productive?
These are the sorts
of questions that Brian Leitner of Van Scoyoc Associates had
begun to ponder. As IT director for an 80-person lobbying firm
in Washington, D.C., Leitner was responsible for an email
solution that used Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and Avaya
Modular Messaging. With the hardware nearing its end of life
in 2010, it seemed like the ideal time to explore
communications solutions that would resolve simmering problems
with reliability and user experience.
Read more
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Never Lose Another
File
Four Reasons
Why the Time Is Right to Adopt Document Management
Where's the latest client services contract? What's
the medical history on this patient? Where is the case filing
from last year's lawsuit? Why can't we seem to find the
documents we need?
If you're like most
small to midsize businesses today, you can recall a time when
you had to rummage through thousands of files -- just to get
your hands on the one you needed. And if you're a company in
the highly regulated accounting, finance or healthcare world,
you may encounter this frustrating scenario almost every
day.
Worse yet, the
amount of data produced and retained by companies continues to
soar -- with no real end in sight.
Read more
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Make a Decision!!!
by Craig
Kitch http://www.craigkitch.com/
Do you ever feel like you live life with
one foot on each side of the fence? You want to do one thing
but are still attracted to another? I know people who have a
hard time deciding what they want for lunch. For crying out
loud, it's just lunch. Make a decision!
I am
working with a man who is launching his own business and he
has really struggled with what market to target and how he
will approach them. Truth is, his business will fit several
specific markets and he has been changing his mind constantly
for the last few months regarding who he wants to serve. I
finally asked him to write down every potential target market
he could think of for his product. I then had him scratch off
anyone he did not want to service, which left a short list of
people who would benefit from his product and whom he felt
like he would enjoy working with. Then I simply said: "Pick
one".
At this
point it did not matter if he threw a dart at the list while
blindfolded and allowed fate to choose his customer. The
bottom line is that he has floundered in his business, and
never fully launched it, because of indecision. I once had a
mentor tell me that failure to make a decision ultimately
constitutes a decision in and of itself. That decision is one
of inaction and ultimately will result in total
failure.
Read more
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Did You
Know? |
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Voice over IP is now more affordable than
ever for small business. Call Databranch for ideas on
how to make this technology work for
you.
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Databranch,
Inc.
132 North Union
Street, Suite 108
| Olean, New York
14760
(716) 373-4467 - Olean
| (607) 733-8550 -
Corning/Elmira
http://www.databranch.com/
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