Social Media: How will it change your company's raison d’être

Social Media and close coupled customer contact is increasing the delta between what our customers THINK can be done, and what can REALLY be done.

As a company, this delta is an important factor to take into consideration. The fact is, companies have been profiting from operating in their own space-time dimension for decades – it’s the arbitrage of an inefficient market.

We have accepted things like “please allow 48+ hours for a response” because we could not penetrate the system or affect the process; we lacked the power to find out.

Now, however, the differential response times between companies are exposed for all to see, and some companies are willing to share their own benchmarks for response times. Unfortunately, in most cases these are unattainable, especially for companies that are not structured around real-time response.

You cannot have a real-time response strategy if your staff responders are not empowered in real-time and your employees cannot be empowered in real time unless the entire company moves around that pivotal point.

However, the difficult question your company must ask, is not how your company can make this change towards being pivotal; rather, it needs to ask whether it should make this change.

Business is all about constraints, and economics the study of scarcity. Resources applied to customer services do not magically appear because we wish them to; Lavoisier’s principle of mass conservation is as true for corporate resources as it is for chemistry (though, Lavoisier was beheaded)


In short, using a quote from the US Marines; your business has to pick the hill it wants to die on.

You can read more of this article at BrandSavant

Four Tele-commuting Security Mistakes

1. Careless use of Wi-Fi and accessing unsecured open networks
2. Letting family and friends use work-issued devices and attaching unauthorised peripherals
   
3. Altering or deleting security settings to view Web sites that have been blocked by the company
4. Leaving a work-issued device in an unsecured place or public location

Security is a good mind-set to adopt

For more information and assistance, speak to your IT Helpdesk and Security personnel . They have a range of proven and tested (approved) tools, which are closely aligned with simple operating procedures and guidelines to help you reduce the potential impact of threats and vulnerabilities. The effective use and implementation of these, is up to you.

Remember to check with the security guys regularly. There is always something new going on in their world that will directly affect your business world.

If in doubt give the Security doctor a shout!

As with most things, it is always easier to find security issues and threats before they escalate into a crisis. A mild infection can be treated quickly and effectively if brought to their attention early but, if left untreated, there is always the risk of cross-infection to other members of staff, with the potential loss of a limb or vital organ.

In your business world, it is your server, applications and your data that keeps you alive! You don't want to lose any of these or even break the arterial chain that holds them together.