A “near transcript” of the presentation can be found on the ISBO site.

This is a list of questions related to saving money on operational costs by using your IT systems better. If you’ve got any ideas about saving money or containing costs, e-mail them to me at bill@billdotson.com or post them in the comments.

This list is also available as a PDF (Information Technology Cost Savings Questions) if you need to show anyone else in your firm where to start looking for money saving areas.  

1. How is IT managed? Is it a “we spend what we need to when we need to” or is it a part of the business operation? Spending haphazardly tends to cause greater expense than having a planned budget. Investigate managed services from an outside vendor – it’ll help you manage IT costs like a utility – you put the risk on them while you pay a flat, recurring fee for managing IT.

2. Many people rely on e-mail now. Is the e-mail system set-up to facilitate non-stop communication if needed? I often ask my clients how long they could be without e-mail and the answer is typically “one hour”. Once we know how important it is, then we can set-up systems to make sure it does not go down. Lost productivity has real business cost.

3. How old are the computers, servers, and other equipment? Once they reach their third year of use, it’s time to either replace or plan on replacing them. It’s cheaper to buy new ones than repair old ones.

4. How is the software licensed? Microsoft offers plans that give you a much better deal than buying direct from a manufacturer. Typically you can spread payments with zero interest or get a hefty discount. You should get help from a Microsoft specialist. The licensing requires a Ph.D.

5. Are there internal IT people answering “how to” and other helpdesk-type questions when their time should be used for much more valuable projects? Helpdesk can be outsourced to native US-English speakers at a fraction of what a full time employee costs.

6. How do you contract with your outside IT services vendors (if used)? There are contractual items to make sure are present such as “service level agreements” and discounts for service commitments. Keep an eye on these!

7. If the company writes its own software, how is it managed and what does it cost? Typically, places who write their own software are paying a bit more for it than they need to.

8. How many servers do you have? Now is a great time to consider making them virtual. Benefits: less hardware (save on the warranty and space), easier to back-up, and could cost less in electricity.

9. If you have multiple office across telephone districts (meaning you use long distance) then look into VOIP phone systems like Cisco and Avaya. If you have a small business, look into Skype.

10. Ask your IT suppliers how they are compensated and work with them to achieve “win-win” for both of you. Here’s an example, manufacturers regularly push one product line and create incentives for the vendor to sell these over other lines/competitors. Often, you can get some perks you might otherwise be paying for. Training, extra media, reimbursement for installation services, and so forth.

This list is not exhaustive. It’s just a start at looking at cost containment and/or savings using technology. I’ve left off all of the Web 2.0 systems used to save money (for another post, of course!).

The video from the event is online. I recorded another one if you’d like to get the highlights or see the screens a bit better than the Commerce Lexington video.

Since I did not give away the Microsoft goodies at the event, the first three people to contact me will receive them. Its Vista Ultimate and two XBox games. One for each of you.

The session went very well and feedback was good. If you’d like a private session for you or your organization, please let me know. The presentation and one on one time is very valuable if its isolated to just one organization.

Outlook can be tricky so I am posting the list of Outlook 2007 Training topics (PDF) again today for reference.

I’m reviewing Xobni and the LinkedIn toolbar — both are excellent for people who network for a living.

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Update after the event: The video from the event is online. I recorded another one if you’d like to get the highlights or see the screens a bit better than the CommerceLexington video.

Our Ingram-Micro rep, Sara, gave me the idea so I cannot claim it as my own. The contest will have multiple winners and we give a hearty thank you to Cisco, Microsoft, and ASIGuardian for the support.

Spread the word! The info is online here.

Every week I see computers in need of attention. Many of these desktops do not have what I consider to be the most basic of software to enable people to be productive and protect company assets. Here’s my list of software and some basic “To Do” items:

Office Suite: use Microsoft Office or OpenOffice. The latter is free, but it takes some getting used to and could be an issue if you send documents to other companies. I prefer the former.

Desktop Security (anti-virus, spam, etc): There are quite a few vendors in this category. We sell Sophos. You could use Trend, McAfee, Norton, AVG, and others. Buy the corporate editions — yes, free is nice, but you will be missing important features.

Web Browser: Internet Explorer and Firefox. I prefer Firefox.

Use password management software like Keepass. Its free and helps people use complex passwords regularly by providing a place to store all those passwords you should use like Hy7t$tgYT12[. Fun, huh?!

Configure the desktop so that all files created by the user and stored on the OS desktop, My Documents, bookmarks, and e-mail are backed up. This is probably the biggest “oops” issue I see.

Make sure the desktop is configured to automatically lock itself or logoff if no one uses it for 10 minutes. Why leave company information open to the public or unauthorized employees?

If you do it correctly, configure remote access so you can get to your files and/or help others. If its a Windows environment, you can use the Remote Desktop feature or a system like CoPilot, TightVNC, or GoToMyPC.

Finally, if you are in an environment with 5 computers or more, ask your IT service provider about “managed services”. It’s a new service for many of them and it’ll pay for itself in just a few months. More on this one later.

Good luck!

Will SMS messages kill e-mail?

Here are some interesting things to consider:

• Unlike a computer, your cell phone is almost always with you. You can send or receive a text message at anytime. Most people still e-mail from a computer.
• SMS limits a person to 160 characters. It forces one to get to the point — no e-mail dissertation from your colleague who wants you to know every single thought in his/her mind about an issue.
• Kids are used to IM and text messaging their friends. Computers are a part of work and school.
• Text messages are not the only type of messages that phones can send. Pictures and video can be sent now.
• The rest of the world uses text messaging a lot more than we Americans do.

My conclusion is that e-mail will never go away. It’s too nice for those of us who are in the workforce. My Blackberry will handle both e-mail and text messages. Look for more phones like this in the future.

E-mail programs like Outlook will soon ship with “Send via SMS” or “Send to phone”.

The text messaging market will continue to grow. Its simply too easy to send a message via phone — especially when there’s no time for a conversation.

C u l8r — (That’s text messaging for “See you later”!!!)

After receiving a message from one today, I thought I’d take about 5 minutes to figure out how much disk waste is produced by a small firm over a three year period. In a very un-scientific way…(see the Google Spreadsheet)

Let’s say the average attorney or accountant sends 25 messages per hour, works 9 hour days, 5 days per week. The e-mail signature is 5KB.

In one year, that person generates over 275 megs of trash.

If the average firm has 25 staff and we consider a storage time of seven years for all messages (wouldn’t want to be sued!), then we’re up to 49 Gigs of extra storage.

Nice.

Don’t forget that the law/accounting firm is storing 49 Gigs of sent mail AND they are adding 49 Gigs to the various recipients of the messages, too.

I’m not claiming my estimation of the e-mails sent per day, staff size, and other constants are good data, but it does serve a purpose to show how much wasted space they could have.

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We all fill out forms online. Many of the forms require some sort of security verification in the event of a lost password. For instance, your Mother’s Maiden name is frequently used.

I imagine many people use their mother’s real maiden name. Why? Because we are asked to and because its easy for us to remember. The former is likely the main reason and subconscious.

We do not have to use real information when filling out these forms.

Don’t be a sheep.