Month: January 2016

People always try to give technology a bad rap, saying it consumes our lives and causes us to actually work more and not less.  And while, for some people, this may be undoubtedly true, it’s not technology’s fault.  It’s your fault for not using technology like you should be using it.

Technology can help you work less by giving you the ability to work smarter and more efficiently.  In the times when you should be working, you’re doing it faster and doing it better, making it much easier to leave work at work.  But first, you have to find the right technology to do this.  So, here’s a nudge in the most productive direction.

Office 365

When it comes to working and working well, you need a great productivity suite—like the one that comes with Office 365.  But that’s not all Office 365 is good for.  Install it on up to five separate devices and work on projects no matter where you’re at or what device you’re using—phone, tablet, laptop, or good ol’ fashioned PC.  Use the tools that Office gives you to collaborate and communicate with team members, create engaging presentations, and manage your appointments, meetings, and daily to-dos.  Office 365 allows you to capitalize on all eight hours of your workday, not just portions of it—work from anywhere, at any time, with a guaranteed uptime of 99.99%.

Dropbox

How much time do you waste with back-and-forth communication and file-sharing?  Send this, send that, reply, send another version, edit, send again, edit, send again, reply, send another version… the process goes on forever and will make a significant dent in your workday if you allow it to.  Dropbox solves this problem in the simplest, most straightforward fashion.  Upload documents to an online folder and receive automatic alerts when changes are made to any of the uploaded documents, meaning there’s no need to email someone every time an adjustment is made.  Request documents from people with a link, share documents with a link, and receive documents with a link.  No more attaching, no more forgetting to attach, and no more back-and-forth.  It’s time to cut out the waste so you can do more with your day, and it starts right here with Dropbox.

Slack

So, we’ve got the document creation and sharing out of the way… now for the integration and communication of said document creation and sharing.  Introducing Slack—the cleanest way to rid yourself of emails and multiple communication platforms.  Slack allows users to create separate boards, or threads, or channels (however you want to look at it) to communicate with your team as a whole, with individual people, or with specific groups of team members.  Title the threads by project, team, or department and receive instant updates and notifications as documents and thoughts are shared.  Use it on multiple devices and integrate it with a handful of other applications (hint, hint: like Dropbox).  Keep everything in one place and everyone on the same page.

It’s a new year, which means it’s time for some new passwords.  But you already know this, right?  Your passwords should be changed about as often as you change your toothbrush (once every three months or so).  This habit will keep hackers at bay for a little while longer, which is crucial given the 38% increase in cyber-attacks last year.

But, still, for many of you, you simply refuse to put the work in—no matter how many times you’re lectured on changing your passwords, you just won’t do it, and your passwords will remain unchanged until you’re prompted to change them, or until you forget your login credentials.

So maybe we should take another approach.  Rather than changing out all your passwords (which nowadays the average person has about 40 online accounts), only change the ones that really need it and the ones that matter the most.

1. Take all those really, really bad passwords and change them out.  You know the ones I’m referring to… the accounts secured with “password123”, your dog’s name, or your favorite football team.
2. Determine which accounts require the most security and give these accounts new passwords.  Your online banking account and email are prime examples.After you make a list of accounts you’d like to give new passwords to, then you need to do what so many people do incorrectly—give these accounts unique passwords.It’s far too tempting for people to apply the same password for each account they have.  Even an incredibly strong password won’t do you any good in this situation.  If a hacker does stumble upon your login credentials for one account, then every single one of your accounts with the same credentials will be compromised.  And it’s not a matter of “if”; it’s a matter of “when.”  If a hacker takes the time to hack into your account, then you better believe they’ll spend the additional ten seconds it takes to test out your credentials with all your online accounts.This being said, it seems we should include an additional category to the two listed previously…
3. If you have any accounts that currently use the same password on another account, then apply a new and different password to each one.

All it takes is a few minutes to improve the security and privacy of your online accounts.  Are you willing to put the forth the effort to change out your credentials or do you feel that your current passwords are strong enough to go head-to-head with a hacker?