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.

Data can be defined as a set of values that belong to a set of items. If you were to look at a series of numbers stored in a spreadsheet, without any labels, you would have a hard time guessing what it is. Only through analysis will it become useful to us. Because there is often so much data around us, it can be tough to actually analyze it and turn it into useful information. It doesn't have to be so hard though.

Here's a brief overview of five data analysis tools that you could use in your business.

BigML

One of the more common uses of data is to help a business manager make predictions. We all know predictions are among the hardest things to do. Enterprises hire staff and invest in systems solely with the aim of making predictions. If you're a small business, you likely don't need expensive software that is hard to use.

Enter BigML. How it works is you define and upload a set of data and format it. BigML will then take that data, help you to create a prediction model which you then can apply 'what-if' variables to and have it generate predictions. The site runs on credits; you pay for a set amount of credits and each part of the process - dataset, model and prediction - is worth a certain amount of credits. Prices start at around USD$6.50 for credits, which gives you 10MB of data, 5MB worth of models and 10K predictions based on this data.

Wolfram|Alpha's Facebook Reports

WolframAlpha is a search engine that collects data and uses algorithms to interpret it. One feature of this site is that you can develop reports, one of the more useful being Facebook Reports. You can access the report feature by clicking here. Alternatively, you can go to the WolframAlpha website and search for Facebook.

This report provides users with a glimpse into their Facebook Page's information. It provides you with information on who are the most active posters, how many shares/likes, etc. you get and other useful information in easy to read charts and graphs. The key here is that the report can show you how customers access your Page and where they come from. You could use this information to see what posts users liked and didn't like, and provide more engaging content.

The basic version of the report is free. More advanced controls and data analysis is available for USD$4.99 a month.

Many Eyes

Many Eyes is a data analysis and visualization tool developed by IBM Research. If you already have data sets then you can upload them to the website and use one of the many different visualization tools to create charts, graphs, etc.

A cool feature of this site is that it has the ability to analyze written documents. Say for example you are writing new content for your website, you can copy and paste the content and get a visual representation of the words you use, how you connect words, etc. If you have a set of keywords you would like to use for SEO and search purposes, you can manually compare them with the visualization. If you notice that an important keyword is missing, or not represented enough, you can go through and re-write the copy a bit.

Best of all, it's free.

Tableau Public

If you have an idea about Business Intelligence, or have worked with data on a regular basis and have sets that are structured, Tableau Public is probably the most powerful free analysis tool available for small businesses.

While powerful, it isn't the most user-friendly of options. To get the most out of this program you are going to need to know the basics behind data analysis. If you feel comfortable with the basics, you'll be creating dashboards, charts, interactive graphs, maps, etc. that look great and can be embedded on your blog or website. Oh yes, did we mention it's free?

Excel

Big data is all the rage these days, it's hard not to hear techies and data specialists talk about it. While it is an important part of many large businesses' data analysis practices, the truth is many small businesses don't need big data just yet. If you have simple data you need to analyze e.g., how many hours have your five employees worked this month? Why not stick with simple spreadsheets like Excel or Google Spreadsheet.

As long as you have data entered in a logical way, you can easily create graphs and charts that can help you visualize and analyze your data.

If you would like help establishing a system that can help you track and analyze your data, please contact us today, we may have a solution that works for you.

Have you ever talked with, or listened to computer or tech experts and heard them banter back and forth using terms that sound outlandish and weird? It's possible that one term that's had you scratching your head is overclocking. The question some manager's may ask when they hear this tech term is, "What exactly is overclocking and can my business benefit?"

Here's a brief overview of overclocking.

Definition: Overclocking When it comes to most tech based devices, the processor (or CPU) is the integral component that functions as the brain of the device; it runs the show. The job of the CPU is to take instructions and input from all the other devices and components and execute them. For example, double-click on a program on your desktop and the CPU computes what to do with the mouse click (open the program), and runs the related code, which is shown as the program opening.

One thing many computer sales people talk about is processor or CPU speed. This is the number of instructions it can run in one second. These instructions are grouped together into one cycle, and one cycle per second equates to a Hertz. You may see computers that have 2Ghz processors, this means 2 Gigahertz or 2,000,000,000 cycles in one second.

Now, when manufacturers release a new CPU they design it to run at a standard, or optimal speed, and will generally limit it. This is done to preserve the life of the components, however there are often ways to break this speed limiter. When you raise the maximum clock speed, beyond the intended clock speed, you are overclocking it.

Why overclock? The main reason users overclock a processor is to make their computer or device run faster. By overclocking, programs will often run or open faster and the general operation will seem smoother. In other words, you can get more out of existing technology without paying to upgrade.

Are there any drawbacks? While overclocking will give you more power and speed, there are some serious drawbacks that make this option risky. The biggest being heat. As you probably have noticed, when you use some devices (say a laptop on your lap) for an extended period of time, they get warm. That's because the components of computers create heat, lots of heat. When you overclock, the processor works harder, thereby generating more heat.

Computers are designed to operate at certain temperatures and if this level is surpassed, the components can wear out more quickly or in extreme cases melt. This means that overclocking will cause your computer's parts to wear out quicker and will decrease the life of the device.

Should we overclock our devices? Did you know that you can overclock nearly anything with a processor? The most common are computers and new smartphones, especially Android devices. When you hear people talking about overclocking their device, they are almost always talking about personal devices.

While it's true, you will get a speed boost in the short run, overclocking will increase your IT budget in the future, because you will have to replace parts more often than is usual. Because most businesses tend to use their technology longer than personal users, any action that causes tech to wear out more quickly is not a good idea.

That being said, you can also do the opposite of overclocking. Underclocking is telling a computer's processor to run slower than it's designed speed. This will increase component life but decrease processing power, and could be beneficial for companies that have new computers and don't need intensive computing resources.

Before you take any actions however, it is best to talk to us, as we may have a better solution for you and one that will cost less.

The idea of big data is fairly new, but like almost every other big tech advancement, it's really taken off. Many popular tech sites and news outlets have focused on it in the past year and companies are enthusiastic to take advantage of it. Companies shouldn't be too eager however, as the idea and practice of big data is still unclear to many and could lead businesses to make costly mistakes.

A study published in mid 2012 by Harris Interactive looked at what exactly big data is. The research polled 154 companies, more than half of which were small businesses, on what they think the definition of big data is. The results? No one really agrees on a definition of big data.

The survey found that 24% of respondents believed it's the technology that allows the management of massive amounts of data, while 28% believed it's the idea of massive growth of transactional data. The survey concluded that nearly 80% of businesses identify big data as some form of opportunity in the near future.

Beware of big data hype This goes to show that businesses are aware of the trend, and may feel that they have to be a part of it to gain any sort of competitive advantage in the near future. However, this is the wrong way to look at big data. The fact of the matter is, while big data is here to stay, many small business simply don't have the resources - monetary, staffing, knowledge, or otherwise - to launch big data initiatives.

Don't not focus on data The amount of data available and being generated is growing at an exponential rate, and even small businesses are overwhelmed with often unintelligible data. The danger is that if you turn your back on data you might soon find yourself lagging well behind your competitors.

If big data and ignoring data are out, what's left? The middle road, or in this case, small data. Take a look at your business and identify and prioritize the most important data for your business. For example, a dentist is probably going to want to know how many patients are walk-ins or appointments. From here, you can analyze the data and begin to pick out trends, anomalies and weaknesses, etc. Taking the dentist example above, if data identifies that walk-ins are 10 times heavier on a Monday morning, it may be better business practice to have more staff on Monday mornings to better deal with customer flow.

Baby steps leads to big data The key is to start in a small and manageable way. Focus on understanding critical data by getting to know how to collect and analyze it. This will provide a platform from which you can launch bigger data initiatives in the future. Once you are comfortable, you can introduce more advanced dashboards to better utilize your data. If you do methodically, you should be aligned perfectly to take advantage of big data when it becomes viable for all businesses.

Interested in learning more about data in your organization? Contact us today to see how we can help you.

One thing many managers are concentrating on this year is marketing. Marketing has been going through some pretty huge changes brought about by tech. It no longer works to just have a newspaper add. Now, marketing relies on tech to be successful, and to develop good marketing platforms you should be aware of possible tech related marketing trends will pop-up in the coming year.

Here's an overview of what we think will be the five biggest tech-marketing related trends for the this year.

1. Increased mobile demands With a crop of excellent, affordable and capable devices released this past year, it's a sure thing that many of your clients will be getting new devices for christmas. This will result in an increased demand for mobile friendly sites that are simpler, lighter on text and more interactive. 2013 will be a good year to review your website and optimize it for mobile users.

2. Increasing local demand With the increasing adoption of mobile devices many users are changing the way they use the Internet. Computers and laptops are increasingly being used for general searches while mobile devices are used almost exclusively for local searches. If you don't have a local presence that's optimized for local searches (e.g., Google Places) you will be missing out.

This 'localization' trend is referred to as SoLoMo (Social-Local-Mobile) and is the idea of businesses adding local information to their online platforms to capitalize on the increase of mobile users. 2012 has seen many companies begin to really use this by pushing locally oriented ads to mobile users. It's highly likely SoLoMo will become even more integral in 2013.

A recent infographic from Monetate highlights the importance of SoLoMo and how mobile users shop. The most interesting finding in relation to local search is that many customers use their mobile device to find out what's around them, and then will purchase either in-store or online. This trend should continue well into 2013.

3. Apps with better mobile ads Let's face it, smartphone users have gone app crazy. In the past few years many of the apps have come to include mobile ads shown to customers. Many of these ads aren't targeted to the user, but this is slowly changing as ads that are shown are becoming more trustworthy and targeted. There should be an increase in both the number of click-throughs and apps through 2013 which means it may be the perfect time to either develop your own app or invest in app advertising.

4. Increasing adoption of new payment methods The way customers pay for their purchases is changing. With the steady adoption of NFC (Near Field Communication) technology, mobile payment systems like Google Wallet, and coupon systems like Apple's Passbook, 2013 should see a shift away from paper and plastic to electronic.

This has already started with huge companies like Starbucks announcing they will be launching payment services provided by Square which allows for mobile payment. It's not hard to see that 2013 will be a big year for mobile based payment.

5. More mobile marketing competition With the general increase of mobile adoption it makes sense that 2013 will likely see more companies looking into mobile related marketing. This will make this medium a little more crowded and competitive. What this equates to is that companies should move to take advantage of mobile related marketing, or at the very least take steps to optimize their processes for mobile.

All signs point to 2013 being a year of mobile oriented advancements. Indeed, most of the customer/consumer oriented tech advancements of the past two years have almost been exclusively mobile oriented. Mobile adoption and the data that comes from the different advancements and trends should be something companies factor in when they are making operational decisions for the coming year. If you would like to learn more, please contact us.

One of the most important business tools is email. It allows us to stay in touch with the office and each other regardless of our location. While email is useful, it's not perfect. One issue is that we receive so many emails, with up to a 100 a day or more. This has led to many an overload and meltdown; there's just simply too many emails to get through. So, what do most people do? Delete them. However, this deletion could lead to problems.

When it comes down to it there are usually two options for users to keep their inbox from overflowing. They can either archive or delete emails.

Archiving or deleting emails These are features that are available to most email clients. By archiving email you essentially remove them from your inbox, usually into another folder. When you archive emails, they are still retrievable, and you are still able to search for them and access the information within them.

Deleting emails on the other hand is different. Yes, your emails are removed, but they will usually not disappear instantly. Most email programs move deleted emails into a trash folder. Some clients are set up to empty the folder on a daily basis, while others delete instantly or when they've set the program to. However, once you empty the trash, it's very hard to get these deleted emails back.

To archive or delete? The issue of whether to delete or archive emails is a bit cloudy. For personal accounts it's a little easier: If the email is junk, spam, or contains useless information, it's safe to delete it. For businesses, you can go ahead and delete junk emails, but for many other emails it may be a better idea to archive emails. Here's a number of reasons why:

It's the law Depending which country and industry your company operates in, there may be rules and regulations that state how long you should keep emails in your system for. For example: The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FCRP) in the US state that if a company can anticipate legal action from information contained within a message, or series of messages, it must keep/store (archive) them.

The EU has similar, yet slightly more complicated rules. The Data Protection Directive (DPA) of the EU states that, "Personal data must be stored, but no longer than necessary...The subjects of emails, the “Data Subjects,” have the right to access information about the storage and access to their personal data and to request accurate copies. If you operate in the EU, you must furnish personal information stored in email or otherwise, if asked for it. The kicker is: If you've deleted emails with such information, you are obligated to provide these as well.

Most other countries have laws similar to these, so it's better to err on the safe side and check with a lawyer to ensure you know exactly what the rules are.

Storage isn't an issue In the past, emails took up precious storage, so you really had no other choice but to delete messages. Nowadays, that's not an issue, especially for users of services like Gmail who get upwards of 10GB (more than enough to store all of your emails). This allows you to archive emails while keeping your inbox clean, and not having to worry about the law.

Email is a form of data Data is becoming big business. While it's highly likely that many small to medium businesses won't be implementing Big Data practices anytime in the near future, data in emails is still important. Say for instance you get an order for X amount of Y last year, and you were so busy you just filled the order but didn't fill in the proper records. When that client emails again, the only other information you have is from previous emails. If you delete it, that information is gone.

Beyond that, many decisions are made through and recorded in email these days, delete that important email with next year's budget decision on it and you could be in trouble.

Archive or delete? We're not suggesting you should keep all of your emails. In fact, the above reasons for archiving all have one thing in common: Useful information. This is key, as if information in an email isn't useful to you, your company or colleagues, or is stored in another location, you can probably delete messages.

Some people disagree with this view though and in fact some lawyers advise deleting emails due to the fact that they could turn out to be a liability one day. There are tons of stories of someone sending an inappropriate email to friends, only to have it leak to an unintended recipient. Situations like this could ruin your company.

What do you do/think? Do you delete your emails or archive them? Let us know.

All you need is a stable internet connection, and you can access updated data, software, and other IT services through something called Cloud Computing, a trend that has been changing the way many companies do business – in a good way.

As the economy rebounds, businesses need to be ready to stay competitive while keeping costs under control. Small and medium-sized businesses must maximize the productivity of resources without compromising the end product or service. Cloud computing is helping more and more small and medium-sized businesses balance costs and resources.

Lower Costs The cloud is generally more cost effective, and spreads payment out over time. Monthly payment for subscriptions for applications allows businesses to pay only for services used each month. Updates and maintenance costs are usually included in the subscription cost. Companies save on dedicated IT support – as well as the cost of the electricity, space, and hardware that run the applications that manage your business operations.

Ensure Availability Another plus for the cloud is that it is more reliable and dependable. Few companies can afford to frequently update their hardware and software, so when problems arise, they have nowhere to turn. With the cloud, the application provider pays for the specialized staff to keep hardware and software running smoothly.

Secure Data Speaking of dependability, the cloud is also a better place to store your data. Depending on your subscription, you can arrange for regular backups of data to secure servers in case of any sort of incident – hardware failure, natural disasters, and more. With data backup through the cloud, you are better assured that you can always access your data no matter what happens.

If you are interested in knowing more about how cloud computing can help your business function more efficiently, please feel free to contact us so we can sit down with you and develop a custom solution based on your specific needs.

If you were to visualize the relationships between different industries and companies it would probably look like a giant web of interconnected nodes linked to each other. Indeed, almost every company relies on other companies to operate, and these companies in turn rely on others. One of biggest relationships in this model is between companies and the Information Technology (IT) industry. The IT industry is no doubt important, and a new report highlights the importance of IT as well as its forecasted growth.

A report released in the summer of 2012 by Gartner, Inc. an IT research and advisory firm, states that in the year 2012, companies will be spending a worldwide total of around $3.6 Trillion on IT related products and services.

This represents a year on year growth of 2.5% in spending when compared with 2011. Growth like this is nothing to sneeze at, and it will continue to grow as more products and services are invented, developed and released to the mass market.

The report noted that the largest sector of the IT market is in telecommunication services, with an expected growth of 1.4% this year. It also stated that companies in emerging markets will spend more on Internet technologies and consumer electronics. This means that with more capital, tech companies in these industries will be able to invest in and release more products.

One IT silo is expected to have significant growth over the next four years. Cloud tech spending is forecasted to grow 19% year on year, and double again by 2016. This indicates that companies and developers are incredibly interested in cloud computing, and it will continue to be an important part of modern technology.

While this report is primarily inward facing towards the IT industry, it does showcase the fact that IT is an integral part of modern business infrastructure. This report also highlights the impact that companies in the IT industry will have as they continue to innovate and release new products. If the past half decade is anything to judge by, new technology will continue to get more complex. The result of this is that businesses will benefit from close relations with IT providers and subject matter experts.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the increasing complexity of programs and solutions, take a logical and simple step in the right direction and contact us. We’re here to help ensure your IT experience is as smooth as possible for the future.

Investing, whether it’s in another business, project or asset is something all businesses do. As a small business owner, you need to be sure that the investment you make will pay off, usually in monetary terms. When looking to invest, you will normally have more than one item to compare, all different prices and costs. To be able to effectively compare them, you can start with using the Return on Investment (ROI) of each.

When investing in, or looking for investment in your next IT project, or any project for that matter, you will need to calculate ROI and what factors to consider when making investment decisions.

ROI Defined ROI is calculated by taking the gain on an investment, subtracting the initial investment amount and dividing this number by the original investment amount. If calculated correctly, you will get a decimal that can be multiplied by 100 to get a percentage. If you take this percentage, and multiply the original cost by the percentage, you will get your total gain or loss.

To calculate ROI of a product, project or anything that brings in direct income - sales - to your company take the amount of money you will save or make over the life of the product and subtract the cost of the product over the total expected life. Divide this number by the cost to get an ROI in decimal point, which should be multiplied by 100 to change it into a percentage.

ROI in example Assume you’re looking to invest in a new CRM system based in the cloud that costs $50.00 per year and plan to use it for three years. You also estimate that by using this software, you will save $75.00 per year. With these numbers your calculation would look like this: Cash saved: 75 x 3 = $225 Cash spent: 50 x 3=$150 ROI= (225-150)/150 = 0.5 x 100 = 50% This means that your ROI will be 50% of your initial investment, in other words, you will make $75 (225-150).

Why ROI is important ROI, in percentage form is one of the most important factors to investors, as it gives them a number with which they can compare other investments. For example, when comparing two investments, one that returns $5,000 and one that returns $3,000. On these numbers alone, it seems the $5,000 return is the better. Looking into the costs however, you find that $5,000 return carries a cost of $4,000, while the $3,000 investment carries a cost of $1,800. The ROI on the bigger investment is lower, meaning you end up making less money.

ROI is a simple calculation that helps you determine the bottom line of different options. When investing in a project or product with established, historical ROIs, be aware that these are based on past measurements, not future measurements. This means that you may not achieve the same ROI. If you’d like to learn more about technical products and services that can help increase ROI, please contact us.

If you were to look back on why so many small business fail, you’ll find a million and one different reasons. These reasons can be, essentially, boiled down to a simple reason - they failed to predict and adapt to a constantly changing environment. If businesses used a process like Business Intelligence (BI), many may still be in operation today.

BI can be defined as the ability to turn a company’s processes into data that can be analyzed and converted into knowledge that is delivered to the right stakeholders at the right time and through the right medium. There are many upsides to BI solutions, and companies should be adopting them, here are five reasons why.

1. Boost productivity. Through traditional data gathering methods, users need to compile and analyze data and write related reports. This can be incredibly time consuming, especially for small businesses who may not have the employees to do it. With a BI program, you can pull data and create the reports at the click of a button thus freeing up time and resources allowing employees to be more productive on their own tasks.
2. Access to better info. With the increasing amount of data available to companies, manually tabulating and assessing data is no longer feasible if you want to remain ahead of your competitors. BI software can be set up to accumulate and monitor relevant data that’s available when you want it.
3. Competent decision making. The reason many business projects fail is because critical decisions are made without the best and most objective information available. BI processes help you monitor past and present performances of nearly all operations, while giving you a solid base with which to make future predictions. Essentially BI helps SMEs make better informed decisions.
4. Results closer to established goals. How many times have you established a set of seemingly reasonable goals for a project or other venture, only to end up with an outcome that’s drastically different? With BI you can keep track of information, and have it accessible by parties that need it, when they need it. BI goes a long way in helping achieving what you aim for.
5. ROI. Through better strategic awareness, faster reporting, decreased operating costs/lower overheads and access to better quality data and information, BI can positively influence a company’s ROI.

These are just five of the benefits your company can realize through implementing a Business Intelligence system. If you would like more control of your data or to make better, more informed decisions, please contact us.