Imporant tips for managing employee Internet access

There’s a fine line between being Big Brother and keeping employees from wasting too much time on the Internet. And as we all know, there are plenty of ways to waste time on the ‘net: Facebook, Twitter, chatting, shopping, scores… you name it. But how do you manage control of your employees — and what type of control do you extend over them? Everything gets even more complicated if your business also depends upon the type of PR and marketing to be had from the likes of Facebook and Twitter. As more and more companies and businesses resort to these outlets for free advertising, different levels of control must be put into place.

Here are a few suggestions for tools you can use to manage this control, policies to implement, and ways to keep your employees from revolting.

1st Make sure you have a clear access policy Instead of employing controlling software, it might better suit your environment and employees to have clear policies in place that prevent the usage of certain Web sites during work hours. This method does call upon the honor system (unless you are using a monitoring tool), which gives your work environment a more relaxed feel. The problem with this method arises when you discover an employee abusing the policies and you do not react. If you lay out a clear policy and do not punish those ignoring it, you may as well throw that policy out the window.

If manually monitoring (over the shoulder) would take too much time or feel to intrusve to employees, as most managers feel it does, you'll want to look into tools that will monitor network usage for you. With tools of this nature, you can keep tabs on what your users are viewing online and then act accordingly. This is a much less Big Brother approach to managing what your employees are viewing. By handling this task this way, you are more inclined to have a lower attrition rate from employees not wanting to work in a controlling environment. Monitoring tools allow you to monitor employee Web usage from a single desktop. Some tools even allows the administrator to view employee bookmarks and favorites. Although some think this a better approach than implementing policies and preventing access to certain (or all) Web sites, many people view this quite the opposite. As I said earlier, it’s a very fine line.

DNS Redirection is an industry accepted method for Web content/security filtering using tools that are completely Web based. With DNS control, you can filter content, prevent phishing, block page bypass, protect against malware , delegate administration, and much more. You will have detailed daily reports as well as archived logs and statistics. With content filtering, you can select from more than 50 categories and prevent the use of proxies for bypassing filters.

Along with having clear policies, you have to be willing to offer some flexibility. During the holiday season, employees are going to shop online. During March Madness, employees are going to check basketball scores. You must be willing to give or you will find yourself with some upset employees. If you are never willing to bend on your policies, the attrition rate may rise during certain times of the year or with certain cross sections of employees. (Older employees may be less apt to take issue with such policies than younger employees.) 

The saying “Everything is relative” applies here — as does “Everything in moderation.” The real problem with employees surfing the Web happens when it interferes with actual work. This could be too much browsing or browsing to unsafe or inappropriate sites. You, as an employer (or manager) must tread that fine line between too much and too little control over what employees can do with their Web browsing. 

What measures does your organization rely on to manage employee Internet activity? If your approach isn't working, or you don't have one at all, Give us a call at Outhouse IT, we're here to help.

Your own email @facebook.com? Beware Facebook survey scam

Thousands of Facebook users have been hit by a scam which claims to give them early access to a facebook.com email address.

Messages, appearing in the news feed of users who have fallen for the scam, read: 

Just got my own email @facebook.com! Quickly get one before someone takes your name [LINK REMOVED]

However, clicking on the links leads you to a webpage which tricks you into giving a third party application permission to post to your Facebook wall.


Don’t, whatever you do, allow the app to have permission to access your profile. Because then it will start to spread the messages even further, starting with your online Facebook friends.

You won’t realise it’s doing that, of course, until it’s too late – as you’re too distracted by the form asking you for your email details.. oh, and the revenue-generating online survey that the scammers have put up in the front of it..

Note, these scam messages are not connected with Facebook’s genuine plans to give everyone a @facebook.com public email address.

Facebook expects to roll out that service more widely in the coming months, and will use your “publicusername” when live.

Here’s a YouTube video where Sophos will show you how to clean-up your Facebook account if you were hit by this, or similar scams:

Talking with techies

Talking with techies

As a techie* you probably have no difficulty communicating with your peers. You use acronyms, terminology and examples that your colleagues understand. The difficulty arises when you need to communicate with techies in different fields or when you need to talk with non techies such as customers, upper level management or the sales staff.

I write marketing material, presentations and web content for technical products and services. When I talk with techies I need to play the role of “designated idiot.”(I first heard this term used by Bruce Madole in 1994 at an HPCA presentation.) I have found that techies often assume knowledge that their audience may not possess. By being the designated idiot, I ask questions until I understand the process or product. When I understand, know the acronyms, expressions and terminology I can then write the web page, the white paper, the case study, the testimonial story or the marketing brochure.

When techies are presenting, talking to customers or training their sales staff they need to keep in mind the following principles .

Know your audience. Find out who they are, what they need and want to know. Determine their level of technical understanding. Some may not know the difference between an extruder and a die, or a browser and a hard drive. You need to be able to talk to them at their level – not down to them. You need to help them follow your train of thought, and use real examples that they can understand.

Talk about the benefits of features. As a subject matter expert, you know your product better than anyone but sometimes you see all the features and are blind to the benefits of your product. The benefits are what interests potential buyers and it’s what sells the product.

When talking to your sales staff or to a customer about design issues, talk about the benefits of the features. Describe how a feature will contribute to efficiencies, cost savings, or ease of use. Use practical examples from the field, not from the lab.

Beware, the devil is in the details. Techies are often frustrated because they want to talk about every detail such as the thickness and type of plating on a particular part. But the audience only needs to be assured that the part will stand up to the rigours of use. You may have spent months testing various plating materials to come up with the right one. So what? You now have the part that works effectively and won’t wear out like the one competition uses. When a savvy customer asks about the type of plating then you can provide the justification for the type of plating.

As a techie, you have a detailed knowledge about the products you design, and we hope you demonstrate that enthusiasm for the product. Be cautious about delivering a brain dump. Not only will you intimidate the technically challenged and but you will fail to impress the knowledgeable members of the audience. It is a fine balance. You need to provide enough information without overwhelming.

A techie with well-developed communication skills can be a powerful partner to sales staff and the marketing team, including outsourced suppliers (such as buzz4biz). You can provide great support when you are able to communicate with customers and provide in-depth and understandable answers to customer questions.

*For the purposes of this article “techies” is an all-encompassing and endearing term to describe engineers, engineering technologist and IT professionals of all kinds. It is not a term of derision, but a term of convenience.

This article shared from buzz4biz.

buzz4biz creates success through the written word.

They write to

• motivate employees
• protect brands
• maintain customer awareness.

Full article "Talking with techies"

Merry Christmas!

Wishing The The Happiest of Holidays! To your family from ours at The Technology Coach! 2010 Was a VERY exciting year for us, both professionally and personally. Siobhan and I welcomed our first child Saoirse Kendall Born Sept. 20th. If you'd like to see pictures (and who doesn't!) of our new baby, find us on facebook and we'll be happy to "friend" you. While you're there why not check out our facebook fanpage, full of tips and tricks we include our Blog entries and any news on our facebook pages. Social Media Marketing is a very powerful tool and we'd love to help you explore how it can help your business, just ask! As if 2010 wasn't busy enough it was also our first year operating as an incorporated company, if you'd like to hear about why we made the decision to incorporate after 7 years in business just send us an email, we'd be happy to tell you about why we made the decision and the professionals we involved to help us through it! Last but not least the end of 2010 also marked the beginning of our new branding, with the name change on the horizon for early 2011 we've already registered our new domain, thrown up a temporary place holder website and created new email addresses for myself (scott@outhouseit.com). Keep your eyes peeled and ears open for more exciting news on the launch of Outhouse I.T. Inc, Where our mission is to provide small businesses with a full service, cost effective alternative to an in house I.T. Department.   And now for our gift to you, our loyal customers and friends, this months technology tip is about creating an out of office email message to automatically let others know you are away from the office during the holidays, you'll find details here on our Blog. As many of us wind down for the Holiday Season. We're reminded at this time of year of the importance of family, taking some time for ourselves and enjoying the rest of life as much as we enjoy running our businesses! Again a sincere Happy Holidays from our family to yours and all the best in 2011!

IT Key To Cutting Costs For Small Businesses

Businesses focus on reducing costs with IT

Nearly three-quarters of small businesses consider IT to be a key driver in helping reduce the costs of operations, according to research firm Techaisle.

The top three IT initiatives for small businesses are:

*Migrating from older technologies

*Maintaining and improving current IT infrastructure

*Developing and implementing new IT applications

In terms of implementing new IT applications, these small businesses are increasingly  moving towards virtualization, business intelligence and collaboration. Over 30% of small businesses are either actively investigating or investing in these technologies.

Improving workforce productivity and improving effectiveness of sales and marketing are also on the agenda of small businesses to address increased competitiveness, slow economy, and uncertainty. To improve effectiveness of sales and marketing, nearly 36% of small businesses are investing in improved email marketing campaigns, 28% are looking at Google Adwords and 21% are looking at Facebook advertising.

"Vendors who focus on IT as driver for operational savings will succeed as operating costs reduction is what SBs want from IT,”said Anurag Agrawal, Techaisle.

“Small businesses are the prime candidates for the Consumerization of IT where they are pushing increased automation through pervasive computing, improved productivity through collaboration, and efficient sales and marketing using latest social media capabilities.”