image source: iTunes app store web page.

As a small business owner, it’s easy to gain an impressive collection of business cards through networking events, business trips, and various other encounters. The trick is to find a way to organize them so you can find them at a moment’s notice for a business opportunity or referral.

By simply taking a photo of each business card, LinkedIn’s Cardmunch iOS app uses OCR (optical character recognition) and transcribes the data into an alphabetical list sorted by name on your iPhone, and to your LinkedIn account. So, if you ever need to reset your iPhone, you won’t lose all of that data.

You can tilt the phone and easy swipe through the business cards. Using the alphabetical list seems more practical, but to each their own.

Another great feature is that it will pull the contact’s photo from LinkedIn, so when you’re looking for them, you can put a face to the name.

An in-depth post on the LinkedIn blog explains the easy 3 step process.

“We’ve reduced the entire application to 3 super intuitive and easy to usescreens: (1) Card capture (2) Contact list (3) Contact details and LinkedIn profiles.”

The post goes on to emphasize the app’s necessity in today’s mobile-focused world.

“As LinkedIn Mobile has grown 400% year-over-year in page views,” the post explains. “We are continuously looking for ways to bring value to professionals and we’ve done this with the new CardMunch app.”

Here is a short video about the app.

Forbes magazine recently put together an article detailing Jeff Bezos’s (Amazon CEO) leadership lessons. Here are the first five. The rest can be found here.

1. “Base your strategy on things that won’t change.”
Selling lipstick, tractor seats, e-book readers and data storage is all part of one big plan with three big constants: offer wider selection, lower prices and fast, reliable delivery.

2.“Obsess over customers.”
Early on Bezos brought an empty chair into meetings so lieutenants would be forced to think about the crucial participant who wasn’t in the room: the customer. Now that ­surrogate’s role is played by specially trained employees, dubbed “Customer Experience Bar Raisers.” When they frown, vice ­presidents tremble.

3. “We are willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.”
Many of Amazon’s expansions look like money-losing distractions at first. That sometimes sends the company’s stock price skidding and evokes analysts’ scorn. Bezos shrugs. If the new initiatives make strategic sense to him, a five-to-seven-year financial payoff is okay.

4. “There are two kinds of companies: those that try to charge more and those that work to charge less. We will be the second.”
Lots of retailers talk about holding down costs and passing the savings to the consumer. Few do so as intently as Amazon, where “frugality” is one of eight official company values. The ­reward for putting up with cheap office ­furniture: a $90 billion stock market valuation and 35% revenue growth.

5. “Determine what your customers need, and work backwards.”
Specs for Amazon’s big new projects such as its Kindle tablets and e-book readers have been defined by customers’ desires rather than engineers’ tastes. If customers don’t want something it’s gone, even if that means breaking apart a once powerful department.

The rest of Jeff Bezos’s leadership tips can be found here.

This video from ’60 Minutes’ profiles the Stuxnet worm. The rest of the article can be found here.

[this article is from our Small and Medium Sized Enterprise website.]

If there is one thing most small businesses can agree on – it’s that time equals money. Small business owners are in a position where they have to be a jack-of-all-trades, often spending most of their day wearing different hats. This is the nature of the small business and while expected is not always the best way use of time.

In order for a small business to be successful and remain competitive in an industry, there must be designated time for the owner to focus on growing and building the business. In many cases small businesses fail as a result of being unable to handle emergencies or other situations that are simply beyond the control and expertise of the owner.

Any business that relies on technology, which covers almost every business operating today, can benefit from managed services. Managed services providers understand that not every business has the ability to pay for an internal IT department which can be very expensive yet necessary to ensure all aspects of technology are supported. Without this backup, many small businesses find themselves in a position where they have to foot a very expensive bill to recover from a disaster or emergency. In other situations, using out-of-date or ineffective technology is simply a waste of both time and money on the part of the small business.

Here are ways small businesses can make the most of their time and money by hiring a managed services provider, like Nerds On Site.

Focus on running the business – One of the major benefits of outsourcing your technology needs to a company like Nerds On Site is that you as a business owner and your employees can focus 100% on their individual duties to keep the business moving in the right direction. This is the most valuable use of time for all parties involved, instead of hours or even days lost when trying to deal with technological issues that in-house employees are not trained to handle.

We can offer expert advise – there are many small businesses that simply do not know what they need to improve the functionality of their business. The old adage, “what you don’t know can’t hurt you” does not apply in all cases. By consulting with a managed services provider, you may discover areas of your business which can be improved that you previously thought were working “just fine”. Expert advice may be able to help you improve the efficiency of your business while positioning you better within the industry.

Support when you need it – Managed Services providers are not only there in the event of an emergency or recovery but also provide monitoring, which can invaluable in preventing problems before they can impact your business.

It is important for every small business to carefully examine their technical needs in order to see what services will be most beneficial to the company. Nerds On Site can offer services that not only reduce technology costs over time, but also improves functionality, which in turn saves time. When this balance is achieved, a small business is in the perfect position to thrive and grow

[this is an excerpt from a previous post by David Redekop going into much more detail on why securing your network is important.]

“I actually personally met a successful business person this week (let’s call him Bill) who admittedly didn’t care if his network was breached, until I pointed out the dangers (and I’m sure there are more):

• His network and Internet access could be used by a criminal to carry out criminal activities while Bill will carry responsibility as his Internet connection was used.
• Casual sniffing of his activities online can be captured and in a short while enough data can be gathered to steal his identity or anyone’s identity using his network.
• Any equipment that hosts data of any sort is much more vulnerable to attacks “from the inside” when your network is widely accessible.”

Why would anyone want to access your network? The better question is: why would you give them the opportunity and put your data and personal information at risk?

[this post is from Dennis Houseknecht, a Nerd in West Virginia]

At least most internet users are becoming more wary of phishing email messages. The attackers are countering by increasing the sophistication their attacks and by targeting them to the interests of specific individuals.

Here is an article about malware that is written specifically to steal Microsoft Office documents. Imagine the information hackers might tap into if ALL your business Word document and Excel spreadsheets were harvested. The primary delivery vehicle has been bogus email messages claiming to be from FedEx, but we are sure to see others. Companies who regularly receive FedEx shipments would be likely victims.

Here is another article describing how targeted attacks are aimed at gamers, government employees, and small businesses.

Opening links in emails can be very dangerous. You can never trust a link to take you to what it says. All modern browsers will reveal the actual “target” of the link of you hover over it with the mouse. This does not work for shortened URLs, though. You can see where those actually point by pasting them into the expander window on a site like Long URL. There are also browser plugins that will expand shortened URLs.

[this post is from Dennis Houseknecht, a Nerd in West Virgina]

According to a recent study from Cisco:

“After the 2010 cybercrime turning point, when spam levels started to decline for the first time, this trend continued throughout 2011, a trend, according to analysts, can be explained mainly by several key botnet takedowns throughout the last two years. However, the number of vulnerabilities increased; there are fewer widespread attacks but greater numbers of smaller, more focused attacks.”

- The “good news”: there has been a significant reduction in unsolicited bulk spam
- The “bad news”: because cyber criminals have figured out that the ROI on bulk spam has gone down as users, especially business users, become more aware. The trend is now TARGETED spam – which provides a greater ROI for criminals. Targeted attacks are more dangerous and are INCREASING.
- The “more bad news”: Younger employees have a more cavalier attitude toward IT policies – 7 out of 10 “frequently ignore IT policies”.
- The “the worse news”: 1 out of 4 of these young employees is a victim of identity theft before the age of 30. That is a stunning statistic, and one that should get the attention of employers.

You can read more in this Business Day article.

You can read the Business Day article at: http://www.businessdayonline.com/NG/index.php/markets/companies-and-market/32587-mass-spam-declines-targeted-attacks-on-the-rise-cisco-warns

If your business offers unfiltered access to the Internet, chances are there are minutes or hours in the day where non-work activity takes place. Some employers have a work environment where this unchecked and unfiltered state is actually part of a morale of trust and confidence that the staff will get the work done even efficiently and keep a high level of productivity.

Two weeks ago we offered a free trial of a Unified Threat Management appliance to this client of ours at an insurance brokerage of about 15 staff. They had operated without any filters for many years and wanted to at least know what was happening. So we followed these simple steps to allow for a smooth transition and to keep everyone aware of upcoming changes.

Step 1 – Have an Acceptable Use Policy written and signed off

An Acceptable Use Policy – AUP – serves the purpose of making sure all staff know what is acceptable at the workplace, and what isn’t.

Step 2 – Implement a Unified Threat Management Appliance in Monitoring mode

An appliance can be installed at your office premises without disrupting any exiting access, and simply give the employers insight into how the Internet is being used throughout the premises.

Step 3 – Apply appropriate filters

This final step should be in complete accordance to the Acceptable Use Policy.

Special case considerations

• Social Media use is often restricted as it is seen as personal and has no role during working hours. However, most businesses now have a legitimate reason and role to play on twitter and facebook to maintain their own business presence.
• Time of Day access. The complete filtering of all social media access may have a negative effect on morale, and some companies choose time-of-day rules to allow social media access during lunch hour, for example.
• Logs may be misleading. If it’s your first time implementing a UTM, you will likely notice log entries of websites being visited, and when confronting said employee/computer, you will encounter denial. This can be legitimate because millions of workplace computers are infected with malware that cause the computers to operate silently under the control of botnets. Protection from web-based viruses, malware and spyware is another strong reason to implement and keep a UTM at every office.

It’s also worth pointing out that 3G connectivity through mobile phones is ubiquitous in many areas of the world. So blocking facebook on the work computer may simply cause the employee to use their own mobile phone instead. This is why an acceptable use policy is important to have in place. Consistent use of a mobile phone also leaves an optic that is not hard to detect by fellow employees and supervisors.

Do you have any specific need you don’t see covered here? Chances are it can also be achieved with a UTM.

We are very excited to welcome 4 new Nerds to our worldwide team!

We proudly welcome Mauricio Duarte and Jonathan Lyons to our Halifax, Canada Team. Mauricio presented his business plan to the Canadian Youth Business Foundation this week and received a loan to get his entrepreNerd enterprise kick-started! Can’t wait to see our 4th NerdMobile on the streets of Chester! Congrats to Jonathan Lyons on getting his decals on his NerdMobile tomorrow!

“Here are two new Nerds who have fresh ideas, passion, determination, and the skills to walk the walk,” said Halifax Team Leader Ben Wiper. “I’m so fortunate to have two new partners like Mauricio and Jonathan – I can’t wait for the inevitable exponential growth of Nerds business conducted in Nova Scotia.”

We are also proud to welcome Johan Reichel to our Johannesburg, South Africa Team! He has been with us for three months, and is well on his way to building a successful business serving small business!

We’re also thrilled to welcome Peter Carpenter to our Lethbridge, Canada Team!

Finally, Dian Smit, formerly a Nerd in Comox Valley, Canada, has relocated to become part of our Calgary, Canada Team!

Every Nerd on the team has the full support of a 24/7 client call centre, a dedicated admin team, solution and product champions, the Nerds On Site leadership team, and the rest of our global team (10 countries), all working towards providing excellent service and support for our clients!