According to a leading industry source, more than 50 percent of enterprise-sized IT infrastructures are running mixed Microsoft Office end-user environments. Half the knowledge workers are running 2003; the rest are getting to know 2007 and the Ribbon.

When half your knowledge workers are using one version and the rest another, that’s a whole lot of lost functionality — and wasted time.

The recession and Office 2007’s immense learning curve are partly to blame, but, ultimately, it’s you, the IT leader, who must take responsibility for diminished return on investment. There’s still time to finish your migration; here are six reasons why you should:

1. ROI: You purchased X number of licenses and only have migrated half. You do the math: You purchased the upgrade for a reason — to take advantage of new and easier to find productivity features.

2. The dreaded Office 2007 learning curve: As evident in the hundreds of expletive-laced Tweets about Office 2007, the new user interface is a downright shock to many knowledge workers. Where’s the file menu? How do you save a document? What is this Ribbon? If you finish your migration, you will not have to face these questions again when you decide to upgrade to the next version (which also has a Ribbon interface). Read more…

admin Finish What You Started, Office 2007 CIO, downtime, learning curve, Office 2007 migration, ROI, software support, the Ribbon

While the Marines are busy banning social media and some corporations are clamping down on Twitter and its ilk, the state government of California is encouraging its workers to embrace Web 2.0.

California officially adopted the use of social media. But it’s hardly a Farmville free-for-all.

On Feb. 26, the state officially adopted the use of social media. But it’s hardly a Farmville free-for-all.

The state issued a policy that sets clear rules for its use, including a limitation to only authorized users who have been trained regarding their roles, responsibilities and security risks. (View a PDF of the policy here.)

The document states: “State agencies are encouraged to use social media technologies to engage their customers and employees. Many state entities, including the Governor, have used these communication channels with great success but as with most technologies, there is a measure of risk that must be addressed and mitigated.”

In addition to the policy, the state issued a five-page “Social Media Standard,” which includes a few interesting clauses (read the full document in PDF form here):

No. 8: “Users shall not utilize tools or techniques to spoof, masquerade, or assume any identity or credentials except for legitimate law enforcement purposes, or for other legitimate State purposes as defined in agency policy.”

No. 9: “Users shall avoid mixing their professional information with their personal information.”

And, No. 10: “Users shall not use their work password on social media web sites.”

Participating agencies must comply with the policy by July 1.

Related reading: “What We’re Reading: If  Harvard Says So Edition” | “Social Media: The Elephant in the Office”

MORE INFO IN: Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

admin Social Media California, CIO, FACEBOOK, Farmville, government, Social Media, the Marines, Twitter, YouTube

We read a variety of tech publications to keep up on industry news – Wired, CIO.com, Computerworld, Ars Technica. Each fills its own niche. A brand-spanking-new publication has joined the fray, and it’s worth a read.

Monday marked the launch of EnterpriseEfficiency.com, a social community of sorts for CIOs and IT leaders where they can discuss and swap ideas on how to make IT departments more efficient.

For a site that just launched, it’s remarkably robust, and has an impressive lineup of contributors, including veteran tech pub journalists, authors and supergeeks.

Of note is editor-in-chief Fredric Paul’s blog post about the challenges of supporting multiple mobile platforms in the enterprise. (Read the post here, “How Many Smartphone Platforms Do We Really Need?”)

And speaking of efficiency and CIOs,  PC Helps is a sponsor of Windows Intelligence, the largest one-day Microsoft conference in California. The conference is being held on March 29, 2010, in person and online. Brian Bradley, PC Helps’ VP of business development, will be speaking about Office 2010. Visit the Windows Intelligence web site for more information and to register. (Be sure to use Microsoft promo code PCHELPS for a discounted rate.)

MORE INFO IN: Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

admin What We're Reading CIO, IT infrastructure, IT leaders, tech pubs

The Dutch, who know a thing or two about frugality, have a saying, “Goedkoop is duurkoop.” The English translation: “Buying cheap is buying expensive.” And nowhere is that adage more fitting than in outsourcing.

University of Tennessee researcher Kate Vitasek offers an in-depth look at how shortsighted cost-cutting and nine other behaviors can hurt companies in her new book, “Vested Outsourcing,” which was published earlier this month by Palgrave Macmillan.

For her study, Vitasek looked at outsourcing deals and identified the most common mistakes companies make when contracting. Among them: Micromanaging, lack of formal governance, metrics obsession, and, of course, cost-cutting as a quick-fix measure.

Cost-cutting, Vitasek writes, is the easiest to identify. Companies desperate to trim the bottom line take the cheapest offer. The result is a tradeoff in quality, service or both.

For more about the study, visit Vitasek’s blog, which features a wealth of articles. It makes for great snow day reading. And for previous posts published on this blog about the subject, see the following: Wasting Money is Bad for the Bottom Line, When Mistakes add up to Millions, and The Real Cost of Offshore Outsourcing.♦

MORE INFO IN: Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

admin Outsourcing, This Week in Tech News CIO, goedkoop is duurkoop, Help Desk, Kate Vitasek, Outsourcing, the Dutch

Poka-yoke – I never had heard the word before, but I was delighted to discover it two weeks ago in a Harvard Business Review article written by Michael Schrage.

Poka-yoke is Japanese for “mistake-proofing.” Think of the “In Case of Fire Break Glass” boxes found in office buildings. Because they include a wee stick with which to break said glass, they would qualify as poka-yoke.

Best of all, your employees will experience minimal downtime and very little lost productivity.

In business, Schrage explains, poka-yoke is the “simplest, cheapest, and surest way to eliminate foreseeable process errors.” He urges managers to perform a poka-yoke audit of their own department.

“What are the persistently simple — and simply persistent — dumb mistakes we make that our technologies can help us catch and destroy?” he asks.

Here’s where I believe IT managers should start: the help desk.

Say your company is planning an Office 2007 migration, and you, as CIO, have decided that because of the current economic climate, assistance isn’t needed. After all, your reliance on internal help desk staff during previous Office upgrades didn’t turn out disastrously. Read more…

admin Office 2007 Migration Assurance Program, ROI CIO, Harvard Business Review, Help Desk, Japan, Michael Schrage, Outsourcing, poka-yoke, software support

Would you groom a poodle only halfway? Not finishing your Office 2007 migration is just as nonsensical.

According to a leading industry source, more than 50 percent of enterprise-sized IT infrastructures are running mixed Microsoft Office end-user environments. The reasons are many: the recent “econolypse” spurred IT leaders to cut budgets and lay off workers, leaving Office 2007 deployments incomplete; IT management underestimated the amount of work that a migration required, and they reacted by halting phased rollouts; and some CIOs and other IT leaders who were not mandated to deploy the new version to the entire company doled it out in a “drip” fashion.

The result is an enterprise that looks something like this: Half of your employees use Office 2007, and the rest are still running Office 2003. All you’ve heard from the former are “Where’s the file menu?” and “How do I save a document?” From the latter, you’ve likely endured endless grumbling about their frustration with Office 2003-incompatible files created by colleagues.

It’s not just user aggravation you have to worry about either. Running two versions invites compatibility issues, minimizes the return on your Office 2007 investment, and keeps your internal help desk semi-knowledgeable about the software.

We’ve compiled a kit that will show you how to cost-effectively finish your Office 2007 migration while minimizing the end-user and help desk learning curve, increase productivity and more accurately project call volume. You can view it here.

MORE INFO IN: Office 2007 Migration Case Study | Office 2007 Migration Assurance Program | Migration Readiness Checklist | Migration Competitive Analysis | Contact PC Helps

admin Finish What You Started CIO, econolypse, Office 2007 migration, ROI

Perhaps this scenario describes your desktop software situation: Half of your end users use Office 2007, and the rest are still running Office 2003. All you’ve heard from the former are “Where’s the file menu?” and “How do I save a document?” From the latter, you’ve likely listened to endless grumbling about their frustration with Office 2003-incompatible files created by colleagues.

Final post in a four-part Office 2007 migration series.

It needs to be said: Finish what you started.

In June 2009, PC Helps partnered with CIO.com to communicate the myths and realities of an Office 2007 migration and eight service levels needed to prove migration ROI. Since the recent release of Windows 7, We have updated the Office 2007 myths and realities white paper to include actual call statistics and adoption considerations for Windows 7 as well.

IT leaders cannot afford to approach an Office 2007 or Windows 7 migration blindly. The user interface is radically different and guarantees that your employees will flounder just trying to perform basic tasks. Separate the facts from the myths, and learn how to get the most return on your investment. Download the free, updated white paper now.

Read the series: Finish What You Started.

MORE INFO IN: Office 2007 Migration Case Study | Office 2007 Migration Assurance Program | Migration Readiness Checklist | Migration Competitive Analysis | Contact PC Helps

admin Finish What You Started, Office 2007 Migration Assurance Program CIO, migration, Office 2007, white paper, Windows 7

E-mail has revolutionized communication. It enables us to connect with people as far away as Tokyo and Sydney in a split second, and helps us be more productive. But it also has enormous potential to offend, anger, bombard, confuse and overwhelm its recipients. After all, it doesn’t have the benefit of body language, tone of voice, and other distinctly human elements that are necessary for message context.

Your best defense against a message recall failure is to reread your message before you send it.

Although we should all know proper e-etiquette by now, a gentle reminder is needed now and again. (See this article, which illustrates how much damage a hastily sent e-mail can cause.) Below are a few timeless tips for keeping your communication professional and not at all offensive to your colleagues. (Tips are for Outlook versions 2000-2007, except where noted otherwise.)

Reply to All with Care

By MaryHazel McDermott

Reply to All is an option available in Outlook and many other e-mail programs that should be used sparingly. When you use Reply to All, you may be sending your message to scads of people who do not even need the information. Read more…

admin Etiquette, How To all caps, CIO, Etiquette, message recall, Outlook, reply to all

Gartner, Forrester and other industry heavies say the most important thing to CIOs right now is efficiency. Doing more with less, doing more with the same — just doing more. They’re not thinking too deeply about the cloud or any non-critical projects. Just efficiency, plain and simple.

When scaled across an entire company, misprinted print jobs cost a corporation dearly.

Sure, big picture savings are great. But the best way to approach recession survival is by starting small. Although an extra printout or two may seem minuscule, when scaled across an entire company, misprinted print jobs cost a corporation dearly.

In the spirit of frugality, here are two PC Helps tips published by IT World that promise printing efficiency.

1. How to Master Excel Spreadsheet Printing
2. How to Create a New Print Style in Outlook

Enjoy, and print responsibly. Got any efficiency tips? Send them our way.

MORE INFO IN: Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

admin How To, Worker Productivity CIO, doing more with less, efficiency, Forrester, Gartner, IT World

The headline of a recent article in Computerworld magazine grabbed my attention: “Help Desks Under Siege.” An image of angry workers armed with flaming torches popped into my mind. They were storming the help desk, calling for an immediate moratorium on rebooting and demanding basic rights like software that doesn’t require patches and updates. There were even rumblings of self-serve password reset capabilities.

A supply closet as an office? For employees who are responsible for the computing capabilities of an entire company? Shame on them.

Alas, the piece wasn’t about corporate coups d’etat (it’s a little far-fetched, I concede), but it did highlight the pressing issues help desks are facing today, in this sorta-kinda-post-recession era. Namely…

1. Efficiency

The piece’s author, Cara Garretson, mentions improvements that would make help desks more efficient, such as a central knowledgebase, remote control capabilities, and a database of standard responses to common problems. The problem, says Garretson, is that those improvements cost employee hours.

They don’t have to.

There are companies out there, outsourcers or “best-of-breed” service providers like us, Read more…

admin Help Desk Cara Garretson, CIO, CIO.com, computerworld, Customer Service, outsourcers, temps