PICS ITech

by Jeff Wuorio
used with permission from the Microsoft Small Business Website

Your laptop was built for doing work away from the office. Making sure your self-discipline comes along for the trip is something else.

Many business owners and executives associate an office environment with the will to work. As a result, they fret that they—or their employees—may be less than diligent when working from home or a hotel room.

But keeping up your self-discipline away from the office is just a matter of thoughtful planning. Here are seven strategies, culled from feedback from experts and my own experiences.

used with permission from the Microsoft Small Business Website

Truth be told, no one wants to work 365 days a year. However, we do need our technology to be available around the clock because you never know when that hot sales prospect will want a product fact sheet or when you'll need to coordinate a last-minute cross-country meeting. In most workplace instances, having integrated, always available communication and collaboration solutions streamlines the way we work and can be just the ticket to greater productivity and cost savings.

For this reason, Microsoft has developed Office 365, which brings together cloud versions of our most trusted communications and collaboration products with familiar Microsoft Office productivity solutions. Using the cloud to deliver these services enables us to provide a host of benefits aimed at keeping businesses of all sizes agile and competitive. Here are just a few key benefits we're most excited about:

used with permission from Cisco

Every minute counts in a small company and wireless networks are a powerful tool for boosting productivity and encouraging information sharing. With untethered access to documents, emails, applications and other network resources, employees can roam where they need to and have constant access to the tools required to do their jobs.

Here are some of the ways businesses are taking advantage of wireless LANs:

Building a robust recovery plan is all about establishing redundancies (for your staff, technology, communications, etc). These redundancies need to extend to recovery sites as well. When considering a temporary office recovery site you must think of the worst case scenario. Fact is, your obvious first choice may not be available during a large-scale event (think New Orleans post-Katrina, and Manhattan following 9/11).

Take some time to brainstorm multiple location options. Think creatively about how isolated vs. local vs. regional disasters may impact where and how you recover. For example, do you have a good relationship with a vendor in your supply chain? Maybe they can help you out in a pinch. Do you have access to flexible office space? Can your employees work remotely? If so, how long before inefficiency creeps in?

The bottom-line is - don't hinge your entire plan on a single recovery site. Flexibility is key.