The Datamax Thinking Blog

Play follow the leader with your print jobs on any of your office’s networked copiers.

Called pull, push, or follow me printing; this productivity functionality allows employees to roam the office and print from a convenient device.

Have a large print job, but don’t want to carry it from your desk up two floors to the big conference room? Hit print, select the device closest to your meeting,

The study found that seventy-four percent (74%) of employees felt they were asked to do things on the job for which they were not properly trained.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you say you've got advanced service training certification(s)—so what. If those certifications were worth their salt, everyone would be pursuing achievement, touting the distinction, and donning the emblems."—Naysayers International

As it stands, many service providers don’t seem interested (or perhaps capable) unless such certifications are required or mandatory by the suppliers and manufacturers they represent. Mandatory certifications may ensure compliance but not necessarily commitment to learning—which is the point. The fact is the vast majority of advanced technical training certifications in arenas like the copier industry are dealer-voluntary. So what does it say about those who don’t voluntarily participate in them? Whether cost, commitment or perceived lack of value from, oh the way, the OEM, we think that's a pretty revealing question.

81% of the respondents reported that negligent employees or other insiders have been responsible for at least one unintentional data breach within their organizations over the past two years. - The Human Factor in Data Protection Study¹

While companies will always be fearful of the malicious ‘bad apple’ employee, numerous studies have shown that most internal security breaches are accidental or unintentional; mostly a result of clever phishing tactics. Phishing is a scam featuring a malicious program posing as legitimate – an email seemingly sent by someone in your contacts, but the actual address is unfamiliar. Inadvertently, a well-meaning employee could succumb to such a scam by not realizing that something isn’t right. By properly identifying these causes, companies can not only inform employees of the risks, but can also reduce their exposure to these cyber-attacks. If employers take the time to educate employees on how to identify these threats, small business with limited resources can drastically reduce their own exposure at little to no additional cost.

“We have met the enemy and he is us.” – Walt Kelly

Our 5 most popular posts from 2015, including how to avoid being scammed online.

I hope your new year is off to a fantastic start.

As we all dig into a new year, here are a few of our greatest hits from last year.

Whether you’re revisiting them or seeing these for the first time, thank you for reading. All of us here at Datamax look forward to helping you reach your business goals this year.

1. A Crying Shame – Scams, Cons, and Ripoffs from the Internet

We must be vigilant regarding the Internet Con Artist because eventually we will be confronted with his scams.

Your copier’s hard drive could be a digital time bomb unless properly secured. 

Your copier is hiding something from you – its hard drive.  

These hidden hard drives in copiers prevalent since 2002 store images of every document that’s ever been copied, scanned, or emailed. This data remains stored on the hard drive until the drive becomes full then the old data is overwritten, but there’s always the potential for sensitive information to be stored on your copier’s hard drive. Though that copier in the corner of the office may appear innocent, it is ripe for hacking – and they are often overlooked. 

Find your documents when you need them through smart use of document management technology.

How often have you been frustrated by not being able to find the correct version of an important document? Or spent 30 minutes flipping through manila folders in a file cabinet looking for a misfiled customer invoice? 

Using documents to get your work done doesn’t have to be that frustrating.

Business success today is inextricably linked to the ability to find the right information (or even have that information proactively delivered to you) when you need it. 

Poor communication?  In the top three?  Really? That's not a misprint ... poor communication.

There are many benefits from embracing this new network management paradigm: improved uptime, enhanced customer service and end user support, more efficient operations, and improved budget management to name a few. These benefits are realistic and attainable, yet many managed service providers struggle to deliver the promised benefits. Given the advantages provided by new technology, what else is required to be successful providing managed network services? Experience in the marketplace has shown that companies will fire technology service providers primarily for one of three reasons:

When you’re looking for a copier service provider (or whatever kind of service provider) to help you run your business, you need a partner – not just someone who’s only interested in selling you something.

Reliable copier service providers and a solid relationship go together like peanut butter and chocolate. You're willing to consume the calories, but you want it to be worth it. Like a peanut butter cup. When it comes to a service provider and a relationship there's not much differenceI – if you’re going to find one, you want it to be the right one.

When office equipment experiences downtime, so does your office. Accurate, fast service puts you and your equipment back to work.

“Ding.” 

Remember the simple ringer on the counter of a hotel desk or in a store? A quick press on the bell, a ringing “ding!” sound, and you’d almost always hear a “Be right with you” from somewhere in the store. Service was on the way and you were satisfied.

Use your office copier to scan documents directly to cloud storage for quick and simple access later.

Even if you don’t follow technology at all, you’ve heard of “the cloud.” Often mentioned with a touch of reverence and a hint that the cloud will solve your technology challenges, cloud services really can bring huge personal and business productivity improvements when used correctly.