September
2009
In this issue
■ Message from the COO
■ E-Mail Etiquette
■ Strong Passwords
■ Office Secrets
■ Meet the Staff
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Meet
the Staff
Cheryl Hofmann
Requiring a variety of skills in
accounting, marketing and human resources, the office manager
juggles multiple hats during the course of a day. Cheryl Hofmann
has a closet full of hats and skills to fill this position at
Radical Support. Since May 2008, Cheryl has coordinated
bookkeeping, payroll, marketing, seminars, building maintenance
and more for our growing firm.
Cheryl's vast experience comes
from many years in marketing and project management in high-end
residential construction and travel industries. As a meeting
manager for a French tour operator, Cheryl lived in Cairo, Egypt
for a year coordinating travel groups. "After you coordinate the
travel details for 1,100 folks from 5 different countries
arriving on 600 different flights during one week, you can do
anything!" says Cheryl.
Interacting with clients and the
close-knit family atmosphere at Radical Support are Cheryl's
favorite things about her job. New challenges and variety keep
her busy.
Cheryl enjoys reading, traveling
and watching her two sons play baseball. "If we're not playing
baseball, we're watching it on TV or watching movies about
baseball."
What would Cheryl do if she won
the lottery? Enjoy the ultimate baseball fan experience - see a
baseball game at every major league ballpark!
Just
for Laughs
A high school teacher hung
this sign under the clock in her classroom.
"Time will pass. . . Will you?"
- James E. Myers |
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Message from the
COO
 Does
your internet service seem slow? Who is using the bandwidth?
You may be surprised
by the answer. According to an IDC study, 30%- 40% of employee
internet usage is not business related. You'll also be shocked
to learn that 60% of all online shopping and purchases occur
during working hours, according to Vault.com. Viewership to
popular websites like YouTube and Facebook continues to rise as
well. So what do these statistics mean for your business?
Valuable bandwidth and productivity are being lost to employees
who are:
These trends are here
to stay but they shouldn't come at the expense of your business.
Incidentally, did you know there are serious human resources
risks associated with permitting certain content? It's true!
Once reserved for
schools to prevent students from viewing inappropriate web
sites, Content Filtering is an affordable solution to regaining
lost bandwidth and productivity. Content Filters monitor and
restrict network activity to allow resources to only be used for
identified purposes. Customized for your business needs, a
Content Filter can permit or deny access to websites deemed
unnecessary to business and improve the network's performance by
limited or denying bandwidth to such things as video and music
downloads. It is also easy to identify certain groups of people
or even certain times where less restricted access is okay, like
during the lunch hour for example.
You can recapture
bandwidth and lost productivity. Imagine if you could recapture
30 minutes for each employee's time every single day. How much
would that be worth? It is easy and affordable. To discuss this
topic in more detail, please give us a call at 770-542-0000,
option 1.
John Mamon
Chief Operations Officer
jmamon@radicalsupport.com
770-542-0042
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E-Mail Etiquette for Wireless
Devices:
7 Tips
by Christopher Elliott
Reprinted with permission from the
Microsoft Small Business Center
 This isn't another
lecture about minding your e-mail manners. This is a story
about a new subset of e-mail etiquette. Call it wireless
politeness.
An increasing
number of e-mail messages are being received on small,
wireless devices with limited screen space - devices such as
Windows Mobile-based Smartphones. Being polite is still
important. But so are a number of other considerations,
including brevity, diction and consideration for bandwidth.
Reader Terri
Thornton aptly sums up the frustration with today's wireless
transmissions. "I hate checking my e-mail and having the
subject line be so long that it scrolls forever until I can
figure out what the topic is, or whether it's important,"
says Thornton, a Cincinnati marketing executive. "Worse is
the one-word subject line that says nothing and you have to
open it to find out what it is and discover it's 30 lines of
nothing."
So what is the
etiquette for sending e-mail messages to and from wireless
devices?
Here are seven tips.
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How Strong Are Your Passwords?
by Mike Gonsalves,
StrategicFusion
 Most
people don't realize that computer security starts with
them. An easy way to hold off trouble is to use strong
passwords that you change every so often.
What is a
strong Password? It is a password that is easily
remembered by you, contains uppercase letters, lower
case letters, a number or two, a special character and
is at least 8 characters in length.
Sounds
hard, but it's really easy when you use things you are
familiar with.
For
example, if I grew up at 245 Lucky Street, I might make
my password Lucky245 & Notice I've used Uppercase and
Lowercase Letters, I have 3 numbers and a special
character.
Here are
some variations on the above password luCky24%,
LuckY245$, luckY245* You can come up with a bunch if you
just think about it a little bit.
Read more
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Do You Know Office Secrets?
By Alan R. Earls
Reprinted with permission from
Microsoft Small Business Center
Microsoft
Office 2007 has a wealth of features that you may have
overlooked that could help your business. Here are four you
may want to learn about.
In Summary:
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Microsoft Office 2007 is chock-full of useful
features you may not be aware of. |
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Read
these tips on using SmartArt, the Outlook To-Do Bar,
Document Inspector, and ScreenTips. |
At the core of
every business are the fundamental office productivity
applications that support nearly every business function.
The Microsoft Office suite of applications is so familiar
that many managers probably assume they know everything they
need to know about its capabilities.
But according
to Monica Robinson, Microsoft Office 2007 senior product
manager, there are numerous new features-some subtle, some
dramatic-that can make a significant difference for
businesses. "With the right software tools, employees are
better able to impact the business," she says.
Many businesses
are recognizing an increasing need for employees, customers,
and partners to collaborate effectively, says Robinson.
Office 2007 has several features designed to address this
and other business challenges, including:
Microsoft
Office PowerPoint 2007 SmartArt
SmartArt graphics can add color, shape, effects, and
animation to presentations to help clearly depict processes,
relationships, and concepts. The new graphics capabilities
help you produce great-looking, high-impact documents and
presentations that are publication-ready, without spending
hours making formatting adjustments.
To create a
SmartArt graphic in PowerPoint:
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1. |
Go to the
Insert tab in the Illustrations group and click
SmartArt. |
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2. |
In the
Choose a SmartArt Graphic dialog box, click the type
and layout that you want. |
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3. |
Enter text
by using one of the three following options:
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Click in a shape in your SmartArt graphic and then
type your text. |
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Click Text
in the Text pane and then type or paste your text.
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Copy text
from another program, click Text, and then paste
into the Text pane. |
Read more
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