In the modern age of technology, with nearly everything going online, making business decisions has become incredibly tough. There is so much data available to us that we simply can't assimilate and comprehend all of it. The danger being that this is potentially causing us to make the wrong decisions. Business Intelligence (BI) is the idea of harnessing this data and analyzing it so we can make better choices. One of the newer components of BI is the concept of social data.

Here's an overview of social data and three ways small business owners and managers can use it to make decisions.

What is social data? Social data is any data or information collected from the various social media sites available. The easiest way to define social data is to differentiate it from social media. Social media is content that a user has created, copied or linked with the idea of sharing it with other people using a platform i.e., Facebook. Social data is the information that is linked to this content, such as shares, likes, location, time posted, etc.

It is social data that powers analytics and social media monitoring, (how popular your content, profile, etc. is), and if utilized efficiently could go a long way in helping you make better business decisions and a more focused marketing strategy.

Because there is so much data relating to and generated by social media activities, it can be nearly impossible to track and analyze it all. But, it is quickly becoming an important part of Business Intelligence, and will continue to become even more so as the number of social media sites and users continues to expand. That's why many BI solutions are starting to integrate social data gathering and analysis tools. While you may be able to track and analyze this data, do you know what you can do with it?

Three uses of social data

• Competitor research - Many companies currently focus on data related directly to their content. Why not expand it and look at your competitors, such what they are posting and how their followers are reacting? If done properly, this can give you valuable industry insight and generate ideas as to what you could also be doing to better leverage your brand and position.
• Judge health of marketing campaigns and overall interest - The main use of social data should be to help you track how well your current marketing campaigns and content is doing. Being able to analyze this data will reveal what works and what doesn't, allowing you to tweak and fine tune your efforts. The best platforms can provide near instant results which allow you to update or change on-the-fly.
• Gauge current public opinion - Social media is like a stream. There's always content flowing by you, much of it potentially useful. If you can track what people are saying, sharing and commenting on, you can spot trends faster, enabling you to come up with even more relevant content for followers to share, thus expanding presence.

There are numerous uses for social data in organizations and many bigger companies have started to track and implement learnings in different departments such as marketing, human resources and even finance. This is a great way for you to better know and provide what your customers and followers want.

If you would like to learn more about social data and how your company can use it effectively, call us today for a chat.

An integral component of the modern tablet and smartphone is the software, or more specifically the apps. Apps provide users with the ability to interact with their phones and do virtually anything. The way the vast majority of users get apps onto their tablets is by downloading them from an app store. Google users do this through Google Play, which has recently been updated with a new layout.

Here's an overview of the new Google Play layout which was introduced May 15, along with some tips on how you can get the most out of it.

The new layout When you first open the updated app you will notice that there is now a series of buttons under the search bar. These colorful buttons will bring you to the different services associated with Google Play. For example, in the US there is now a button for: Movies & TV, Books, Games, Music, Magazines and Apps. Tapping on each will take you to the different stores. i.e., Apps will take you to the Apps section of the Play store.

Each section of Play now has an expanded layout, with three (two for phones) apps/books/albums per row. Just below the search bar is a horizontal menu bar that you can swipe left or right to see different options. For example, on the Apps section you will see the different app categories like Home, Top Paid, Top Free, etc. Swiping to the left will bring up more app categories.

Each app is now shown in its own card with a larger picture, the name, rating and price. Tapping on an app will open a new window that shows more information about that specific app. All apps now have integration with Google+ meaning that if a friend +1's the app, their profile picture will show up in the app's information.

Probably the biggest update, aside from the improved layout, is Google Play will now notify you when there is a large app update, if you are connected to mobile data. This is really useful, especially if you have a limited amount of data.

How to use the new Play store While the idea and basic use of Google Play hasn't changed, it may be harder to find some information, or to figure out how to use it at first. Here's an overview of how to use the new Play store:

Installing apps You can either tap the Apps button from the landing page of the Play store to look for apps, or type the name or type of app you're looking for in the search bar. Once you find the right app, tap on it to bring up the information screen. Pressing Install at the top of the window will open the App permissions window. Tap Accept and the app will download and install. If it costs money, you will first be asked to select a method of payment before you are able to download.

Find what apps you have installed Searching your tablet for apps you have installed can be a be a chore. Luckily Google Play keeps a record of all apps you have installed. To see your apps:

1. Open Google Play.
2. Press the three vertical grey squares in the top right of the window.
3. Select My apps.
4. You can tap on an app to bring up more information about it, and uninstall it by tapping Uninstall.

Tinker with your settings We recommend that you take a minute and ensure your settings meet your requirements. You can access Google Play's settings by:

1. Opening Google Play.
2. Pressing the three vertical grey squares in the top right of the window.
3. Selecting Settings.

It is a good idea to tap on Auto-update apps and set it to Auto-update apps over Wi-Fi only. This will ensure that you are not using mobile data to download updates. If you have a credit card linked with your Google account, it is a good idea to set a password to restrict purchases. Simply tap on Password from the Settings menu and enter a password.

Overall, this update makes the Google Play store look inviting, and easier to use. If you would like to learn more about how an Android tablet or device can be used in your organization, contact us today.

Think back to the last time you received an important email, only to be confused or unsure of what exactly the sender wanted. Emails like these have become near commonplace, and can negatively influence our productivity. There are a number of things you can do to mitigate this however, the most important revolves around writing good emails.

Here's six tips that can help ensure that the emails you send get your message across. By writing quality emails, you could see your productivity increase as you will have more time to do your work instead of clarifying sloppy emails.

1. Have a clear decision or action 99% of the emails you send are to ask someone to take an action, make a decision, reply etc. So, before you write any email pause for a minute and ask yourself: Why am I writing this and what do I want the recipient to do with this email?

If you can't provide a clear answer to these two questions, you may want to try contacting the recipient through another medium, or take some time to think and come up with an answer.

2. Write it backwards Once you know why you are writing your email, the actual writing becomes a lot easier. Because you will most likely be asking the recipient to do something, why not start with the request. Simply write down, in clear English, what you want done.

It's important to be as clear and direct as possible to avoid any confusion and potential follow up emails that will distract you. Once you have stated what you want, then you can provide justification to your request, or background information.

The reason this works is because many business owners/managers/employees are busy, they don't have time to read a whole report's worth of information that ends with a request. Most of the time they will just skip to the end anyways, so why not put the most important part - the action that you want them to take - at the beginning.

3. Use lists Many poorly written emails aren't actually poorly written. They are just formatted in an inefficient manner. In most English classes, students are taught to develop their ideas or arguments through logical paragraphs, while having only one point to each paragraph. Pause for a minute and think: If you get an email asking you to make a decision on what product to buy with five paragraphs each talking about a benefit or reason, would you actually read the whole email? Chances are the answer is no.

To be more efficient, break your ideas/reasons/arguments into a list. You can usually summarize the majority of main ideas of each paragraph into a single sentence. This makes them easier for you and the recipient to read.

4. KISS We don't mean you should kiss your monitor. In this context, KISS stands for Keep It Simple and Straightforward. You shouldn't have long essays or arguments with lots of padding. Get to the point immediately and provide the essential information.

If you find yourself writing an essay or long report, email is not the medium you should be using. Instead put your thoughts into a word document that you attach to the email. In the email itself put a brief overview along with the most important points and tell your recipient to check the attachment for more information.

5. Have a relevant subject line The subject of your email is like the title of a report or news article. Without a solid subject, the chances of your email being opened and read are low. It would be a good idea to write your whole email first, then the subject.

A good subject line can A) Interest the recipient enough to get them to open it and B) Provide enough insight so the reader can infer what you want. If you look over a subject line of an email you are about to send and see that it doesn't make sense or reference the email itself, it would be a good idea to re-write it.

6. Proofread everything This may make sense now, but we are all guilty of writing an email and pressing send without reading the content over. Once you hit send, the damage is done, you won't be able to get the email back. That's why it's a good idea to read over your email after you finish.

You should look for any obvious spelling and grammar errors along with ensuring that the content makes sense. If you think it's ok, then you can probably go ahead and send it. If you are the least bit hesitant, walk away from it for a few minutes then come back and read over it again. You will likely be able to see a couple of changes.

There are many options at your disposal that allow you to enhance your and your company's productivity. Contact us today to see how our systems can help.

Communication is an important part of business, and one of the more popular communication mediums is Facebook. It's hard to find a business that doesn't use the platform. If you have been using Facebook since its launch you will know that there are occasional changes that sometimes make it better, others worse. The company has recently announced changes to the layout of your News Feed - are they any good?

Here's an overview of the new changes introduced in Facebook's News Feed overhaul.

Bigger, more engaging content The biggest, most obvious change is that the new News Feed is wider. That's because the menu bar that traditionally has taken up the left-hand side of the window has been more or less removed. It's now a hovering bar that can collapse to the left-side of the screen. If you've seen the recent Android and iPad/iPhone layout, where you can press a button to see your friends menu, it's similar to that.

Because of the new layout, the content shown on the feed is now larger. This means larger images, news stories, events and maps. To better take advantage of this, it is recommended that any images you upload to your profile be around 600X600 pixels - no smaller than 200X200 pixels.

There is another change that could pose useful: When a friend or local business appears on a user's wall, they will see the entire Timeline badge and location if they have allowed it.

New feeds To get the most out the new layout, Facebook has also introduced a number of new News Feeds to explore. Before we get into the new feeds, it would pay to talk about how Facebook has become smarter. Over time, as you comment on posts or share items, Facebook will start to show recommendations based on your past activity. For example if you are sharing news about cloud storage, you will begin to see suggestions around other cloud storage posts, articles or programs that could interest you.

This new layout comes with a few different feeds that can help filter the content you see. The announced feeds are:

• Music - Shows you posts related to the music you listen to. This likely won't be the most useful for the majority of companies out there.
• Photos - Displays only photos that have been uploaded by friends or pages you like. This could be important, especially if you have a visual based profile e.g., restaurants. Because of this new feed, it would be a good idea to ensure you are sharing high-quality images.
• Following - The latest news and information from Pages that you have liked. This feed could be quite interesting to companies, as it only shows Facebook Pages. What this means for most Page owners is that they had better be sharing good content, as they just became more visible.
• All Friends - Shows the traditional News Feed namely everything your friends and Pages you have liked are sharing and commenting on.
• Close Friends - This is a bit of a dangerous view for companies, as it will only show information posted by their friends. All business and ad-related content is not shown.

The same views across all platforms Finally, Facebook has noted that with this new layout, the News Feed will be the same across all devices. No more looking at a completely different News Feed on your phone or tablet. This is a good move, and should increase your company's exposure over time.

If you access Facebook on your mobile phone - Android or iPhone/iPad - you have likely seen the new changes, as the apps were updated in mid March and included the new mobile version of the News Feed. The company started rolling out the new layout on March 7 and has noted that the change will take place over a couple of months. Some lucky users may even have it now.

Looking forward to the new changes? Or, perhaps you are a little apprehensive? Why not contact us today to see how we can help you get the most out of any change Facebook introduces.

One of the more popular tech trends in recent years is the increasing adoption of video based communication. Many are familiar with products like Skype which allow face-to-face communication from anywhere there is an Internet connection. Did you know that Google has baked video conferencing into their newly released Google Hangouts? If your company uses Google, this could be a great marketing tool. The only question is, how exactly can you leverage it?

Below are four ways you or your business could use the video conferencing capabilities of Google Hangouts.

1. Provide customer support If you have a product or service, you have likely had clients contact you with questions or concerns. When customers are having problems, they normally prefer to talk face-to-face with a real person. The problem is, you may not be where your customers are, or they may not be able to reach you.

Hangouts provides you with an ideal channel where customers can contact you, see your face and discuss problems they may be having.

2. Product demonstrations Have a product that customers have been asking how to use, or would like to know more about? Why not host a Hangout? This is a great platform that allows you and up to 10 customers to interact. You can show them how the product works, how it can help them and answer questions all face-to-face. If a participant would like to learn more, you can then host a one-on-one Hangout.

3. Conduct team meetings There are two useful Hangouts features that could be a boon to productivity. The first is the ability to share your screen with participants and the other is built in compatibility with productivity apps like Google Drive. This allows you and your team to collaborate on a document, spreadsheet or even presentation.

Hosting a Hangout is also great if you or a teammate is away. You can still work together because Hangouts is now Google's main chat app with integration across desktop and mobile devices. As long as you have an Internet connection, and a device with a camera you can join a Hangout. Imagine having someone out in the field with a tablet talking to colleagues who are on their desktops. This will make your team and company more productive.

4. Launch a new product or service Google Hangouts allows you to live stream events on both Google+ and YouTube. This could be useful if you are launching a new product, or service and want to enable people who can't make it to the event to take part. You can even record the event so people can watch it later.

While still relatively new, video conferencing and webinars are quickly becoming one of the most popular ways for small businesses to really connect with their customers regardless of their location. If you are looking to learn more about Google Hangouts and how they could be used in your business, please contact us today.

One of the more popular productivity oriented programs on the market today is Microsoft's Office 365. Based in the cloud, this platform offers business users a way to increase productivity of their whole organization while making communication and sharing easier. A lesser known feature included in Office 365 subscriptions is Office Web Apps. Microsoft aims to make this a more prominent feature and has recently announced two new updates that could make it more useful.

Here's an overview of Office Web Apps and the two upcoming updates for the platform.

What exactly is Office Web Apps? Office Web Apps (OWA) is a browser based version of Microsoft Office. OWA includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote which users can access through almost any web browser. These apps are available free of charge to everyone with a Microsoft SkyDrive and most Office 365 users.

The beauty of OWA is that it allows users to open, edit, collaborate on, and store the most popular Office documents from a variety of devices. What this means is that as long as a user has a Microsoft Account and is connected to the Internet, they can access Office software without actually having it installed on their computer or device.

If you've used OWA, you know that it's great for opening Office documents, basic editing and creating basic documents. The major downside is, these web based apps are missing a number of more advanced features e.g., Find and Replace in Word. Microsoft has stated that they are committed to introducing more features, and have recently announced two that could make OWA an even more viable solution for businesses.

Real-time collaboration In the current version of OWA collaboration is possible. However a user will need to refresh the browser window to see changes made by another editor. This is hardly ideal, especially if you have more than two people working on the same document.

Microsoft aims to change this by introducing real-time editing. This means that if you and three other colleagues are working on the same document, you will see the changes as they are made; so there's no need to refresh.

This feature is currently being rolled out to PowerPoint users, and should be applied to the other OWA apps sometime in the near future (there has been no specific date set by Microsoft, but it should be by the end of the year).

Editing from Android tablets While OWA may not be the best choice for desktop users, especially since the vast majority already have Office installed on their computers, it's great for mobile users. At this time, only Windows 8 tablet and iPad users have been able to access OWA from their devices. The recently announced update will soon bring this functionality to Android tablets as well.

Microsoft has not set a date as to when Android tablets will be able to access OWA, but it should be before the end of 2013, possibly the end of the summer. They also noted that they are working to speed up the service for tablets, which will foster even more efficient collaboration.

If you are interested in learning more about OWA, Office 365 or any of Microsoft's other programs please contact us today to see how we can help.

Cyber crime has been around since the very early days of the Internet and has it has become an increasingly serious problem as the number of Internet users has increased. This trend is likely to continue, and you can be guaranteed that you'll continue to see news about websites being hacked and valuable information exposed. One of the latest sites to be hacked is LivingSocial.

LivingSocial is a daily deals website that focuses on bringing bargains and original deals to users based on their geographical location. In late April, news broke that the website had suffered a massive cyber attack with 50 million accounts being compromised.

From the reports we have seen, the attack targeted accounts world-wide with only account holders in Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea and the Philippines being unaffected. An email sent out by Tim O'Shaughnessy, LivingSocial's CEO shortly after the incident said, "We recently experienced a cyber-attack on our computer systems that resulted in unauthorized access to some customer data from our servers. We are actively working with law enforcement to investigate this issue."

The company assured users that their credit card data had not been compromised, as they are kept in another database. Account passwords were also encrypted, which means they are harder to crack but not impossible.

What should you do? If you have a LivingSocial account, we recommend that you go and change your password immediately. This can be done by:

1. Going to LivingSocial's forgot your password page.
2. Entering the email address you used to sign up for the account with.
3. Pressing Reset Password.
4. Checking your email for an email from LivingSocial and following the instructions in the email.

It is advisable to pick a new password, one that is as different as possible from your old password and, as always, the longer, the better.

Is there anything I can to do protect my company? If you are a business owner who has websites that encourage customers to sign up for updates, accounts, etc. you may be wondering how you can keep your user's information secure from cyber attack. In truth, you can't keep your important information 100% secure, if a hacker is committed enough, they will be able to get the information they need or wreak the havoc they want to. But what you can do is to make it as hard as possible for cybercriminals to get your information. This could be as simple as using multiple databases to store different bits of information, or as complex as using the latest encryption methods and systems.

Each business is unique, and the best way to ensure your valuable data is secure is to work with an IT partner who takes the time to get to know your security needs and develop a solution that is as near to 100% secure as possible.

If you are worried about the security of your systems, contact us today. We may have the perfect solution that will meet your needs and budget.

Do you sometimes forget the file attachments you meant to include in an email message? Thanks to a free plugin for Outlook, now you can be alerted when you do just that.

Head over to CodeTwo's website and download the free Outlook Attachment Reminder. Install and configure it to scan for text in your email's subject line and body text (such as "attachment" or "attached" or "see document"). When you press the send button, if the system finds that you included these phrases but did not attach a file, it will prompt you to do so before sending out the email.

Apple, once written off by many experts, has been making massive inroads in the technology world. The company's name has become associated with products that are easy to use and simply work. One of the more important products is their operating system (OS), OS X. OS X has many features that make it easy to use. One is the Finder, which while easy to use, can be made even better with a few tweaks.

What is the Finder? The Finder is what allows you to see and access everything on your Mac. This is how you access, edit, delete and modify all of your files, folders, applications and drives. You can get to the finder by clicking anywhere on the desktop, or opening any folder. To tell if you are looking at it, look at the top-left of the screen it should say Finder beside the Apple icon. Here are four tips on how to improve OS X's Finder.

1. Show item information If you enable this option, the number of files, or 'items' in a folder will be displayed under the folder's name. For documents and some files, the size will be shown and for pictures, the dimensions, which makes this feature useful if you use graphics on a regular basis. You can enable this function by:

1. Right clicking on any empty space on the desktop.
2. Selecting Show View Options from the pop-up box.
3. Ticking Show item info.

2. Display the Status Bar The Status Bar should be displayed at the bottom of any Finder window. It shows useful information like how many items (files, folders and applications) are in the folder you have open and how much space you have left on the hard drive. If you don't see this bar, you can turn it on by clicking on View from the navigation bar at the top of the screen and selecting Show Status Bar. This can be done from any Finder window, including the desktop.

3. Display the Path Bar A Path specifies the location of a folder or file. For example, if you have a file in the Utilities folder, which is located in Applications, the path would be: Finder - Applications - Utilities. The Path Bar sits just above the Status bar, at the bottom of every Finder window, and is a good way to know exactly where your files are located. You can also double-click on any folder in the Path Bar to be taken to it instantly. You can enable this bar by:

1. Opening any Finder window and clicking on View from the navigation bar at the top of your screen.
2. Selecting Show Path Bar. It should pop-up instantly.

4. Always show file extensions File extensions are a three letter code at the end of every file that denote what that file is. For example, a file with .jpeg or .gif is an image, while .mov is a video. Enabling file extensions makes it simple for you to identify the file type, which means no opening a file and waiting for them to load to see what exactly it is.

You can enable file extensions by:

1. Clicking on any blank space on your desktop to ensure you are on the Finder.
2. Clicking on Finder in the top-left of your screen.
3. Selecting Preferences from the drop down menu.
4. Clicking on Advanced from the menu window that opens and ticking Show all filename extensions.

If you use OS X in your office and are looking to learn more about the features and apps, please contact us today. We would be happy to sit down with you.

Internet giant Google didn't become the company it is today by creating one product and not changing. It's quite the opposite, really. They are constantly introducing new products or making changes to existing ones to make a user's experience better. One of the latest changes made by Google is a small, yet potentially important, one to the search results page.

This change, while not a major overhaul, did move some features around, making the overall results look cleaner.

With any search results that show a website, you will notice the site name in blue (clicking on it will take you to the website). Below the main result, you can see the URL (website address) in green. Beside the green URL there is now a downward facing green arrow. If you press this you should get a drop-down with up to three options:

• Cached - Clicking on this will show a snapshot of the page from a previous date - the link is from when Google last visited the page. According to Google, the cache is a backup of the page in case the current page is not available. While not generally important to many viewers, Google actually uses websites in their cache to determine if your site is relevant to various search terms.

<li><strong>Similar -</strong> Will search for sites similar to that result. This is a great way to find similar content to what is shown on that specific page.</li>

<li><strong>Share -</strong> Allows you to quickly share the site on your Google+ page. This means that you don't have to open your Google+ page to share content, just press Share and a pop-up window will open where you can add a comment and pick which friends/circles to share it with. This option is great for all Google+ users, as it makes sharing quicker and easier.</li>

While certainly not the biggest change Google has made to the search results page, this could prove to be helpful, especially if you share content, or need to find similar content on a regular basis. If you would like to learn more about how Google fits into your business, please contact us today.