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3 IT Shifts for Small Business: Mobile-Social
The nature of computing and how it’s used by business is changing – rapidly. You have heard the buzzwords … mobile, social, cloud, big data, analytics, and others. You probably have thought about your own business and thought the these changes are just for the enterprise.
Three major shifts in technology, however, can and will impact your organization: Data; Cloud; and Mobile-Social.
Shift 3: Mobile-Social
Why do we combine Mobile and Social? Social would not exist without Mobile. Before the mobile revolution, social was limited to “Other who viewed this also viewed …” cues like those on Amazon.com. Social works because it is quick, easy, convenient, and immediate.
And while mobile technology lets us stay connected to the office and provides us access to information, the real transformation with mobile and social technologies is engagement.
Engagement, driven by mobile and social technologies, lets you build trust and establish value. And, if done properly, lets you build trust and value in a secure manner.
Mobile-Social lets you expand the nature of your engagement. You can easily move beyond 1:1 conversations with your customers. The #hashtag and the @mention let you “listen in” on the conversations you customers are having with their friends, and can give you the opportunity to join the conversation.
While there are examples of social media posts going viral and shaming companies into better behavior. The real opportunity lies with this type of communication:
“We saw you post about X. We were not aware of this issue and will fix it quickly. A customer rep will call you shortly to assist you directly.”
And via communications like this:
“Thank you for mentioning your great experience with our service. We are sending you a small token or our appreciation for your business and support.”
Most small business, like yours and ours, could never afford the infrastructure necessary to facilitate, monitor, and act on social media interactions. Cloud-based services, however, have the horsepower and economy of scale to enable us to leverage social-mobile technologies. And, make it possible to integrate our social-mobile applications with our operational and line of business systems.
Security Breach? There are Apps for That
Here’s a Story …
Emily tells Dan about a cool app on her iPhone that helps her stay organized when she is out of the office. Dan looks it up and downloads it to his Android phone. The App is cheap and has great reviews. When Dan installs the app, he gets a screen about permissions with only a few items listed. He scans the list. Dan is not a techie and the list seems reasonable; he clicks “Allow” and the installation finishes. Dan uses the app and is happy. Over the next few weeks, Dan has trouble finding docs he saved in Google Drive. Some were uploaded Word and PDF files, while others were created in Google Docs and Sheets. Asking IT for help, they find some documents in the trash, others appear gone for ever.
Here’s the Lesson …
When Dan installed his cool new app, he granted the app full access to the content of his Google Drive account and to other content in Google Apps. The app had a bug (we do not want to assume malice) that set all of Dan’s files to public on a periodic basis.
Third party applications, including mobile apps, create a security and privacy risk for your Google Apps environment.
Here’s the Offer …
Partnering with CloudLock, we will conduct a Google Apps Security Health Check for your Google Apps for Business or Government Domain. Normally costing $1,000 to $5,000 (or more!), through September 30, 2014, we will perform the check for $300 (or less!).
Please click here for more information or to request your Google Apps Security Health Check.
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