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Leadership Thoughts: Noteworthy Blog Posts – May ’25

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As small business owners and leaders, you carry the responsibility for the direction and success of your business.  And while Cumulus Global provides managed cloud services and Cloud Forward IT service and support that help you thrive and grow, we understand your responsibilities are broader than just IT.  Here is a curated list of blog posts from trusted experts and thought leaders that we hope will inform and inspire.

Vision

Business and IT Strategy 

  • Save or Spend? IT Decisions for Turbulent Times
    • Radical changes in government policies, along with unpredictable tariffs and trade policies, create a level of economic uncertainty that impacts our business decisions. Across all aspects of our businesses, including IT services, is it time to save or spend?
    • Allen Falcon, Cumulus Global Blog

Leadership

  • Engaging Generation Z in the Workplace
    • Generation Z (Gen Z) accounts for a growing percentage of the global workforce. However, many individuals in this demographic feel disengaged or disempowered in the workplace. This article explains how engaging Gen Z is important for organizations, outlines challenges employers face in these efforts and provides tips on engaging this demographic in the workplace.
    • Chrystine Heier, Sullivan Benefits

Legal

  • Sue the Bastard! … I Think
    • When it comes to reviews, businesses have a strong incentive push for 5 stars. For instance, an increase of one star on a Yelp review can lead to a 5-9% increase in business revenue, according to a Harvard Business School study. But what if the review is not a true reflection of the company? 
    • Daniel Batterman, Esq. at Lipresti Law

Human Resources

Marketing

  • Marketing Through Challenging Times
    • In today’s rapidly changing world, marketing strategies that resonate on a deeper, more authentic level are crucial. As a business owner or marketer, adjusting your narrative to align with current events, while maintaining authenticity, can significantly impact both your audience engagement and your own mental well-being.
    • Kristi Mitchell, Marketing Uncomplicated

Social Media

  • Should I Be Using Threads for My Business?
    • Given the immense popularity and potential of this microblog-style social media app, you might be wondering if Threads is worth exploring for promoting your organization. So today, I wanted to take a minute to outline some key highlights about the platform and offer my thoughts on how you can evaluate its suitability for your needs.
    • Nicole Porter, Monomoy Social Media

Productivity

  • Gen AI Prompt Engineering
    • You don’t need to be a data scientist or a machine learning engineer – everyone can write effective gen AI prompts. This 60+ Google whitepaper goes beyond “prompting 101” and dives deep into advanced prompt engineering with Gemini AI and for large language models (LMMs) in general.
    • Cumulus Global Library, May 2025
  • Slash Email Time by 50%: Must-Have AI Tools
    • Those constant incoming messages can weigh us down and make it tough to stay productive. When your inbox is overflowing, it’s hard to know where to start or what to prioritize. Plus, the urge to respond right away can pull our focus away from those bigger, long-term projects that really matter. But this can all change! With the right email management tools powered by AI, your inbox is transformed from a daily hassle to a simple task you can easily handle.
    • Mike Grossman, Mike Grossman Consulting, LLC

Wellness

  • Boosting Your Mental Health Daily
    • Mental Health Awareness Month is observed every May to help break the stigma and support people living with mental health conditions. Mental health is always there; your state continually changes depending on resources and challenges. Focusing on maintaining or  improving your mental health is important, so here are five ways to boost your mental health on a daily basis.
    • Chrystine Heier, Sullivan Benefits

Cybersecurity

  • Why Not Prevent AI Data Breaches?
    • To state the obvious, AI data breaches and leaks will damage your business. Even sharing sensitive or protected information internally will cause problems. Less obvious is the fact that you have already shared information that should not be shared. You should expect that private, sensitive, and protected information in Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 is already accessible to your AI tools. Now is the time to prevent AI data breaches.
    • Cumulus Global Blog, May 2025

Help us keep the ideas flowing. As a thought leader, if you have any blog posts that you want to share, please let us know.

15 Years of Service

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Cumulus Global Logo - 15 Years of ServiceOn August 18th, Cumulus Global reached a milestone: 15 Years of Service.  Founded in 2006, we have provided tactical and strategic cloud services and solutions to small and midsize businesses, non-profits, local governments, and K-12 school systems. Thank you! Our journey could not have happened without the trust our clients and partners place in our expertise, insights, and services.

“Our need will be the real creator.” – Plato

Cumulus Global — born as Horizon Info Services, LLC — exists because we wanted and needed to solve critical business problems.  Running a strategic IT consultancy at the time, Allen Falcon and Chris Caldwell had clients struggling to manage spam.  With more than 95% of all email being spam, on-site email servers and Internet connections were saturated and overwhelmed processing junk email. Having found a solution, the duo spun off what is now Cumulus Global to provide cloud-based email security and compliance services to their consulting clients and other small businesses. The service, Postini, did the trick and our business grew.

“Just Google It.” – Anonymous

In 2007, Google acquired Postini and Cumulus Global became one of Google’s first partners and resellers.  Our relationship with Google created new opportunities for Cumulus Global and our customers, and enabled a vision and mission of helping smaller businesses take full advantage of the cloud computing evolution.

Cumulus Global helped Google pilot its Google Apps Premier Edition (now evolved into Google Workspace). We were one of the first partners authorized to resell to governments and schools.  We partnered with Google for the launch of Chromebooks for Education.

With all of these first, Cumulus Global stayed true to its focus: strategic and tactical cloud solutions that augment or replace traditional small business IT solutions for better productivity, value, and business results.

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” – T.S. Eliot

Following the acceptance and rapid growth of “Cloud Computing”, Cumulus Global landed at #349 on the 2014 Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing private companies.  In 2015, we were #914 in the Inc. 5000.

“Every problem is a gift — without problems we would not grow.” – Anthony Robbins

While the growth was exciting, rapid growth creates challenges. The resources required to rapid growth detracts from other areas of the business.  In 2016, we made a conscious decision to focus on “Better, Not Bigger”.  With this shift, we:

  • Became a Microsoft Silver partner, providing a platform agnostic view of cloud solutions
  • Added a broader range of security, privacy, and compliance services to meet evolving market and regulatory demands
  • Expanded from providing “support” to delivering “services”, offering customers unlimited co-management of cloud and IT services
  • Rolled out new managed services, such as Business Continuity/Backup/DR, Identity and Access Management, and Managed Print services, to provide customers with a complete, cohesive, and secure technology environment.

We continue to anticipate and respond to regulatory, industry, and market changes that impact our customers’ businesses and influence decisions.

“Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.” — Albert Einstein

Like most small businesses, we are only as good as the members of our team. We are fortunate to have a team of dedicated professionals that share our vision and passion.  This has been true throughout our history. Cumulus Global continues to be a comfortable workspace in which our team members feel safe to learn and grow — professionally and personally. We are proud of our team and their commitment to our mission and visions, and our customers. We are also proud that Cumulus Global has helped many on our team build new skill sets, expand their horizons, and launch fulfilling careers.

“Commitment is what transforms a promise into a reality.” – Abraham Lincoln

Our commitment remains firm: The outcomes you want – business, operational, technological – drive our passion. We help small and midsize organizations, like yours, get more value from existing IT and new, Cloud Forward, managed cloud services.

We …

  • Start by understanding your business so we can align solutions with your goals and objectives.
  • Design, deploy, and manage secure, cloud forward solutions that empower your team and give you a competitive advantage.
  • Partner with Microsoft, Google, and dozens of other vendors to match you with the right technologies and services.
  • Stay with you for the long haul, managing your services, supporting your team, and keeping your IT services in sync with your changing business needs and priorities.

“Nothing happens unless first we dream.” – Carl Sandburg

Cumulus Global began with a vision and a dream that an emerging technology — cloud computing — could transform how small and midsize organizations would use technology to thrive and grow.  We remain actively involved with industry organizations so we may continue to look forward, identify shifts, and pursue new opportunities for, and with, our customers.

Where are you now? Where do you want to be?

Partner with us. Let us help you dream, set goals, and execute plans.  Please contact us to start, or continue, the conversation.