René Sloos

Bulletproof InfoTech, an Alberta based Microsoft Small Business Specialist and Gold Partner has been awarded Microsoft’s top small business honour during their annual awards gala in Toronto Thursday.

Alberta is back on Microsoft’s map for leading the way in innovation, client service and overall satisfaction in the small business community.

The Microsoft IMPACT awards are an annual event which showcases and recognizes the work and focus on client satisfaction, Microsoft Partners exhibit daily in their business communities and with their clients from coast to coast here in Canada. Over 26 awards ranging from those focused on complex software development solutions, technology solutions which empower business and companies who passion is serving those with efforts outside technology. This year’s award ceremony was held at Wayne Gretzky’s in downtown Toronto on Nov 12 and was attended by Microsoft employees, executives and partners from all across Canada.

“Our annual IMPACT Awards celebrate the most innovative technology partners who have shown superior service to customers and are real leaders in their respective fields,” said Corinne Sharp, National Director, Canadian Partner channel, Microsoft Canada Co. “As true IT heroes, technology partners like Bulletproof continue to raise the bar with customers by helping them maximize business performance.”

Alberta firm wins top honour

Bulletproof InfoTech was named “Microsoft Small Business Specialist of the Year in Canada” for their work with Sinneave Family Foundation (SFF). SFF Provides leadership and innovation in a family and science informed, lifespan approach to autism interventions, education and research. SFF had unique IT needs prior to their engagement with Bulletproof. As a non-profit agency during tough economic times they required an innovative technology solution which would increase efficiencies around the office, allow them to work securely from outside the office and especially work within their budget. Bulletproof provided SFF with a Microsoft based solution which met all their needs and kept their overall IT investment with their budget. Leveraging Windows Small Business Server 2008, SharePoint and Office 2007, SFF now has a technology solution which all them to focus on what is important to their organization the most, the families they serve.

SFF is now engaged in Bulletproof’s netSHIELD program, a fixed-cost and worry-free service many clients throughout Alberta use to kept their technology solutions in top shape enabling them to meet their business goals without worrying about information technology getting in the way.

“Bulletproof offered us a well-rounded IT solution, keeping us secure and allowing us to focus on what we do best. They offered us a solution that saved us thousands of dollars in licensing costs and their staff was very responsive to our needs and easy to work with. Their service techs are absolutely the best in the business!!!” stated members of the SFF team.

Read more on how Bulletproof helped Sinneave Family Foundation with all their Small Business computer and network support.

This is Bulletproof’s first Microsoft IMPACT award. Bulletproof was also named runner-up in the Microsoft overall Client Experience award category in 2009. In 2009, Bulletproof Networks (Red Deer) joined forces with CompuConsult (Calgary) to create Bulletproof InfoTech. Bulletproof works in our community, members of our team serve local service organizations, scout troops and volunteer with both the Red Deer and Calgary Chamber of Commerce. Bulletproof is an active leader with Heartland Tech Groups and the Calgary Entrepreneur Peer Group where they engage with businesses around the globe and right here at home with solving business challenges in today’s new world of business. Bulletproof has offices in Red Deer and Calgary.

If you would like to discuss this recognition with Bulletproof please contact Stuart Crawford, VP Business Development at 403.206.2233 or email stuart.crawford@bulletproofIT.ca.

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Uncategorized Alberta, Bulletproof InfoTech, Calgary, Impact Awards, Jeff Anderson, Microsoft; Small Business Server; SBS; Dell; EqualLogic; iSCSI; SAN, Red Deer, Stuart R. Crawford

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

It really amazes me how many companies I work with do have no real system in place to organize one of their biggest assets, their data files. Incredible amounts of valuable time and productivity are lost because employees do not know where to store and find certain types of information.

Is does not matter if you work for a small or large company, if employees do not clean up their `data mess`behind them, because they have no time, it will set your company up for failure. You need to know what the relevance is of information to your company. You also need to know when information needs to be archived or discarded. Some companies will just throw more data storage capacity at the problem, but it pushes the problem to the future. IT departments and external IT Service providers (like Bulletproof InfoTech) have to spend a lot of extra time managing and perhaps migrating senseless data. At the end of the day the client pays for this management of chaos.

Adding storage capacity will only temporarily fix the actual problem: the proper management of information. I always tell my customers `The bigger the basement the more junk!`. I was reminded today about the incredible amount of storage space we can offer to our clients by a demo carried out by Adam Crapper and Carole Powell of Dell of an EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Device  which seems incredibly easy to deploy and administer. The top of the line model can handle up to 48 TB (that is Terra Bytes!!!) of storage capacity! Although these type of units are priced very competitive, they are still not cheap.

There are certainly cases where a huge amount of storage is required, but it would be good for a lot of businesses to actually conduct a spring cleaning and spend some time in getting everything organized, before it grows into a bigger mess. We call that `Sharpening the saw`. Did you ever spend an hour looking for a document - knowing it was there - but you didn’t know ‘where’? Most people are running into that problem over and over again. The solution is… ORGANIZE your files properly.

Think of your computer as an electronic FILING CABINET. A filing cabinet is not complex and is the reason why we usually CAN find our stuff in it. Apply this non-complexity to your computer when setting up your archive. Use the ‘KISS’ system. (Keep It Simple Stupid!) Whether you are storing your files on your own system or on a network, one of the tricks is to use as FEW folders as possible. Here are the 4 steps:

1. Save all files into ONE DIRECTORY. Windows created “My Documents” for that purpose — but if you are sharing files with others, use your shared network drive.
2. Create sub directories for projects, clients, or CATEGORIES of work. You can nest project folders in client folders or the other way around, but be careful - keep it simple. Discuss with your co-workers a logical structure of the information so everyone knows where to STORE and FIND all files. The FEWER directories, the fewer places to look!
3. Do NOT SHORTHAND the name of your documents. Today, you have 255 characters to name a file. This has a huge advantage: KEYWORDS. To name your document, use as many keywords to describe the content of the file.
4. How it works: I’m out of town and my assistant needs to find this article. This is what she does: Go to the Start Menu, Search, My Documents and type in any of the words I used to DESCRIBE the document’s content and - ‘Voila!’ - it’s there in seconds!

If you need help creating a centralized secured file storage area (using a Microsoft Small Business Server or a Network Attached Storage unit) give Bulletproof InfoTech a call at 403-206-2233.

Happy organizing, it will pay off!

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Uncategorized Bulletproof InfoTech, Microsoft; Small Business Server; SBS; Dell; EqualLogic; iSCSI; SAN