But where else should technology mangers, IT managers, or CIOs start when planning their departments’ budgets?

How to prepare an IT budget: build more than one

Mark Geary, managing director of Rally Point Consulting, says it’s hard to predict that which you’ve not already thought of.

“I think IT, security, connectivity, etc. should be a business-enabler first. That’s why you exist in IT. There should be no ‘box’ to think outside of. We all know how we work: we should have a plan A, B, AND C. You can switch your plan at the drop of the hat and re-associate budget for that plan.”

These plans should build on each other. Where everyone has been working from home, we’ve seen a lot at organizations who didn’t have enough VPN or other infrastructure to accommodate that.

“You look at what’s the most important thing to focus on at any given time. People tend to take a myopic view and not see the whole picture,” Geary says.

You should have a 5-year plan to add value to a business — but you should also be able to turn on a dime. This requires you to view budgeting as an ongoing, cyclical process which is never really “done.”

“Hard, frequent looks at spending in a world that changes monthly ensure that projects and programs are delivering exactly what is needed,” says Randy Gross, CIO of CompTIA.

Prioritizing a tech budget

What are the most important things in any IT department? Surely we could all more or less agree that connectivity, compute power, security, and availability (24/7/365) are the main areas of concern.

“What’s happened in the market and in companies is everyone finally saw that connectivity is an issue, but it’s always been an issue,” Geary says.

Security is a particularly important point in the SMB sector, where some managers think that their lack of resources means they should or must spend less on security. People want access to data, but many companies don’t often have an idea where their data is.

Every company has different in process, but transparency and constant communication should be shared from the executive level all the way to the techs.

Read Next: How IT Pros Can Determine Pricing

“Structure wise, ensuring that teams know where they stand allows for tremendous creativity in budgeting and carries on to operations,” Gross says.

“Look hard at tech projects in line with 12-month business goals and foster a stronger and deeper sense of partnership to be wise stewards of precious funds.”

Suffice it to say, a CFO will be busting your chops if you prioritize incorrectly, so it is important to first meet with them or any stakeholders and main contributors. Get a sense of where your organization is going by interviewing those who lead its various departments.

“Look at each executive’s plan and compare it to those four key areas of connectivity, compute power, security, and availability,” Geary says. “Think about how it enables business, because IT enables business; business doesn’t enable IT.”

For SMBs, CapEx vs OpEx has in many cases this year turned into looking at cash flow.

“Technology groups need to look hard at burn rates more than ever and plan work in ways that are more modular and adaptable to market dynamics,” says Gross.

Common issues in IT budgets

IT has so many different functions. They’re responsible for the “Run Environment” — how to keep operations moving. The challenge is how to create innovation, represent it financially, and encouragement alignment across the business to achieve it.

Yet, Geary says the biggest mistake he sees managers make in their budgeting revolves around the people who are overly tactical.

“They’ll say, ‘oh no, we need this and that,’ but if it is a last minute, thoughtless request, generally it isn’t really needed for the business. Don’t get too granular here unless there’s a specific need that you know your company needs to meet the above four key areas.”

Gross agrees entirely, and adds that budgets should never be too rigid.

“I’d caution against anything that is rigid. Companies can remain aggressive but need the constant feedback internally and externally to evaluate resource alignment,” he says.

Jeff Day, North of 10 Advisors, says the other key issue is not talking to other department heads.

“I see many IT executives who are, for the first time, only now rallying their counterparts for strategic planning. An IT leader who doesn’t have regular meetings with CEOs, CIOs, heads of marketing, etc. is not going to perform well for their company.”

This article was originally posted on September 30, 2020.

The post Organizing Your Technology Budget: What You Need to Know about IT Budget Planning appeared first on My TechDecisions.

If your first inclination was, “TO THE GOOGLE!”, slow down. Sure, you should look things up, but first, you must complete an entirely different, critical step.

Before you even think about Googling anything…

In order to truly settle on the best commercial technology, you need to understand everything you need the tech to accomplish.

That seems like a no-brainer, but are you really taking enough time to sketch-out what a perfect solution would look like?

“There have been times when I’ve had to demand information even if my upper decision makers didn’t understand the importance of it. I’ve said, ‘If we don’t have this info, we’ll waste a ton of money.'”

Failure to completely describe the desired tech’s functions down to minute details means you may overlook an aspect of the tech solution you might not otherwise have considered.

This is especially true if you don’t talk to all the people who may use the technology — no matter what their job description is or how peripheral they may seem. The “grunt workers” often know more about the practical side of technology than their CIO counterparts give them credit for.

“Tech doesn’t drive business; business drives tech. What is your company doing, where are your tech gaps, how are you going to address business needs through technology? THEN you go to market,” says Mark Geary, MSP consultant.

OK, we have a list. Now what?

Is it Google time yet? Depending on the situation, maybe. But consider this: are you buying a technically-complicated solution, such as meeting room automation, sound masking, LED video wall, etc.? Basically anything where the component options are seemingly-endless?

If so, keep tapping the breaks on your desire to compare hardware online by yourself. You may benefit more from a different approach, one which involves talking to other people.

LAN Infotech founder Michael Goldstein says it’s important to discuss project objectives with a trusted 3rd party technology partner, consultant, or even just a fellow colleague or acquaintance made through networking.

“I do find the decision makers are influenced by their own online research and maybe direct manufacturer discussions. This leads to a one-sided type of discussion, as opposed to working with their 3rd party integrators, which gives them options,” he says.

“When I was first looking into screens, I did my own research into how the screens worked, not necessarily the options I had to buy from,” Geary says.

“Just enough to be ‘dangerous,‘ at least enough to have a conversation with a professional.  I’d ask the same question to three different screen experts. I wanted someone who had good customer care and other factors. But I leaned on them, who know their products and know their competitors’ products, to paint a clearer picture for me.”

There are massive established networks of relationships where people informally and formally get together to talk about best practices. LinkedIn, and even Reddit, can be good places to find people who have similar jobs — in similar markets — to you.

Integrators are the ones to turn to in general, but make sure you’re talking to specific people for specific problems. 

“I’m a big advocate of specialty consultation services in complex categories like LED displays,” says Jeff Day, North of 10 Advisors.

“Imagine going to a general contractor for advice on a very old, specific water heater gauge. Specialty consultants and integrators are the ones to reach out to in general, as long as they specifically say in their mission statement that they specialize in the commercial technology solution you’re looking for.”

Time to write an RFP? We have RFP writing guides for almost every category of tech here

Only after you’ve had these in-depth conversations with stakeholders, coworkers, connections, and possibly consultants should you then start looking at real product offerings.

Side note — are you going to industry events (in-person or, during the COVID-19 era, online?) They’re great for expanding your network and learning from peers in similar positions.

Here are some great IT events to consider:

• ASCII SMB IT Success Summit
• Enterprise Connect
• LinkedIn’s Virtual Events

What about talking to manufacturers?

In some cases, decision makers seek to forge super-close relationships with the manufacturers themselves. This can be a smart move — as long as you talk to more than one.

Geary recommends you weigh what one company tells you against another. Vendors will help you, he says, but be upfront with them: tell them that the best partner who will help you do what you need to do will win out.

They are getting better at helping venture customers build better business cases.

“I believe in the idea that there are many people smarter than I am — and I’m going to use the heck out of them! Ask them: ‘why YOU, why not your competitor?’ You don’t need to be proficient in everything, you just need to know what you want and know how to communicate that with others in a way which ends in you becoming more educated.”

This article was originally posted on July 22, 2020

The post Tips for Researching New Technology Options for Your Business or Org appeared first on My TechDecisions.

We published much less “fun” stories and much more serious, news-and-business-minded content this year.

But sometimes, try as we might, we don’t reach all of our audience for whatever reason. Maybe we didn’t Tweet enough, or maybe we published these at the wrong time for you. Whatever — we want to give you another chance to read some of the stories our editors feel are most important.

So here is our list of My TechDecisions articles from 2020 we think deserve a second chance at your attention.

These IT blogs & feature stories will give you valuable insights

• Yes, being vigilant against cyber attacks is something YOU should be doing from now on

As the COVID-19 pandemic and political turmoil lead to increasing cyber attacks, organizations and end users should take extra precaution. This story chronicled the overwhelming numbers of attacks seen in 2020, how they happened, and how to take precautions.

• Is Teams a clear winner in the pandemic videoconferencing wars?

Microsoft Teams, which is installed on more than 200 million computers, could become the most popular platform in the videoconferencing and collaboration wars playing out worldwide this year. Learn why some experts claim this particular app will come out on top.

• The rise of virtual assistants in the workplace

These intelligent assistants are becoming our coworkers as Amazon and Microsoft along with hardware partners take steps to bring Alexa and Cortana into the conference room and our workstations. They’re becoming a larger, more integrated part of the conference room and our workplace experience — so we thought we’d track that progress in this article.

• Which temperature scanning platforms are legitimate?

Temperature scanning platforms have stood out as a major product category lately, and will likely continue to dominate into the new year. We dug up some useful information about telling these systems apart and which ones you should use.

• Something most people in our audience might need: a guide to IT budget planning

Any allocations you make in an IT budget ultimately need to serve the organization’s master plan, so a budget is essentially useless without that starting point. We go in-depth on creating solid plans for IT spending.

• Tech products to reduce the spread of COVID in the workplace

With a vaccine still months away from widespread availability, we wrote this piece which provides some suggestions for tech products that solve specific coronavirus-related challenges in workspaces.

• The SolarWinds Hack is more massive than we thought

This recent IT news story is being called the most devastating cyber attack on the U.S., and there’s still so much we don’t know about the SolarWinds supply chain hack, how attackers were able to compromise one of the software leaders in the IT space, what other tools could be compromised and just how much damage has been done to the cybersecurity community. We chronicle what we do know in the article.

• Why these large data breaches happened

Building off the story above, we thought we’d provide more context for some of the year’s largest data breaches and what IT & tech managers can learn from them.

The post IT Blogs and Articles You Should Have Read in 2020 appeared first on My TechDecisions.

The Asthma Guardian by Resmonics is a system to help asthmatics gain more control over their condition.

According to a recent Tech Acute report:

This helps monitor asthmatic symptoms and keep patients notified about their health status. It uses clinically validated digital biomarkers that have been developed throughout five years of medical research.

With this, it can detect the disease process, evaluate the different biological indicators of asthma, and help to detect asthma attacks, all from the user’s smartphone.

For Asthma Guardian to work, the patient must place their smartphone in their bedroom. From there, the app will automatically monitor the symptoms and report if there are any abnormalities as the patient sleeps soundly at night.

What if there was an app that’s able to quantify Covid-19 cough? And thereby help to collect data for the treatment of the disease? Read more about the Swiss startup Asthma Guardian in our #bitsdaily article: https://t.co/Lb5dTSI8dM Subscribe for more news https://t.co/Cg45QlPXaB pic.twitter.com/ESes4hvmz9

— Bits & Pretzels (@bitsandpretzels) June 8, 2020

The app works by monitoring potential respiratory attacks without waking the user, all while delivering data with detailed evaluations.

The Tech Acute report says Resmonics is trying to develop a variety of biomonitoring solutions for patients with various conditions, focusing on data collection and patient education.

While technology in healthcare always poses security and other ethical questions, I’m never short of fascinated by how much more efficient and effective some treatments can be when they embrace a technological approach.

Related: Misconfiguration is the Most Common Cause of Healthcare System Breaches

Consider this application, where tunable lighting temp and intensity were measured to have positive impacts on sleep and wellness in a Calif. nursing home.

I’m wishing the Resmonics team luck with their further app developments – both for the sake of technology advancement and the patients it has the potential to help.

The post Asthma Monitoring Technology Uses the OTHER Thing Asthmatics Typically Carry: A Smartphone appeared first on My TechDecisions.

I know yard decorations have been around longer than the information technology industry, but lately, it seems like they’re getting incredibly intricate, large, and very assertive.

I’m not bemoaning this, mind you! To the contrary, I’m solidly here for anybody who wants to make a statement using their property and enlisting the help of about 3 billion LED lights, projectors, and blow-up caricatures to do so.

But seeing these intense displays got me thinking: do technology professionals use their technology skills to create holiday displays at home?

Our colleagues at CE Pro write about technology in the home all the time. But I’m talking about folks who also have experience in the world of IT departments and building management.

Read Next: Massive LED Displays are Replacing Green Screens in Film Industry

Have you ever used an outdoor screen, projection, or intricate lighting & control technology to create a holiday display for your home, yard, or business front?

If you have flexed your technology professional muscles in this way before, please go ahead and show us!

Email photos of your work to adam.forziati@emeraldexpo.com, or put them in the comments below!

The post Have You Ever Used Your Technology Skills to Create Displays? appeared first on My TechDecisions.

The two main issues in IT departments around the world this year consisted of how to efficiently roll out a remote workforce and then how to welcome back at least part of that workforce under certain conditions.

The latter is a process still happening today, and will only continue to grow in importance as we get closer to widespread vaccine availability.

Related: Understanding Indoor Air Quality Testing Solutions

Thousands of solutions revolving around remote work and reopening have surfaced incredibly fast this year, proving just how adaptive the technology industry can be to unexpected and highly-specific circumstances.

IT teams had to scramble to roll out solutions that kept employees and the company secure as threat actors ramp up their attacks.

Some technology infrastructure may not have been available, while a lack of sufficient connectivity was a prevailing concern for remote workforces.

IT organizations were scrambling to understand the effectiveness of their tech.

Even now that organizations have evened-out their operations, they’re facing a brand new challenge: determining what their workplaces will look like and how they will operate in the time right before vaccinations take place.

We’ve put together this list of COVID technology solutions which will help with specific challenges related to containing the virus. From hybrid work solutions, to contact tracing, to temperature scanning…we hope this list will benefit you in your quest to create the safest possible workforce in what we hope to be the final months of the coronavirus pandemic.

Click here to see all the COVID technology solutions

The post 9 Technology Products to Help Combat COVID-19 Spread in the Workplace appeared first on My TechDecisions.

The device features a miniscule display which lets wearers turn their eyes into a screen.

The two companies – Mojo, an AR developer, and Menicon, a Japanese contact lens manufacturer – will work on the developing the technology to the point of potentially producing it commercially.

More from a recent VentureBeat article: 

There’s even some use cases for AR in digital signage. We’re intrigued to see if 2021 marks a major commercial shift towards VR & AR solutions.

The post AR Contact Lenses are Coming appeared first on My TechDecisions.

The company released a statement saying it will remove any uploaded video that “misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 US Presidential election,” according to the announcement.

YouTube said it had allowed “controversial views on the outcome or process of counting votes of a current election as election officials have worked to finalize counts.” But Trump’s challenges have been thrown of out court, and the video platform says the issue is therefore no longer debatable.

More details from a recent Ars Technica breakdown: 

Discussion of election controversies won’t be completely forbidden, however. YouTube allows “educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic” videos to discuss content that would otherwise be banned.

To fall under this exception, it must be “clear to the viewer that the creator’s aim is not to promote or support the content that violates our policies.” In other words, a video can discuss claims of election fraud only if it’s clear that the video isn’t endorsing those theories.

While I don’t think any social media platform should outright censor views without serious contemplation, I do personally think these large platforms have to recognize that they are just that: platforms. They have power simply by being extant, providing a way for conspiracy theories and much more harmful retellings of modern events to go viral.

While freedom of speech remains important, the effects of social media must also be taken into account. Otherwise, technology will fuel the continued separation of a people who cannot agree on facts, a situation due in part to widespread claims of falsities made on social media platforms.

Read Next: Top U.S. Cybersecurity Officials: No Widespread Election Hacking, Fraud

Twitter, while certainly not free of criticism, has tried to balance this issue by putting a label to every tweet outgoing president Trump has made regarding election fraud. Perhaps this move from YouTube will be similarly effective.

The post Videos Claiming Trump Won the Election Have Been Banned by YouTube appeared first on My TechDecisions.

Wrapping your head around LED videowall prices

One reason why it’s difficult to simply list median prices for you here is that videowall costs can fluctuate based primarily on size.

But one other important factor is aspect ratio. Specialty sizes require specialty media players and content, which drives up costs and complexity of installation significantly.

Most media is produced for 16:9 aspect ratio, so anything different from that will exponentially increase costs. This may be useful in more artistic settings such as museums, galleries, or high-end motels, but not necessarily in corporate or mid-range retail settings.

Lionel Felix, an integrator with years of experience and founder of Felix Media Solutions, does have some good news, though.

“Costs have been coming down where every 18 months, it comes down by about half,” he says.

“Last year, we were quoting systems in 120- to 165-inch range — complete hardware purchase only, before installation costs — $45,000 to $120,000, depending on the manufacturer, size and pixel density of the solution.”

“Another example of our pricing: in an auditorium which sits 300, a two-wall solution with a minimum viewing distance of 15 feet away, we sold those two screens at $440,000 with most of that being the hardware. Installation was fairly simple.”

“About 20% of budgeting should be allotted to the installation of the wall. Larger projects need a construction company to put a drywall up to exacting specifications. Ideally, they should have done work on these projects before.”

Most expensive parts of a videowall system

You’re going to start hearing and reading about “pixel pitch” often if you’re seeking to purchase a videowall, so you should know what this important factor means.

According to manufacturer Planar, “pixel pitch describes the density of the pixels (LED clusters) on an LED display and correlates with resolution. Sometimes referred to as pitch or dot pitch, the pixel pitch is the distance in millimeters from the center of a pixel to the center of the adjacent pixel.”

Essentially, a smaller pixel pitch allows for a closer viewing distance (or how close you can stand to the screen without it looking pixelated).

Note that a 2.5 mm pixel pitch is on the higher end for an indoor solution. More typically, indoor systems require 1.7 or 1.5 mm pixel pitch. This can increase the price depending on the screen manufacturer chosen by your integrator.

Related: 4 Ways Video Walls Will Improve Your Collaboration Sessions

The main components of videowalls include the chassis (aluminum frame which come in 16:9 aspect ratio or a square), the power supply, a video card and the choice for redundant video cards, and power supplies. Then, subpanels (the LED screens themselves) pop into place on PCB board.

Because these systems are so modular, middle-of-the-road quality is usually just fine. You can tell your integration partner that – they’ll be relieved you aren’t demanding the absolute cheapest option.

By far, the most expensive part of a videowall is the subpanel, or the individual LED panels which stick into each frame.

They’re projecting the light you look at and are driven by the quality of the LED diodes. They have to reproduce the light accurately and as such are very complicated systems in their own right.

Color-matching LED walls have an almost-infinite contrast ratio. Their ability to reproduce very accurate colors and images is what drives their high price point.

“Something like a 165-inch wall should cost somewhere in the $60,000-80,000 range for high-end screens; back it down about 25 percent for solid, average systems (including scaler, spares, the whole kit),” Felix says.

“For about $25,000, 165-inch range and below, you can get lower-quality, less-precise images.”

Getting the most out of your investment

IT people are doing product comparisons based on specs. But Felix says they need to be willing to understand pixel sizes, what is and isn’t on their network, security implications, etc. before a project begins.

“There are so few network implications to these projects that it usually isn’t an issue. AV over IP projects are usually provided on the integrator’s network.”

More importantly, IT needs to understand schedules and tech details of the player itself: a Mac Mini? A fully-industrial media player? They need to understand the player even if they don’t want anything to do with the content which is played from it.

Don’t be fooled by those LED videowall prices on Alibaba or other discount marketplaces. Felix says those mega-cheap solutions will only lead to headaches.

“Lesser-quality color representation from the subpanels will make the videowall look weird; similar to how cold color temperature in warm lighting looks awful. They’ll also be incredibly easy to break and don’t typically have reliable warrantees.”

“Plastic chassis: beware! If you find it online for cheap, know that these chassis will be warped and wobbly, like a bad picket fence. They should be thrown out of consideration immediately.”

RFP Template: Videowalls

The difference between panels is notable: even a layperson could see them and notice the difference in quality. There are many manufacturers out there with an enormous quality differentials, so make sure your integration partner spells out the options clearly… and yes, you should go with a technology integrator for a project like this.

If the screen manufacturer in question doesn’t have a U.S. office and supply house, that’s a red flag. It’ll be another headache if something needs replacing down the line.

Lastly, for those who are the tightest of budgets, a TV-based videowall solution may be the best option. They’ll have seams down the middle (because of the margins on the TVs themselves), but they can be about 50% less expensive than an LED solution.

Just make sure your integrator partner chooses a front-serviceable screen — that’ll be easier to service down the line.

The post How Much Do Videowalls Cost? A Pricing Breakdown appeared first on My TechDecisions.

Research led by City, University of London’s professor, Christoph Bruecker, reveals that micro finlets in owl feathers allow the birds to fly silently.

This information could help airplane engineers reduce aircraft noise.

More from a recent Science Daily report:

Read Next: There’s A Positive Connection Between Nature & Happiness: Why Not Incorporate That Into the Office?

It’s one thing to be able to design an improved, flexible drone — but to actually impact the effects of the world’s thousands of daily flights? That’s an impressive finding.

Good news for IT directors, CIOs, and building managers: biomimicry has just as many theoretical and provable benefits for the office. So why not look to nature for your next project?

We’ll continue to cover the topic here – just search “biomimicry” or bookmark our tag page to keep up with this trending topic.

The post Birds Once Again Prove the Power of Biomimicry in Modern Society appeared first on My TechDecisions.