MSPNetworks Blog

Funerals are never to be taken lightly, which makes it all the worse that there are people out there willing to use these events to scam those in grief. Recently, Facebook has seen many groups that supposedly offer links to streamed funerals in exchange for credit card data, with different events being added more recently.

Sorry for the loaded title. There’s a lot to talk about, even for those of you who don’t use or even know what Telegram is.

We’ll try to sum this up, because we think there is a lot to say about security and the nature of technology in this, and like all things these days, there’s some odd rabble-rousing about this whole series of events. Who’s up for a wild ride?

Maintaining data security is an important consideration, and most people try to do what they must to secure their personal data. They verify emails; they roll out antivirus and antimalware; they take vigilant steps to avoid the myriad of threats and active attacks we all deal with from one day to the next. 

Taking these steps is great for a business’ overall data security profile. Still, other situations can present just as much of a threat. Today, we will talk about how sharing too much information on social media can have a negative effect on data security and overall digital privacy. 

What is Oversharing?

People use social media every day and often use it as a means to get their thoughts out there. Unfortunately, as that happens, they can often overshare information that can be used against them. 

Let’s take a look at some reasons this can backfire:

• Privacy Concerns - Sharing too much personal information online can compromise your privacy. It may expose you to potential identity theft, scams, or unwanted attention from individuals with malicious intentions.
• Security Risks - Oversharing details about your location, daily routine, or upcoming plans can pose security risks. It may make you more susceptible to burglary or other security threats.
• Professional Consequences - Employers and co-workers often check social media profiles. Oversharing personal or inappropriate content can negatively affect your professional reputation and even impact current and future job opportunities. 
• Relationship Strain - Sharing too much about personal relationships can lead to misunderstandings or strain in relationships. It may also expose private matters that should be kept between individuals.
• Emotional Impact - Constantly sharing personal details and seeking validation through social media can negatively impact mental health. It may lead to comparisons, feelings of inadequacy, or a dependence on external validation.
• Time Consumption - Spending excessive time sharing and consuming content on social media can be unproductive. It may take away time from real-world activities that could be more fruitful than posting opinions online. 

All of these reasons have a lot of negative impacts on future opportunities. Still, they can be entirely avoided by just considering how you operate your social media accounts. If you want additional technology content and best practices, visit our blog regularly.

Even if you lived under a rock, you’ve probably done a Google search or two. There are, in fact, other search engines, each with their own pros and cons. We’re going to compare some of the most popular search engines and talk about what makes them different.

Google is By Far the Most Popular Search Engine on the Planet

At the time of writing this, it’s calculated that every single second, a search is performed on Google 99,000 times. That adds up to 8.5 billion searches every day. It’s predicted that more than 92 percent of all internet searches are done on Google, but it’s possible that number is even higher.

Either way, people all over the world are more likely to say “I’ll just Google it” instead of “I’ll just search the web.”

You don’t hear anybody say “We’ll let me just Bing that,” and use Google’s closest search engine competitor, which handles about 3.5 percent of all searches, worldwide.

So what makes Google so special?

Accuracy.

Google is extremely good at giving you accurate results based on what you are looking for.

Google uses hundreds of different signals to determine what should and shouldn’t come up when you search for something, and it does it all within half a second or so, while sifting through over 30 trillion web pages to give you the best results possible.

Is it perfect? Of course not.

Can Google be tricked? Eh, sometimes. People are always trying to get their websites to rank for certain terms. This process is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This is a legitimate process for businesses trying to compete against their competitors on the search engines, but it can lead to bad, misleading, or undesirable results showing up on the search results page. That being said, Google is good about making it very difficult to manipulate your ranking without actually putting in a lot of hard work, so it’s less likely that inaccurate results will show up compared to the other search engines.

Still, Google tends to get you to the best result, and it gets you there the fastest.

Google Searches are Custom-Tailored to You
Here’s the other really cool thing about Google. Everyone’s search experience is a little bit unique to them. Google takes a lot of context into consideration, including your location, your past search history, the device you are on, and other information that Google knows about you, and provides curated results.

This means when you are traveling, as long as the device you are using knows its location and is letting Google know this info, you can search for a pizza place and get localized results. Google takes a ton of data points into consideration for every single query.

This isn’t always a good thing though.

Studies have been done in the past that show that Google’s search engine can sometimes contribute to a filter bubble. While this is much more common on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, the same can apply in some ways to Google searches.

Think of it like this. If you surround yourself with people who, for instance, truly believe that the moon is made out of cheese, you might start to see more and more information about the cheese moon than you did before. Your newfound cheese-moon friends will share news articles about how the moon is cheese. They will share memes and come up with silly nicknames for cheese-moon non-believers (like Non-Brie-lievers). They will get into fights on social media about whether the moon is more like Mozzarella or more like Gorgonzola. They will claim that all the non-brie-lievers are trying to shutter and bury any facts about how the moon is made out of cheese by sharing peer-reviewed articles from “fringe” agencies like NASA.

The point is, this creates sort of a bubble effect based on the way content algorithms work. If a platform like Facebook or Google knows that you’ll spend more time using them by keeping you happy with all the cheese-moon-affirmational content your heart desires, it’s going to be a little less accurate. If you spend a considerable amount of time seeking out results based on any particular filter bubble you are in, platforms like Google will likely curate some results that keep you trapped inside that filter bubble.

The trouble is that you won’t mind, your opinion about the cheese moon isn’t going to change, and everything you use online is helping you affirm this.

So yeah. Google is neat, and generally accurate, but it has been proven that sometimes it can go a little too far for some people. Over the last few years, Google has taken major steps to find a balance, which is actually the main reason Google doesn’t have the 98 percent market share it used to. Many folks have walked away from Google simply because it started to cater less to their fringe beliefs when it comes to hot button issues.

What are the Alternatives?

Now that the Big G is out of the way, in our next blog, we’re going to go over some of the alternatives. Be sure to stay tuned to our blog and social media.

Last time, we started our discussion on the best search engines by talking about the behemoth, Google. While Google is, by far, the most popular and commonly used, and arguably the most accurate search engine, it doesn’t mean it’s always the right search engine to use. Let’s talk about some other alternatives and see where they might fit in.

Microsoft Bing - Kind of the Same, but Different

Bing gets the silver medal for being the world’s second most popular general search engine. Even so, it only gets about 3.5 percent of the world’s internet searches. 

Bing is also the most similar to Google, at least as far as how it works under the hood. It’s focus is on providing accuracy and uses anonymous information from you and your search history to curate the results.

Whereas Google takes a very minimalistic approach to search, Bing usually has a visual treat for its users everyday. Each day, Bing decorates the background of its search page with a photograph with a little snippet of information about the photo. It might be some event happening somewhere in the world, a rare animal from a rainforest, a historical photo, a beautiful skyline, or literally anything else. No, it’s probably not what you were looking for, but it is kind of neat.

But on top of that, Bing also throws curated headlines, local weather, and sponsored posts right at you too. You’ll either love it, hate it, or have no feelings about it. Either way, the first impression you’ll have with Bing is that it’s busier, even before you do a search.

Something we didn’t mention last time when talking about Google—Google uses a mobile-first approach. That means sites that load well on mobile devices tend to get prioritized on Google. If your website is old and doesn’t scale properly for smartphones and tablets, you’ve probably noticed a drop in traffic over the last several years—this is why.

Bing doesn’t really care about this, but it also indexes a much smaller number of pages than Google, so the results are going to be pretty different. If you are looking for images or videos, Bing also has more options for filtering and displaying information, so it slightly outperforms Google there.

The user experience with Bing isn’t horrible, it’s just different. If you are used to using Google everyday, the transition to Bing will just feel a little strange, but it’s a decent alternative, and making the switch for a week or two is a fun experiment. We’d love to hear what you settle on.

Duck Duck Go - The Private Search Engine

Most popular search engines collect user data to curate search results. For instance, Google uses it to improve the results it gives you. Google also uses that data to help advertisers make informed decisions.

First and foremost, this data collection probably isn’t going to hurt you. It’s definitely a little weird to think about, but in the long run, it’s not necessarily tied to you as a human being. Let’s put it this way:

Let’s say, in the course of a week, three thousand people do a search for “soda,” two thousand people do a search for “pop” and a thousand people do a search for “coke.” Of those six thousand people, you are somewhere in there, looking for a soft drink. Google gathers this level of data to tell advertisers what words people use to look for certain types of products. Those advertisers can then make the decision on how they word their ads and what terms they pay money for. The data is, more or less, anonymous. Not every single company works this way (Facebook and Zoom have had data privacy scandals involving personally identifiable information), but that’s generally the gist of how this information gets used.

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, however, and some people have just decided to take more steps to be as anonymous as possible online, and Duck Duck Go is a good search engine for those who don’t want Google to know what they are looking for.

Duck Duck Go will give you totally different results from Google and Bing, but it doesn’t use any information about you, anonymous or otherwise. It also does little to warn you when something is fraudulent. Don’t get us wrong, you can run into scams, malware, and other threats from Google results, but Duck Duck Go has fewer layers of protection. 

It also means the results aren’t going to be as localized. Looking for a nearby restaurant will only base your location on the location of your Internet Service Provider, so it might not be as accurate.

All that said, Duck Duck Go is a relatively safe option, and if you are uncomfortable with Google knowing what you search for and using that to curate your results, it’s a pretty solid solution.

An alternative to Duck Duck Go that follows a similar privacy philosophy is Qwant, a French search engine that doesn’t collect user data.

Which Search Engine Is Right For You?

It’s pretty unlikely that another search engine is going to topple the big G, but if you are more concerned about your online privacy, Duck Duck Go or Qwant are pretty good solutions. As with anything, you should always be mindful of what information you are giving up, and be careful what you click on. Even if the search engines themselves are safe, the websites they point to might not always be secure.

It is not an exaggeration to refer to social media as a world-changing technology, impacting life in all manners—interpersonal, social, and professional. We wanted to focus on this last aspect and discuss how social media can assist a business in its operations.

First Off…Yes, Social Media is a Great Marketing Tool

We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention how social media can significantly help your business. Obviously, there are significant benefits to using these platforms to promote your business—building your brand, sharing your content, making use of the tools these platforms feature for advertising, and otherwise raising awareness of your business itself.

Of course, perhaps the most important of these benefits is that you can transition your social media followers into website visitors (provided your social media is used correctly, of course). This is really what you want, after all. Your business’ website should be the ultimate destination you’re pushing your prospects towards because that’s where most sales will be closed.

However, this is just the beginning of how social media can be of use to your organization.

Social Media is Also Useful for Other Business Needs, Too

There are a few business uses for social media that go beyond straightforward marketing.

Social Media Allows You to Network with Other Businesses and Business Owners

Word-of-mouth and personal recommendations are pretty powerful things… things that interacting with your fellow business owners on social media can help to encourage. Creating supportive relationships between businesses works the same way the tide does—it raises all ships. Not only can your new business relationships cultivate new opportunities themselves, they can draw the attention of other businesses while building your own organization’s credibility.

This is also closely related to another use that we will discuss in a moment.

Social Media Allows You to Reach Your Clients During a Crisis

While Murphy’s Law—”What can go wrong, will.”—may be a bit extreme, it is irresponsible to assume that nothing bad will ever happen to your business. A healthy social media network gives you an external means of keeping your clientele up to speed should you find yourself needing to lean on our business continuity or disaster recovery services.

Social Media Allows You to Learn More About Your Clients’ Needs

One of the greatest opportunities that a business’ social media provides is the opportunity to engage directly with the people that the business is trying to reach and serve. For example, if you want to know what the businesses you serve are looking for, social media allows you to just ask them directly.

Social Media Allows You to Serve and Support Your Clients in One More Way

Building off of that last point, a healthy social media strategy will also enable you to provide your clients with assistance from there. Not only do many people expect a business to be available on social media for support requests and general questions, they also expect these responses to be prompt. This gives you an additional outlet to provide value through, and helps you produce highly-visible social proof that can help convince other businesses to reach out and inquire about your services… after all, who wouldn’t want to work with a business that is so obviously available?

Social Media Allows You to Build the Reputation You Want to Have

Almost in summation, social media allows you to communicate with your clients and prospects in a way that speaks to them more directly, drawing them to your website to ensure that they receive your message. Social media also allows you to frame your business the way you want it to be perceived: helpful, approachable, and responsive.

We Can Give You the Technology to Live Up to the Promises You Make on Social Media

Trust MSPNetworks to provide and support the technology you need for your business to function and thrive. Reach out to us at (516) 403-9001 to find out more.

Social media is often seen as simply a consumer technology that has limited value to businesses, but you might be surprised by how much proper use of social media can impact it. Here are four benefits your business could potentially see from using social media websites and applications.

Increase Your Business’ Reach

Social media is an effective way to increase the scope of your business’ sales funnel, and considering that most social media accounts can be made for free, all you need to do is upkeep the account and post content to tap a market that might not be possible otherwise. It also helps you stay in touch with your consumer base. Interacting with them on a regular basis can prove beneficial to your continued growth.

Connect with Other Business Professionals

It’s sometimes about who you know in business, and the more people you know and are in contact with, the more opportunities you might have to grow. Social media accounts give your business the opportunity to connect with other business professionals and companies that could be valuable partners in the future.

Research Your Competitors

On a similar note, you can use social media to conduct market research and to see what your competitors are up to. Businesses are often quite vocal about exciting new initiatives they have planned, as they want to increase excitement for their goods and services. You can see which posts people are interacting with or interested in to gain insights into how you can conduct your own business.

Drive Traffic to Your Website

Again, the big benefit to social media is that you are increasing the accessibility of your goods and services by promoting them in another environment that is not your website. You can use social media to get consumers clicking on posts or links to your website where they can then see how great your mission, vision, products, and services are, further enticing them to buy into what you offer.

The Downside

One of the biggest downsides to social media is that you are effectively increasing the threat surface for your business by adding new accounts and avenues of attack to your infrastructure. Imagine if a hacker seized control of your social media accounts; they could ruin your reputation, use your account to spread malware or conduct phishing attacks, and so much more. You need to make sure that you are also keeping an eye on how your social media accounts are used, as improper use of them could create considerable trouble for your organization.

How does your business utilize social media? We’d love to hear from you and to hear some strategies you implement to be successful online. As always, if you want advice on how to secure your social media accounts to prevent hacking attempts and other disasters, be sure to contact us at (516) 403-9001.

Almost daily there is another data breach reported that exposes data for hundreds of thousands or millions of people. This is a troubling trend. One of the most troubling events happened recently as 700 million profiles from the social media network LinkedIn were found for sale on a popular hackers forum. What’s worse is that the company isn’t admitting that it had been breached recently. Let’s take a brief look at this situation and try to unpack what is going on with LinkedIn.

LinkedIn’s Sketchy Security History

Most people know all about LinkedIn. It is a social media site where professionals can network with other professionals. For all the good the social network tries to do, they’ve also been a major target for hackers. Back in 2012 they had 6.5 million accounts stolen by a Russian hacker and had nearly 100 million email addresses and passwords exposed. A year later there was more controversy as LinkedIn used man-in-the-middle attacks to intercept user emails and move them to LinkedIn servers. Finally, in 2018, after Microsoft’s acquisition of the company, LinkedIn users began to start getting extortion emails from account information that had been for sale on the Dark Web.

On top of those big hacks, LinkedIn has been connected to several other security breaches and failures, including the repeated use of fake LinkedIn accounts to facilitate data theft and unauthorized access to third-party networks. 

2021 Issues

In April, 500 million LinkedIn user accounts were put up for sale on a popular hacker forum. A new posting was not the result of a data breach. This information was scraped, but still included full names, email addresses, phone numbers, workplace information, and much more. With a user base of about 740 million users, this represented a large amount of the people that use LinkedIn. 

If this wasn’t troublesome enough, there have been reports that LinkedIn is removing access to scholars and other active individuals inside China without any explanation by the company. This has some intellectuals and other active users of the platform concerned over the way the company is censoring information to operate in the Chinese market, which is known to suppress the availability of information to their nearly two billion constituents.

Just recently, it was reported that a data breach occurred that allowed hackers to make information available from over 700 million records from LinkedIn, over 92 percent of the user base. LinkedIn, not addressing the fact that most of the personal information they have been tasked with keeping secure is now available for purchase, defiantly put out the following statement: 

• Our teams have investigated a set of alleged LinkedIn data that has been posted for sale. We want to be clear that this is not a data breach and no private LinkedIn member data was exposed. Our initial investigation has found that this data was scraped from LinkedIn and other various websites and includes the same data reported earlier this year in our April 2021 scraping update.
  
  
• Members trust LinkedIn with their data, and any misuse of our members’ data, such as scraping, violates LinkedIn terms of service. When anyone tries to take member data and use it for purposes LinkedIn and our members haven’t agreed to, we work to stop them and hold them accountable.
  
  
• For additional information about our policies and how we protect member data from misuse:
  https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/56347/prohibited-software-and-extensions

What is Scraping?

Scraping, in this context, is short for a method of data harvesting called web scraping, or web harvesting. It is the act of using software to effectively copy material from websites using the website’s code. It is a method hackers use to gain invaluable information from websites without going through the original channels. In the case of many business websites that get scraped and have data stolen, the hackers actually don’t need to do as much as you’d think. Many utilize the relatively open nature of a business’ API (application programming interface), giving them direct access to the data they are looking to take. 

We all trust these major corporations to do what they can to keep our sensitive data safe, but as they generally use it to maximize their ability to create revenue, it becomes difficult to trust them to keep your best interest in mind. 

Keeping your data safe has become more difficult, and more important, than ever. To learn how we can help your business secure your data, give us a call today at (516) 403-9001.

Businesses around the world now find themselves in a situation unlike what most have ever seen. With so many trying to keep their distance from one another, many workplaces have deemed it necessary to close down for the time being or to operate remotely in order to reduce the risk they present to their clients and customers… but it isn’t as though these clients and customers are going to expect radio silence from these businesses.

As a result of this, maintaining a presence on social media has perhaps never been more important for businesses to prioritize. Let’s go over why this is, and how you can best use social media to your advantage during any kind of crisis.

How Can Social Media Assist My Business in Times of Crisis?

There are a few ways that social media has benefited businesses—as well as society as a whole—during the COVID-19 crisis that we are all facing. For one, it is a highly effective means to get a message out to the people who are meant to hear it, while completely abiding by the recommended social distancing guidelines that so many people are strictly subscribing to. In the same vein, social media has also proven to be exceptionally effective as an educational tool (for better and for worse) for governments, businesses, and other organizations to use to educate their clientele.

Ideally, this would all be old news to you, and you would be one of the businesses that are currently using social media as the tool it has the potential to be. However, many other businesses have yet to fully embrace the capabilities of social media in a time like this, while others are still resistant to adopting it in the first place or have refused outright. Those businesses are missing out on a significant opportunity to reach out to the people they need to communicate with.

Therefore, if you are in one of the latter categories of business social media use you need to make some significant adjustments to your stance on social media now - before it is too late.

Ways to Use Social Media During a Crisis

Let’s consider how a social media presence can prove useful to a business when a serious issue of any kind is at hand.

Communication

While we don’t wish to be flippant, this one should be tremendously obvious. If people aren’t coming to you or calling you for updates, broadcasting them is the only way that you can reach out. Social media platforms are the perfect place to do that, as they allow you to keep anyone looking at your business page up to speed on how your business is coping. You can share news that explains any changes to your business hours and other pertinent topics in one of the first places many people today look for such things.

Take, for example, restaurants - not technically designated as an essential business - have managed to continue their operations relatively by subscribing to certain practices, like accepting orders for takeout or delivery exclusively, or operating for fewer hours. Other businesses have shifted to largely remote operations. Social media is a great way to inform clients and customers of these measures, ensuring that they know of everything that is going on.

Value and Insights

While it may seem a little silly, especially considering the gravity of the present situation, just keeping a dialogue open on social media can prove to be extremely useful for a business to keep the attention of those that follow them. This can be as simple as, again, simply keeping their clientele aware of how the business is working in response to the situation at hand or doing what they can to provide other kinds of value. While the way this value takes shape is very reliant on what this business offers, there are plenty of ways it can be expressed.

For example, a cleaning company might share useful tips and best practices to staying hygienic and healthy, while a daycare center could offer some fun games and activities for families as they social distance. Any business could simply share some engaging content of what their employees are doing during this time.

In short, social media is just another technology that businesses can and should use to their advantage. MSPNetworks can provide other tools that help your business operate, even remotely, to help you sustain it. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 to discuss your options.

When we discuss our service offerings, we understand that it can all seem like a little much, especially to the small business that - up to this point - has never needed all these fancy solutions to operate effectively. However, there are a few considerations that the business this scenario applies to needs to account for. For instance, is it certain that these solutions are unnecessary?

As it happens, probably not. On top of that, these solutions will only make doing business easier for you.

Apart from size and scope, what’s all that different between your operation and that of a large business? Not all that much - which means that you both are going about business in similar ways. At least, you probably should be.

If you still aren’t convinced, we’ve assembled a few common IT-based tools and solutions and reviewed the benefits each can deliver.

Web-Based Payments
Balancing out all of your business-essential tasks, it’s probably safe to say that ‘collecting payments’ ranks pretty high on that list. Any organization that provides goods and/or services needs to be reimbursed for those goods and/or services in some way if they are going to last very long. Accepting payments online can help encourage this by eliminating the need for a patron to visit your place of business to hand over a check, potentially reducing the time that your invoices are left outstanding.

Of course, to implement this intelligently, you will need to make sure that this is implemented securely. Many security solutions integrate this requirement, so we can help advise you on the right platform to use and assist you in managing it.

Communication
Promising something to your business’ audience is one thing. Ensuring that you can pull it off behind-the-scenes is another. The right technology solutions will help your team keep clear communications with each other, whether it’s a project management system, company email account, or an internal chat interface.

You may be surprised to discover how many time-wasting issues can be avoided just through the mitigation of miscommunication, thanks to simpler and more informative referential information. Progress toward goals, potential and imminent complications, and other key milestones are all made much easier to keep track of.

Social Media
While many see social media as an activity that is inappropriate for businesses, it can actually be highly beneficial to your strategy to leverage it in some ways. Not only can it be a highly effective marketing tool, it can give you some improved insight into what your clients or customers are looking for, thereby helping you shape your strategy.

Then there’s its potential to be used as a line of communication with your audience. Someone seeking customer service would find it easy just to send a brief message to your business on social media, as long as someone is keeping an eye on the account and responding to these messages.

Being too quick to discredit social media can have an impact on a business’ success. Leveraging it to assist your operations can as well, but with a much more preferable outcome.

Cloud Computing
There are many applications for cloud computing that businesses of all sizes could benefit from considerably. The ability to securely access data enables a team to access their data and collaborate on it from effectively anywhere, a highly useful prospect for many businesses. Alternatively, the cloud can be used to host a comprehensive business backup as an ace in the hole in case of disaster.

If you’re reconsidering how you implement IT solutions in your business, give us a call at (516) 403-9001. We can help you shape your strategy to fit your precise needs.

The modern office is filled with distractions, and that’s to say nothing about the everyday user’s life. With so many devices and notifications interrupting focus for users all over the world, it’s more important than ever before to have a strategy for how to deal with these issues and become as productive as possible in the workplace. Today, we’ll be discussing some of the biggest distractions in the workplace and how your employees can overcome them.

The Reality
The modern workplace is a shifting environment. If businesses don’t adapt to the changes, they could potentially be left behind by the times, or worse--subject to countless distractions that are a result of this shifting environment. Some of these issues are created by the employer through the use of open-office environments designed to reduce the costs of housing employees in the workplace. While this achieves the desired goal, the end result is often less productivity due to the constant distractions that plague the open office. Employees could find themselves more stressed out and less motivated--not the ideal situation for anyone working for your business.

Some might get the idea that this happens because the employees aren’t trained to thrive in such a busy workplace environment, as evidenced by a poll from Udemy in which 66 percent of respondents claimed so. If you feel your staff suffers from productivity issues, then you should look at the underlying causes of this. Asking them can help you see it from their perspective. You’ll see a lot of the same answers: too much noise, overcrowded office, and even too much technology that they don’t understand. As surprising as this might sound, it’s important to keep it in mind.

Staying Social
Even workers that enjoy working side-by-side with others are finding that there are still ample opportunities to be distracted. Employees have near-constant access to social accounts thanks to your business’ Wi-Fi connection, meaning that you’ll need a content filter and mobile device policy in place to limit how much your employees can access these time-wasting accounts. It’s likely that employees will, more likely than not, see this as a detriment to their personal agenda and not as a benefit to your business or their productivity. While social media can be helpful for marketing and other purposes, it can also lead to users compulsively checking their devices, cutting into productivity.

Distracted Staff
Even the smallest distraction can influence productivity for an extended period of time. Some users can take up to a half-hour or so to refocus on a task. Of course, even periods of time that are supposed to be in the workday for breaks, like lunchtime, can inadvertently create distractions; without them, however, productivity suffers even more. One example of a situation that an employee could consider a distraction is a staff meeting. While they are necessary, they themselves are often full of distractions, and pulling employees away from their work for distraction-filled meetings is sure to both frustrate and stress out your busier employees. If employees suffer from productivity breaks, they might overstress themselves into overproducing to compensate for the time lost. This leads to a lower quality of work performed as a whole. According to Udemy, 34 percent of workers found they like their jobs less when they are distracted, while 22 percent found that this also kept them from professional advancement.

Strategies for Improvement
To create a culture of productivity, you have to create what’s called a learning culture. Basically, you provide training to your employees on how to manage their distractions so they influence productivity as minimally as possible. If employees know how to deal with distractions, they will be more likely to avoid them throughout the workday, and therefore, be more productive. Some of the most common distractions can be addressed in the following manner:

• Too much noise: If the office is a little too noisy for your liking, put on headphones. Even if you’re not listening to any music, it’s likely you’ll be distracted less, as people are generally more considerate about bothering others with headphones on.
• Smartphone access: In recent years, the smartphone has become like your house keys; you don’t leave your house without it. The device is designed around you, and as such, it can be a considerable distraction. By turning off notifications and keeping your phone out of sight, you’ll be more likely to focus on what needs to be done.
• Coworker interactions: While it’s important to develop a good rapport with your coworkers, too much chit-chat can be distracting. Be sure to develop strong signals that you can give them if you’d rather not have a conversation at any given moment.
• Hunger: While the lunch break is certainly a thing, some people need a little extra boost to make it through the morning. If a productivity session is interrupted by your growling stomach, just munch on something small to get you through the next few hours.

If technology is getting in the way of your employees’ productivity, we have a solution for you. To find out more, give MSPNetworks a call at (516) 403-9001.