Is it really almost 2016 already? It’s hard to believe the year is nearly over, but the turkey bones have been picked clean and holiday shopping is well underway. So we thought this would be a good time to reflect on the year that’s passing.
For NetCraftsmen, 2015 has been a year of incredible growth and change. A new website, a new blog, and a greater focus on explaining how world class technologies can power organizational growth has led to more attention and fresh opportunities. The pace of change is accelerating in the technology world at large, too, and we’ve spent time this year educating clients and prospects about why organizations that allow technology to pass them by risk being surpassed by rivals.
One way we’re getting the message out is through educational seminars, like the Cisco Mid-Atlantic Users Group event on Collaboration Technologies that we’ll be hosting on December 16th. (Please join us.) Another is this blog. Below, find our most popular business-oriented posts of the year, covering a range of issues from avoiding network outages to finding hidden costs in your network operations.
Enjoy. And if any of these blog posts raises a question or sparks an idea, feel free to reach out for a deeper conversation.
The Network Is Down! – Avoiding Outages
By Terry Slattery
How can you avoid the words that nobody wants to hear: “The network is down!”? As our Terry Slattery explained, the most important step to preventing outages is a regular network infrastructure review.
The Best Thing I learned From John Chambers
By Denise Donohue
This has been an emotional year for many of us in the Cisco community, as we bid farewell to John Chambers, who led the company for 20 years. Denise Donohue had many encounters with him over the years and offered this tribute upon his retirement.
Executive Do’s and Don’ts for Network Installations
By Peter Welcher
Business executives certainly mean well, but they’re prone to making critical errors when it comes to managing new IT selection and deployment. And as Peter Welcher pointed out, those errors lead to technical messes. Here’s what not to do – and what to do instead.
The Value of Strategic Network Design
By David Hailey
When it comes to managing their networks, most organizations just fix problems as they come up. There’s no long-term strategy. Sound familiar? David Hailey explains how to change that approach, and why you should.
Cisco Live 2015: Companies Must Adapt to the Pace of Change
By Paul Mauritz
Cisco Live is always a great event, and this year was no different. We came back buzzing. We polled our whole team to discover what they learned, and the most important insight was this: technology is changing faster than ever, and the organizations that fail to keep up will be overtaken by those that do.
The Biggest Mistakes Organizations Make in the Cloud
By Pete Welcher
Cloud services can be incredibly powerful and efficient. It seems like every organization is getting into the cloud. But to avoid costly pitfalls, Pete offers these five common cloud-related mistakes for your consideration.
An Everyday Hero in the Most Surprising of Places
By Paul Mauritz
For deploying a wide-scale IT solution, environments don’t get much harsher than Greenland. It’s a barren, rocky, sparsely populated Arctic sub-continent. So when the government of Greenland asked us to deliver faster, more efficient Internet connectivity to the whole country, we knew this was a job for Denise Donohue, an Everyday Hero of Cisco’s Empowered Women’s Network.
Exposing Hidden Costs in Network Operations
By Peter Welcher
Hidden costs are inherent to many problems you face in your network operations. Pete explains how to discover what those costs are — and how to avoid them.
Roadblocks to Avoid When Deploying New Technology, Part 1
By William Bell
Are you about to deploy a technology whose intended users aren’t ready for it? That happens a lot, and it’s a big reason that new deployments don’t help the organizations that installed them, even when installed correctly. In this first of a two-part series, William Bell reveals two common causes: failure to define usable requirements, and an incomplete understanding of the use case.
Roadblocks to Avoid When Deploying New Technology, Part 2
By William Bell
William continues his discussion of the common reasons that new technology deployments sometimes fail to get widely adopted by intended users. In this installment, he identifies absentee architecture and improper understanding of the technology itself as culprits.