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When technology lets you down, who is to blame?

When you look at your business and the systems that keep it functioning, can you honestly predict when they are going to fail? When is it a foregone conclusion to refresh your technology? Are you prepared for an extended outage due to weather, power or other conditions? How slow or unreliable does something need to be to warrant replacement?

If you can't answer these questions, or if you never even thought about them, then you are like most business owners – and that's why we stress preparedness.

In our Future Now series, we’ve been exploring how advances in technology can enable us to stay ahead of the curve for business trends. But I want to share an alternate view of the Future Now philosophy – knowing when there isn’t a high tech solution, and relying instead upon good old-fashioned ingenuity.

Hello, and welcome to 2012! You may have noticed that we didn’t send you a newsletter in January. Well, we know it’s the beginning of a new year, a new business quarter, and you’re swamped – getting back to work after the holidays, making and meeting your first quarter goals, etc.

In our youth, we have the distinct advantage of viewing the world in a straightforward manner. Cause and effect is a simple logic that we are taught to follow – if we want to buy something, we must earn the money. If we want to be healthy, we must eat right and exercise regularly.

Before I got into the technology business, I used to think of the “the future” as a projected time so far beyond my immediate reality that it seemed like a sci-fi movie. I would see this high-tech future in terms of outer space, like, “In the future, Explorer space probe will start sending high resolution photographs of Saturn’s rings.

News from the Manufacturing Front

As the year comes to a close, we wanted to remind you that there is still time to take advantage of Section 179 Deduction – the “Cinderella Tax Law” -- by purchasing your business equipment and putting it into use before December 31st, 2011.

If you haven’t heard of Section 179 , now is the time to call your financial advisor and get caught up.

Ethan and Greg at IT Nation 2011 – Orlando, FL 11/11/2011

The Jesses and Meme model their Yak Hats. Sherpa HQ 10/31/2011

Smartphones and Privacy Issues
We have all heard about checking and our privacy settings on various social media sites and outlets – but even if you do these things, do you realize that the metadata (embedded) data in the pictures that your phone takes could put you at risk for disclosing personal locations, such as home address, daycares/schools and favorite places to hang out?

Many applications that we use daily are based on upon geotagging, or embedded location information – it tells our devices how close or far we are to the things we are looking for.

As Fall approaches, we here at MySherpa are getting ready for projects and technology refreshes, particularly for clients who are preparing 2012 budgets. This is one of our busiest times – clients are back at work, evaluating budget concerns and making lists of their “must have” technology and software updates for the next year.

Greg preps for his interview on the Bruce Elliot Show, WILM.com, 1450AM. 9/26/2011

Our table at the Business to Business Mixer, sponsored by the DE State Chamber of Commerce and the BBB of Delaware. 09/27/2011.