Management

What Kind of IT Hero Are You?

Here’s a fun way to give your tech saviors some digital appreciation.

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Ryan has been a magazine and newspaper editor for 21 years, with the last 15 covering a variety of bases for CDW’s family of tech magazines. As Editor in Chief, he works on developing editorial strategy and is always on the lookout for new writing talent and sharing great stories with the IT world. In his spare time, Ryan enjoys spending time with his family, biking and obsessively following Iowa Hawkeye sports and Cubs baseball.

Everyone has a hero. It might be a parent, a teacher, an athlete or even someone you work with. No matter who it is, they all should share one trait: They’re there for you when you need them the most. And although some are widely recognized, others fly under the radar and barely get noticed at all — until something major happens; for example, when a server crashes. Yes, that’s right. Those IT heroes are all around us every day, wearing their inconspicuous Clark Kent disguises until the time comes to don their capes and tights.

So if you know one of those IT heroes — or are one — now is the time to be recognized. The CDW “Heroes Who Get IT” campaign is a fun way for CDW to salute the efforts of those IT heroes, their technical expertise and their special secret superpowers. Visit HeroesWhoGetIT.com, and you can create your own custom IT Hero character to share with friends, family and associates. Additionally, you can enter your IT Hero into a weekly random drawing for a chance to win some great prizes.

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s … in the Cloud

Speaking of IT heroes, the article “SMBs Take Baby Steps to the Cloud” details some small businesses that are finding efficiencies through the use of cloud computing. Corporate Mailing Services, for example, experienced some growing pains after its staff of 40 grew to 160 and their one-server operation needed 13.

The full-service mail shop moved its e-mail from an in-house server to a hosted cloud service about five years ago. Although the e-mail service was less expensive than other options, CMS didn’t have direct access to the Exchange server. If there was a need to set up an e-mail box on a Friday at 5 p.m., it was difficult to get someone to do it at that time of day. Now, Microsoft Office 365 gives them that control.

“What’s nice about being virtual is if you have a hardware issue, restoring is a lot easier,” says Tim Steward, director of IT at CMS. “If you bring in new hardware, moving it is a piece of cake.”

This issue is filled with stories of how IT heroes effectively use technology to save their businesses time and money. If you’d like to share your story with BizTech, let us know.

Ryan Petersen