Celebrating 25 Years of a great Profession

Wow it's 25 years this week since my professional career started right after graduating from the University of Windsor with a Bachelor of Commerce degree!

Thought I'd take this opportunity to thank so many terrific people who have supported and helped me along this awesome journey!   Thanks to Carmela for always being there and believing in me.  To Haley and Sydney for helping me bring balance in life. 

Here are some of my favourite highlights to share with you and challenged with selecting only a few stories.

First day was April 25th, 1988 at Computerway, subsidiary of Epson Canada.  Ironically, this location is just around the corner of our current building.

The manager provided a quick overview of the two main computers; the 286 or AT and the 8088 or XT..... and that's how it all started by learning specifications, talking to first time buyers and answering their questions.  Not many options to choose from except monochrome screens available with green, white and the latest with amber text.

By the way, the 386 was released and Epson had national contracts for all 386's so none were available for quite some time.  This was the first of ongoing "out of stock" items we seemed to face in our industry over the years.

Drastic price drops and discontinued products without any warning was the norm.   Memory chips would be quoted at $595 only to drop to $199 the following morning.   Excellent news for the consumer.   Not great news with product in transit or product sitting in our warehouse.   No price protection!  

Around 1994 the Internet was starting to catch on and e-mail was being used first internally and then to the world.  The wealth of information on the 'Net was incredible for all of us "newbies" and it was always interesting to see what most people were looking for. 

The Retirement - lasted for 6 weeks in early 1996.  For some reason it felt right at the time for a career change.  So glad Shawn called asking to consider joining AlphaKOR.  It was a very easy decision to make since Ali, Mazen and Shawn provide the best service second to none.

We were very early in our discussions about websites in 1996 and Y2K in 1997.  Most businesses were not ready for either conversation.  The early website discussion was about having your company domain name and adding an e-mail address under your fax number.

By the second half of 1999 there was panic about Y2K and everyone wanted to talk about it now.  Our game plan was in place long before this and it all turned out good!  

Moving in the fall of 2008 on the eve of very tough economic times was a bit scary.  As most companies scaled back, they leaned heavier on us for support.  Our team more than doubled after moving growing from twelve to thirty-two today. 

Our leadership in the industry for over eighteen years can be seen in our excellent service, our solutions for networks, data disaster recovery, website development, online marketing, custom software and mobile applications to name a few.

We are thankful for the support in the business community.  We give back to the community by the team volunteering, participating in charity events and our involvement in associations.

One of my challenges to the team for 2013 is for everyone to be involved in at least one group or activity every year as part of our mandate of giving back to our community.

I truly enjoy being involved in a number of organizations and have found it very enriching.  Being part of the Windsor Executives Association, WEtech and being a mentor are a few of my current favourite roles.  It is very exciting to mentor entrepreneurs building on their dreams and turning them into a successful business. 

Building the WindsorEssex Circle networking group with an associate has been a personal goal of mine.  The Circle' mandate is to connect like-minded people with good discussions and to create opportunities for each other.   

As we rely more on technology with all our social networks and social media keep in mind people enjoy interacting with people.   Don't forget the face-to-face discussions at the boardroom table.    Remember to pick up the phone and have more  conversations to compliment your digital world communication.  It really works!
 
It is such a great honour when the media and the community recognize our commitment and dedication to service.    The two that stand out the most are both from the Chamber Business Excellence Awards;  Service Company of 2009 and Entrepreneur of 2012.  

Thanks to the AlphaKORians, our loyal clients, associates, friends and families for being a part of our success.  

Looking forward to the next 25 years of this journey and beyond! 

Three Mobile device MUST HAVES for 2013

This week we welcome one of my business partners as a Guest Blogger:   Shawn O'Rourke, Director of Technical Services.

I personally use the HP ElitePad as my Tablet and the Blackberry Bold (looking forward to the new Q10 model!).   

Think about what may happen if your mobile device landed in someone else' hands - what would you do?

Very thankful I'm always in great hands with our great team at AlphaKOR!

Three Mobile Device Management MUST HAVES for 2013

Mobility is the key to success in today's business world.  They have been for some time.  But how does your business truly get a handle on the mobile devices attached to your business?  Today, there are three emerging trends that will give you greater control over your business’ mobile device environment – and each is available through AlphaKOR’s partnership with N-Able technologies.

Insight: Gone are the days of employees selecting their own mobile devices, and the corporation only paying the initial fees and monthly bills.  Today, you can gain a deeper understanding of mobile device usage across your company with comprehensive reports ranging from Battery and Disk Usage, Device Composition, Model Composition, and more. Once you gain better knowledge of how your business utilizes their mobile devices, you’ll have the opportunity to streamline processes and procedures, and utilization protocols across the board.

Protection:  Critical and sensitive business data is literally walking around all over the place now that employees are taking your information everywhere they go.  It is important to realize that when your businesses close for the evening and you lock the doors, your sensitive information is no longer locked away for the night.  

*SOURCE: wwww.micro-trax.com/statistics

If your corporate device is lost or stolen, AlphaKOR can find the device’s location, send it a message, lock the screen down, selectively wipe corporate data or wipe the entire phone!

How do you currently enforce corporate security policies? AlphaKOR will apply a common set of policies that may include passcode requirements, lock down of the device’s camera or social apps, or purchasing through iTunes.

Management:  Corporate mobile device planning has never been so easy to manage! Standardize and pre-configure devices for fast and easy deployment.  Set up profiles including Exchange, passcode, restrictions, VPN, and WiFi.

I recommend every business with one mobile device consider Mobile Device Management.  Mobile devices are being used in extremely innovative ways and are storing confidential corporate data and intellectual property.  One mobile device ending up in the wrong hands could cause you and your business tremendous grief.  A perpetrator could utilize your mobile device by sending out messages or malicious content to individuals in your contact list, access critical business infrastructure and information and retrieve personal material such as texts and calendar appointments.  

When you choose AlphaKOR for mobile device management, we will wipe or lock down your device within minutes of you contacting us.   

Let us manage your mobile devices today. 

Shawn O'Rourke, Guest Blogger

Director of Technical Services

Partner, AlphaKOR Group

Your Top 3 Priorities

What are your Top 3 daily priorities?

Mine are in order:

1.  Take a snap shot of all the incoming information and requests

2.  Follow-up

3.  Create Opportunities

That's it for the priorities of the day.   Yes, you can only have 3.  These are the goals for my daily routine when focusing on the professional part of the day.
Health, family and leisure are also priorities each day, however, these are part of the "turning work off" part of the day.

Thankfully I'm an early bird.   #1 is taken care of before heading out to the gym for a great start to the day.  One of the keys to prioritizing so many tasks is to take the biggest, most difficult and "ugly" task you do not want to do and make it first on the task list.  (Reference Eat That Frog for a light read to learn more).

#2 is actually three steps:   Follow-up, follow-up and follow-up.   I know I have shared this with you more than once and it really works.   This is one of those steps you do consistently with results.   

Caution:  if you are too aggressive it may be considered stalking and you may end up with negative results.   Finding the right balance with each person' personality will help with your follow-up frequency required.

#3 My favourite - Create Opportunities!  Pro-actively reach out to clients, prospects and associates to genuinely find out how they are doing, where they are going with their business and if they are open to starting a discussion about any topic related to your services or not. 

This discussion can be about services we offer or it can be about connecting them to others to help them grow.   It can also be about listening to their ideas and working together to make things happen.   

Opportunities are all around us and does not mean always selling your services.  Take a look at the very big picture and see how these Opportunities make the difference.

What are your Top 3 Priorities?   

How do you Empower your Team?

At what level do you empower your team for decision-making authority?

There are successful managers who coach and nurture their team and provide different levels of autonomy.   All teams require a leader to manage the team' direction based on established goals and management along the way to develop the strategy to achieve and surpass these goals. 

We also have managers who use empowerment as a tool for not managing.   Managers who hide behind this philosophy are not managing their team.   This type of management style has no accountability when you leave the team alone to make all the decisions.

Setting clear direction, setting attainable goals, developing a plan to focus on this direction and goals requires accountability to the manager of the team.  


Without accountability to the team leader, most teams accomplish very little.  This is the strategy the Partners at AlphaKOR have successfully implemented over the years.

How do you empower your Team?