Month: January 2014

The Benefits of BYOD Across Different Company Sizes

Anyone connected to the business world has heard about the rampant popularity of bring-your-own-device policies, better known as BYOD. The trend will continue for the near future and likely beyond, with Gartner analysts claiming that 50 percent of companies will mandate a BYOD platform over the course of the next five years. The popularity and gains in morale aside, however, does a BYOD set of policies make sense to a company on a financial standpoint? In terms of dollars and cents, some businesses may get more out of BYOD than others.

Small Companies

Screen Shot 2014-01-24 at 10.00.14 AMCould a BYOD platform benefit the larger conglomerates more than the small, home-based businesses that employ so many independent workers? The answer may be no, but not necessarily due to the basic revenue-expenses flowchart on your bookkeeping. The risk to small companies with a BYOD system lies in the security or lack thereof. V3 made headlines by proclaiming that a small business with BYOD is one cyber-attack away from bringing the company down. A small company may not be able to afford training or security to keep a BYOD network afloat, resulting in a far higher risk of a data breach. When that happens, the savings of a few hundred dollars per employee becomes trivial: The average data breach costs a company no less than $6.75 million dollars and an average of over $200 per compromised customer, Poneman research reports.

The Muddled Middle

Medium-sized businesses may have the resources to put a comprehensive BYOD platform in place to allow for security and increased safety, yet few end up doing so. CSO Online estimates that between 60 percent and 80 percent of businesses have no formal BYOD policies in place whatsoever. Businesses with the luxuries of modest resources and relative flexibility must think long and hard about the dollar value of each employee under its company umbrella. The advantages of cost savings and increased productivity often win out, since a medium-sized business rarely has to hire more than a handful of new staff members to police BYOD or train employees. When a medium-sized company has had limited success with safety, however, it may find a BYOD platform to be an unpalatable risk.

Corporate Policy

When your company employs hundreds or even thousands of workers, the solution becomes quite simple: Go big or go home. The math firmly stands in the BYOD camp, with Cisco reporting that a basic BYOD platform generates $350 per employee per year, while comprehensive policy boosts that figure up to $1,300 per employee per year. Risks remain, of course, and risks become more expensive as the size of a company grows, but when the benefits start climbing in to the millions of dollars, a corporation with a large workforce would greatly limit their growth potential by restricting BYOD policy in favor of uniform devices. There are also platforms that allow BYOD devices to switch from personal to business mode, keeping the two areas separate.

Until next time,

Keith Hart, Guest Blogger for the All Access Group, LLC

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The Secret to Becoming a Super Connector

linked-In-150x150January 28, 2014,

LinkedIn Articles

A few years ago, a former colleague reached out to me. He was working at Cisco, helping the company organize its 25 anniversary employee celebration. For the event’s entertainment, CEO John Chambers wanted Jerry Seinfeld.

iPhone: Hover Technology Coming Soon?

While the idea of the phone reading my eyes is cooler than my fingers, I found this technology to be far more practical. Imagine having dirty or wet hands, not wanting to touch your phone, but still needing to use it- you can. It takes new phone anxiety and consequent over protection to a whole new level. But beyond aiding neat freaks in protecting their phones, this technology has immense potential, and really left me wishing that my phone could do the same cool new tricks. Well iPhone users, the wait for such technology may not be too long as Apple has recently obtained patents for such hover technology, but also includes technology meant to better analyze accuracy and better understand unwanted touching of buttons or typing.

Screen Shot 2014-01-14 at 9.33.50 AMEye recognition software and finger hovering technology: would taking your eye away from the screen result in the pausing of the video? Would you be able to scroll through documents with your eyes instead of your fingers? The finger hovering software will allow you to click and scroll without touching the screen, rather just by hovering your finger above the glass.

The new Apple technology also involves software for analyzing users’ heart rates. And in a day and age with countless advancements in health and fitness applications, this could result in amazing innovation. Analyzing heart rates can take workout apps like Nike+ to a whole new level, and can also greatly influence health applications to better aid physicians in treating patients from a distance. Patients with high blood pressure can check their heart rate from the comfort of their phone, and relay such results to their physician. And with the FDA’s recent installment of laws regulating healthcare applications, the future reliability of such technology will be trustable. Such regulation will extend to applications focused on the tracking of medications, health records, dieting and exercise.

And if dirtying your screen causes you too much stress wait it out, the App Store may soon have an app for that.

Jesse Hoppenfeld, Blogger for the All Access Group

Until next time,

Kelli Richards, President, CEO of the All Access Group, LLC

PS: Subscribe to my FREE All Access Group Newsletter https://bit.ly/AAGNewletter

PSS: Listen to an entire library of intimate discussions with industry visionaries https://bit.ly/AllAccessPodcastSeries

Live Viewing Services for YouTube Verified Users?

In a day and age largely defined by the creation and expansion of social networking, and sharing, YouTube’s expansion of live video services to all verified users, may not seem so revolutionary or even like a new idea, but it will no doubt prove its versatility. The live viewing services offered by YouTube have slowly been released to the public. The minimum YouTube followers needed to use live feeds has been decreased from its original 1,000, to 100, and now to all verified users. Becoming a verified YouTube user requires the release of various personal information and access to your past YouTube activity, but such data releases seem to be a common practice at this point- used in large part to supplement your user interface, making it a more personal experience. (But this is also a very appealing source of information for marketers attempting to target specific audiences, which can be determined through internet and YouTube use.)

Youtube-live
*Image from https://blog.irocke.com/

Besides the business arena, on the personal level the options for live sharing on YouTube seem endless: High School football game, Reunion, Graduation, Holiday Dinner? You can share live feeds of all these life and family events with everyone who is unfortunately unable to attend. But such live sharing can extend far beyond the family sharing dynamic. The potential for such streaming was previewed by Red Bull Stratos Mission, which saw a man free fall from the edge of our atmosphere. The event drew 8 million viewers.

Live sharing on YouTube may have just solved problems that die hard sports fan, music fans, and over protective parents have had for years. Is your favorite sports team’s game blacked out, or not being aired while you’re away? You will be able to Tube it.  Who needs Slingbox or similar services when you can YouTube it? It is music to the music fans ears; all those who can’t afford concert tickets, or have to work the one time Beyonce is in town? They can Tube it. The point is that YouTube’s live streaming really brings YouTube into a different genre of entertainment; one that may at some point rival television, or if not supplements television, like Xbox One’s new interface, or Google’s attempts at Google TV.

However, perhaps the most immediately useful aspect of YouTube’s live streaming application is that it can work with Google+ Hangout which brings the live streaming to a two-way video broadcast, making meetings, marketing events, or interviews accessible from all over the world, live.

YouTube has put something really special together with its new live streaming service, I don’t want to pay for similar devices but I would definitely spend the extra 30 seconds to verify my YouTube account and reap these awesome benefits. 

Until next time,

Kelli Richards, President, CEO of the All Access Group, LLC

PS: Subscribe to my FREE All Access Group Newsletter https://bit.ly/AAGNewletter

PSS: Listen to an entire library of intimate discussions with industry visionaries https://bit.ly/AllAccessPodcastSeries (Priceless)

Coin: Access to All of Your Cards in One

Screen Shot 2013-12-02 at 11.01.18 AMMeet Julie. She is in the grocery store check out line with bags of food piled high on the counter and the cashier says “$51.05.” She takes out her purse and balances it on the very small ledge by the card-swiping machine so she can dig through it to find the family credit card. Julie finds her business account card, the gas card, her Macy’s credit card and even the Barnes & Noble rewards card, but her personal card is lost within the shuffle. After a few more minutes of frantic searching, while the line behind Julie inevitably grows longer, she finds her personal card, swipes, and leaves the store flustered and annoyed.

What if finding your credit cards could be easier…because they were all in the same space. No, I don’t mean just in the same physical space or pocket in your wallet –what if you only had one card, for all of your accounts? Coin, the all-in-one credit card is the solution to Julie’s (and your) frustration.

Coin is a new type of credit card that stores all of your accounts on one card. How can this be possible, you ask? Coin works just like any other credit card and you can swipe it in any machine, only this card comes with out hassle. To choose which account you want to use for each particular purchase, simply click the round button on the card and scroll through each account on the small display screen until you find the correct account.

You’re next question: How do you get all of your cards on Coin? Simply swipe each card using a card reader that plugs into your smart phone and works with the Coin app. Then take a picture of each card so you can keep track of them all.

As for security, Coin is constantly in sync with your phone using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and if you leave it behind, the card recognizes its distance from your phone and will notify you. Doesn’t get much more convenient, does it?

TheVerge.com states that, ”Coin is up for pre-order today for $50, but will cost $100 for new buyers when it ships in summer 2014.”

Will you be taking advantage of Coins simplicity and ditching all of your credit cards that just take up space in your wallet? I know I will.  Do you think Coin will be a game-changer for the credit card industry? My guess –in years to come, many more companies will jump on this idea and managing your accounts will become second nature.

Until next time,

Kelli Richards, President, CEO of the All Access Group, LLC

PS: Subscribe to my FREE All Access Group Newsletter https://bit.ly/AAGNewletter

PSS: Listen to an entire library of intimate discussions with industry visionaries https://bit.ly/AllAccessPodcastSeries (Priceless)

 

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