Up Times · February 2022

Up Times

by Bryley · April 2022

Space Age

Online or Shut Down

Case Study: Space Age Electronics, Sterling, Mass

No excuses is the motto Space Age Electronics’ founder the late Pete Mongeau instilled in his business. And that bluntly simple philosophy has helped steer the Sterling, Mass manufacturer through sixty years of dramatic growth. They apply their no-excuses philosophy to each customer’s evolving demands. And those customers have to be demanding, because often the Space Age product is there to literally save people’s lives: Space Age Electronics manufactures among the industry’s best-regarded integrated fire alarm and building automation systems panels.

The case study describes how the manufacturer’s growth led them to seek the IT continuity solution provided by Bryley, as told by Space Age Electronics’ Director of Technology Ryan Mongeau … [11 min. read]

choices, choices365, 365, 365 or 365?

If Windows’ journey has been toward ease-of-use uniformity across people’s devices, Microsoft’s business suite offerings continue to require some thoughtful investigation. In 2020 Microsoft announced ending the Office 365 name for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs [Microsoft defines these as businesses with 300 or fewer employees]) in order to try to lessen confusion by taking the focus off the product name and putting it on the service it provides. It was a welcome intention. Only thing is many of the offerings contain the same products – and the differentiators are not easy to summarize in a name. So we offer this guide … [4 min. read]

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Roy at Corridor 9/495 Expo

Corridor 9/495 Business Expo

How good was it to be back to feeling a bit of normalcy April 6? That was the day of the Corridor 9/495 Chamber’s Open for Business Expo at the Doubletree Conference Center in Westboro, Mass … [2 min. read]

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Business Continuity Mixtape – Bryley-curated stories from around the internet:

Kartrak barcode systemDuxbury, Massachusetts resident Barry Collins has died. Mr Collins is widely regarded as the inventor of the barcode – though his system, Kartrak (for logging freight train cars in motion) – didn’t fully work and was replaced. The Kartrak system is the ancestor of manufacturing and retail barcode scanning systems and QR codes. He was an MIT graduate and invented the system while working for Sylvania in the ’60s … tedium.co

MFA prompt-bombing

Any lock can be broken. Weaker forms of MFA (multi-factor authentication) have lately been the target of criminals through prompt-bombing in which they try to wear people down by making MFA-verification requests a couple times a day or in the middle of the night or bombarding them relentlessly with verification requests. Sometimes people just click the link to make the requests stop. Your business’ data should be secured with stronger MFA implementations. Your employees should be warned and trained about the criminal tactic and given an appropriate response plan … wired.com

Sorry!

We all know that everyone makes mistakes. And these can include clicking a phishing link or getting tricked in an MFA prompt-bombing attack. It doesn’t help team-building to have employees who are afraid to admit their errors and point their fingers at others. How do you foster a company or department in which someone who makes a mistake can own up without fear of being berated or fired? CSO Magazine Hall of Famer Andy Ellis suggests managers, “practice saying that ‘human error is a symptom of a system in need of redesign,’ which I learned from [MIT professor] Nancy Leveson …” darkmatter.com

Fiber-optic cable

$100 million dollars has been allocated as part of the federal Infrastructure Bill to help Massachusetts expand broadband access. Fiber-optic networking now encircles Boston and brings with it the promise of big bandwidth. But it’s not always straightforward for people working from home how to capitalize on the network coming to their door. Nicole Nguyen shows the bottlenecks that can keep us from having our best internet speeds – and offers solutions … wsj.com

Note: The Mixtape section is Bryley’s curated list of external stories. Bryley does not take credit for the content of these stories, nor does it endorse or imply an affiliation with the authors or publications in which they appear.

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