Computers – the anti-productivity tools

I was speaking recently to a person whose only computer access is at work. She was actually apologizing to me for not replying to a personal request sooner, as she is limited to three hours a day of personal use of her computer! I was stunned. The organization has 30 employees. If each employee spends three hours a day using his or her computer for personal matters, 22,500 hours per year are being wasted – that’s equivalent to 11 full-time employees! So this organization of 30 employees could actually get by with just 19, saving the business over $500 thousand per year!

While this organization has an unusually policy, I suppose it is just accepting the reality that most employees in most businesses spend a great deal of time e-mailing, social networking, and Internet surfing on company time. Some businesses have personal-use policies and some monitor computer usage. Yet the temptation to take “just a minute” to check the movie schedule, the sales at Kohls, or send out tweets is so great and these activities are so addicting that policies become difficult to enforce.

How is it that the very tool that improves productivity in so many ways is the very same tool that is anti-productivity?

Will Limkemann
www.siqualtd.com

Small business IT frustrations

Those working in the corporate world, or in larger small business that have a technical support person on staff are indeed spoiled, and should count their blessings that help is available.

Those of us working solo, or in the majority of small businesses, depend on our wits, our limited understanding of computers/Vista/Internet, and all of the wanted and unwanted trappings that go along with them. When things work well, the computer is a wonderful tool. When thing go wrong – oh the frustration.

I was humming along nicely on my ‘puter this morning, when all of a sudden my firewall started preventing me from using network printers, synching to my Blackjack, and making me go through hoops just to get to Google and this blog site.

It seems that during the night AVG (my virus protection software) decided I needed an update, which was activated at 8:30 this morning. Not only did it update my anti-virus, but it decided it wanted to be my firewall and kick out the Microsoft firewall I had been using.

Previously I had configured AVG to not use its firewall due to similar frustrations I had encountered today, and I had carefully made sure the Windows firewall was turned on. Apparently AVG is really upset that I did this, because they not only turned on their firewall, but have completely prevented me from turning it off and using Windows!!!!

I have tried to log onto their help site but keep getting errors – it could be 3 zillion other people are as frustrated as I and are also trying to get to AVG help.

If I had a resident Guru, he or she would probably be able to fiddle with my computer for five minutes and get me back to where I should be. But, being on my own, I’ll just have to limp along until I can find some help at AVG. Wish me luck.