Washington Works Blog

For years, IT has been at the forefront of business administration, productivity, communications, and many other parts of an organization's efficient operations. For the growing business it can be rather difficult to know where to invest your capital so that you can get the best ROI or the most value out of your IT investments. Let’s take a look at how the growing business can use their earmarked capital to improve their business.

Even if you lived under a rock, you’ve probably done a Google search or two. There are, in fact, other search engines, each with their own pros and cons. We’re going to compare some of the most popular search engines and talk about what makes them different.

Today’s business takes effort that extends beyond traditional ways of doing things, and technology is at the center of these efforts. One of the avenues that businesses are using right now to boost productivity is by allowing workers to use the mobility they use in their everyday life. Today, we’ll discuss how added mobility can help bring surprising boosts of productivity.

The metaverse is a buzzword that many companies have been throwing around in recent years, but what is it, exactly? You might want to sit down for this one, as it is going to get a little complicated and, perhaps, even a bit confusing. We’ll do our best to unpack what the metaverse is, why there is such an emphasis on it these days, and what you might expect to see from a metaverse in the future.

We often talk about how the Internet of Things can create security issues in businesses if not properly handled. While there are some very real threats that can be posed by the IoT in the workplace, there is no denying that it can also serve some very real utility there as well.

The United States has seen a push for the digitization of the dollar for some time now, with a few pros and cons to consider from this shift. Let’s go over these pros and cons now, and see if there are any parallels to be found to your business.

Organizations come in all sizes and with it, there are all different ways of conducting business. Some companies choose to spend more time and money on their organization’s IT than others do. This month, we thought we would briefly go through four different tiers of technology investment and what they mean for your business. 

Every business has different types of workers; often to management’s chagrin. Ideally, all of an organization’s workers would be enthusiastic about their jobs and the status of a business as a whole. Unfortunately, people don’t always have like minds about the state of things and can see their morale reduced and their productivity wane. 

It probably isn’t a question you’ve put much thought to, but tell me: who do you think feels the greatest impact from card skimming schemes, where a payment card’s data is captured so a cybercriminal can make use of the card’s associated account? While it isn’t a good situation for anyone, some are impacted more than others.

We often talk about scams and cyberthreats, and lately our advice for dealing with a potential phishing threat is to simply avoid it altogether.

It’s incredibly important to keep your personally identifiable information secure, but what exactly constitutes PII? Today we offer a definition and suggestions or strategies to help you keep your PII safe.

The holidays are fast approaching and that means people are going to miss work for one reason or another. If you can get away from the office for a little bit, you’ll want to set up an out-of-office message to ensure that others know you will get back to them when you get back to the office. Here’s how you can set up an autoresponder for an out-of-office message in Microsoft Outlook.

Last time, we broke down how much data is stored in a typical book, and how much data every book in the Library of Congress contains. This time, let’s really show you what that data consists of, and some other really neat comparisons to put things into perspective. Buckle up!

Do you ever think about how incredible technology is? In a world where it’s easy to take advantage of technology and devices that were practically inconceivable just a few short decades ago, it’s really amazing to just look at how far we’ve come, and how something so small can fit so much information.

WhatsApp is one of the world’s most popular messaging applications. With over 2 billion users, WhatsApp is known for its relative security, as it is one of the few messaging applications that offers end-to-end encryption. A modified version of WhatsApp, called YoWhatsApp, has been reportedly deploying malware.

How often does this scenario happen to you? You’re going about your workday and are being quite productive, when all of a sudden you close the wrong tab in your web browser, putting an end to your productivity. This isn’t crippling downtime or anything, but it’s an inconvenience that we know you can do without. Thankfully, modern web browsers let you reopen closed tabs or windows to get back to where you left off.

The following story and events are true, however, to protect the families of the innocent, all names have been changed. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or businesses, is purely coincidental. Enjoy and happy Halloween!

With so many different technologies being used in business, it can sometimes be too much for the people out there who aren’t as tech-savvy as others. In fact, some of the people you will work alongside will not be able to grasp some of the simplest technology concepts. Unfortunately, these people don’t know a fraction of what they need to know about the technology they use, and it could put your organization at a disadvantage. This month, we thought we’d give you a few pointers on how to talk to your coworkers who aren’t as knowledgeable as you are in technology or any other field.

We hate to be the bad guy, but we’re certain that you cannot multitask nearly as well as you think you can. Multitasking is just not how the human brain works, and whether or not you believe in the psychology of it, we think you stand to benefit by outsourcing some of the tasks on your plate to a managed service provider.

With the digitalization of the modern business happening rather rapidly, many organizations still don’t really understand the major benefits that come with it. These shifts give the average business nearly twice the amount of data to manage (and to use). If you have the feeling that your business is lagging behind in this area, we will describe what parts of business you can improve by utilizing your organization’s data.