Washington Works Blog

How many people do you know that can be productive for 8 hours, or more, a day? It’s difficult for the average worker to do this, as their body needs time to relax and recover from the duress of the workday. Thankfully, new technologies provide some semblance of reprieve for office workers in the form of improving the way that they delegate and spend their breaks.

Technology is a critical component of the modern office, but it’s only a matter of time until it breaks down and leaves you in a bind. In a way, it’s a lot like owning a vehicle. You need it to get from Point A to Point B, but when it doesn’t work properly, it winds up costing you an arm and a leg. Worse yet, extended periods of not having transportation make it difficult to live life and go to work.

All businesses need to use some sort of technology to keep their operations moving forward. Yet, it’s often difficult to gauge how new solutions will function with your current systems. You need to take your options into careful consideration before making such an important choice, and only an analysis of your current setup will help you ensure the success of your new technology.

Analytics play a major role in today’s business world, but they are also pivotal to the development of artificial intelligence systems. One of the expected qualities of AI is machine learning, the ability for a system to identify and learn from trends. Yet, this extremely practical aspect of artificially intelligent systems may have its uses in a business setting.

Many websites and services now have apps that they use to further distribute their solutions via smartphone. However, when it comes to your business’s sensitive information, which is more secure: the mobile app, or the web-based client? Researchers from Northeastern University performed a study that asked this question, and the results might shock you.

When you’re planning your business’s technology ventures, how often does your IT budget become a major deciding factor? Chances are that it clings to you like a ball and chain. Wouldn’t it be nice to free yourself from something so limiting? We’ve compiled three ways that you can take some of the strain off of your IT budget.

Big data is a trend that’s gaining traction in the business environment. By taking a close look at the data that you collect, and identifying trends, you can potentially predict how your business can perform, and how your clients will respond to your products or services. Yet, there are two major questions that you need to ask: how are you going to use this data, and is the data that you’ve collected specifically to achieve that goal?

When Facebook released its Messenger app in 2011, it was primarily designed as a way for users to chat with each other outside of the main Facebook app. Since then, Facebook has added a plethora of new features and upgrades to Messenger, making it a tool that may have what it takes to meet the needs of your business.

When it comes to buying technology, sometimes, despite the fact that the Internet offers a plethora of product reviews and detailed information for you to research to your heart’s content, it’s still possible to regret your purchase and decide to return it. In order to combat buyer’s remorse, more services are popping up that let consumers rent products before buying.

There’s a dangerous misconception that a lot of business owners have about data backup. Too often, an SMB will have a data backup solution in place and the business owner will feel like they’re fully prepared to handle a data loss disaster--without looking into the data recovery capabilities of their backup solution (or the lack thereof). This kind of oversight can lead to a very costly surprise when a disaster strikes and there’s no easy way to restore the lost data.

Intel recently announced their next line of laptop processors, and with that single act, caused no small amount of frustration and confusion among the IT market. After claims that they were breaking from their traditional schedule of releasing a new processor each September and improving upon it later, Intel has gone ahead and released a new processor architecture instead of maintaining their Skylake processor from last year.

Today’s fast-paced work environment demands multitasking and juggling various projects at once. Thankfully, there’s a lot of great technologies designed to make workloads more manageable. If you’ve not yet looked into utilizing automation apps for your business, you may be surprised to learn how they can improve efficiency.

The benefits of utilizing smartphones in the workplace are many and obvious. Yet, it may be in the best interests of some companies to ban smartphones altogether, and instead go with older-model flip phones. As counterproductive as this sounds, more companies are saying “out with the new in with the old.”

Businesses rely on hardware, like workstations, servers, mobile devices, and more, to keep operations moving forward. However, managing these knowledge-intensive machines can demand time and resources that are finite for SMBs. If you’re challenged by the management and deployment of hardware, let us guide you through the process of doing so.

Technology grows more mobile with each passing moment, and emojis have popped up in places that nobody could have dreamt of. In particular, business communications have experienced a surge of emojis, but how (and why) is this the case? Aren’t emojis unprofessional? Shouldn’t they have no place in the business world? Well, let’s explore this a bit.

Football season is upon us, and the National Football League is filled to the brim with teams that want to make this year the one in which they win it all. In order to get the competitive edge, many teams are turning to virtual reality training, which has proven to be quite effective in preparation for on-the-field practice.

When you’re managing your business’s technology, you want to limit access to time-wasting applications and keep your employees from accessing the Windows Store. It just makes sense. Yet, for the businesses that want to restrict access to the Windows Store on Windows 10 devices, well, that’s too bad; Windows 10 Pro version 1511 just made your life a whole lot more difficult, unless you’re willing to pay extra for Windows 10 Enterprise edition.

Over the past year, Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows 10, has gained a massive user base. With over 300 million devices worldwide running it, it’s safe to say that Windows 10 has, thus far, been a commercial success. However, the biggest reason for upgrading to Windows 10 (the free upgrade) will soon expire. So, are you going to take advantage of this, or wait until later?