The HelpDesk Company Blog

Todd and I experienced a first last week. We went to Vegas - and quickly learned that it’s wonderful to live in a state that bans smoking, slot machines are a scam, you can have a lot of fun with just $40 at a pai gow table, and we’re older than we thought. 

We were in Vegas for our semi-annual meeting with our peer group. We shared numbers, best practices, and biggest challenges with 8 other companies who do what we do across the country. As usual, we’ve brought back some great ideas that will enable us to provide better service as well as some new technology products to research that could increase your productivity. Keep an eye out in coming months for these. You know us, we won’t recommend anything until we’re confident it will deliver. 

Most importantly, we were reminded how fortunate we are to have a fantastic team at the office.  We observed our peers stepping out to answer support questions, manage their staff, and handle sales and admin duties. The only time either of us had to step out was to handle an eleventh-hour crisis for our daughter (ever try to find a student harmonica less than 2 hours before a performance?  Yes, I felt like supermom once I got over the guilt of not being there). 

I know I’ve said it before, and I’ll gladly say it again. Our team is awesome. Thank you Will, Jordan, Mason, Les and Sarah!

I recently read an article in Inc. magazine that profiled the time management skills of some of the most prolific entrepreneurs out there today.  Fascinating read that I highly recommend.  You can see it online here - http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100301/americas-most-productive-ceos.html 

One of the entrepreneurs featured uses keystroke short cuts to minimize his time on the computer.  He’s actually been able to calculate the time he saves annually (not just hours - DAYS!).  We thought we’d share a few that we like in hopes that they might help you. To understand the shortcuts, know that each key is listed with plus signs in between - this indicates that you should hold all keys down at once. 

Have multiple applications open at once?

Quickly toggle between them: Alt + Tab

Working in Outlook?

• Open a new email message: Ctrl + Shift + M
• Open a new appointment: Ctrl + Shift + A
• Open a new contact: Ctrl + Shift + C 

Application hung up and you can’t close it?

• Hit Ctrl + Alt + Delete to open the Windows Security window
• Select Task Manager
• Select the Open Tasks tab to see what is “Not Responding”
• Right click on the offending application and select End Task 

What shortcuts do YOU use?

Please share so we can all learn from each other.

We are pleased to introduce our newest team member, Les Venable. A graduate of Morgan State University, Les brings over twenty years of sales experience in  the technology industry.  He cut his teeth in the telecom sector with Rolm Communications and has worked for a handful of other IT companies including A&J Technologies and, most recently, Electronic Systems (ESI). 

We are thrilled to have Les with us - not only because of his ability to do the job, but especially because of his general outlook and approach to life.  Les has been mentoring an elementary student at Hopkins Elementary for three years now.  He’s quite active in his church and community, and shares our desire to partner with his clients to help them make the best decisions for their business - whether it’s a non-profit organization, educational institution or privately owned business.

Welcome aboard, Les!