Notes from the President

11 March 2020 khilton Notes from the President

Ken Hilton - President Red Wing Software

Almost every Tuesday morning, I have the opportunity to join our amazing support team for a short meeting. We discuss recent issues they’ve helped customers with and ways that we might be able to make our customer experience better. We may talk about tweaks to the software, a better process to accomplish a task, or a recent common problem with an operating system update and how to help our customers solve it.
At a recent meeting, one of the topics was about an issue with ransomware. Ransomware is a malicious program that infects a computer by opening a file or clicking on a link in an e-mail that comes from an unrecognized source or may have even been forwarded by someone you know. This program typically prevents access to information on the machine until you pay a ransom to the individual that created the virus. The alternative is restoring a backup from a time before the computer was infected.
I bring this up to point out the importance of keeping your antivirus software and operating system up to date with current versions. As older versions of operating systems and software are phased out and not supported by the authors, the updates that include code that attempts to prevent these attacks are no longer available. The cost of keeping your technology (hardware and software) up to date is far lower than the cost of recovering from malicious activity.
As you create your budget for the year (which should be complete for 2020 by now) in addition to the normal budgeted items, you should include a line item for keeping your technology current.

Notes from the President

06 February 2020 khilton Notes from the President

Ken Hilton - President Red Wing Software

I am a firm believer in the value of continuing education. I’m not necessarily saying everyone should go back to school and get an advanced degree. What I am talking about is getting little snippets of knowledge from a wide variety of sources.
It might be a few minutes in an internal meeting where someone in your organization can share something they recently learned that helped them be more efficient in their job. It could be an hour-long webinar from an industry expert, many times offered at little or no cost. Maybe it’s spending time reading a book about your area of expertise. Or, you might spend a day or two, perhaps even an entire week at an advanced classroom training learning about the latest advances in your industry. My personal goal is to get 40 hours of continuing education every year using a variety of sources.
I know you’re thinking, “I don’t have time to waste away from my regular job duties.” I would almost guarantee, in a short amount of time, you will learn something that saves you more time in your day than you spent on the continuing education exercise. Whenever someone tells me they don’t have time to do something, my response is always, “Everyone has the same number of minutes in a day; it’s all about how you choose to spend them.”

Notes from the President

10 January 2020 khilton Notes from the President

Ken Hilton - President Red Wing Software

Notes from the President
I have just three short notes for you this month:
First, I hope everyone had a joyous holiday season.
Second, January is historically the busiest month here at Red Wing Software. With everyone closing their 2019 books, beginning 2020, and making sure their payroll information is up to date, our support lines light up. We have prepared internally for this by getting everyone in the organization ready to answer your calls. You can help us ensure that you have a smooth transition to the new year by reviewing the documents available in the online help, and in this newsletter, that answer frequently asked questions about your software. You can also get additional information by visiting the Help section on our website.
Finally, all of us at Red Wing Software wish you a happy, prosperous, and safe New Year.

Notes from the President

19 December 2019 khilton Notes from the President

Ken Hilton - President Red Wing Software

Think big, take small steps, and keep the end goal in mind. When we, at Red Wing Software, are contemplating any major change, addition to functionality, or new software module, we always start with the end in mind. We first ask, “What are we trying to accomplish with this project?” We want to make sure the result is what our customers want out of the new functionality, and we then plan how to achieve that result.
Once we decide on the plan, and the path to reach the goal, we start to lay out the “baby steps” to get to the end. No big project can be accomplished by thinking we can do it all at once. We lay out and document all the steps it will take to complete the project.
Many of our changes and new projects are the results of requests from customers. They may need additional information on an existing report, a totally new report, or even a completely new module. We work with the customer to determine the correct result, and the best steps to accomplish the process used to get there.
In your business, whenever you are faced with a task that may seem insurmountable; think big, take small steps, and keep the end goal in mind.

 

Notes from the President

06 November 2019 khilton Notes from the President

Ken Hilton - President Red Wing Software

How do you know if you’re doing something the best way, if you’ve only tried one way to do it? Look at any important process in your organization and think about a way to change it. You might be surprised to find out the way you’ve been performing that process isn’t the best way.
You may ask someone to be more efficient, at a lower cost, or with fewer errors, but is the system they are working in allowing them to accomplish any of these results? Trying one or more alternatives to a given process might produce the results you’re looking for, or even better results than expected.
At Red Wing Software, we never assume that there is only one way to accomplish a task. We constantly challenge our staff and debate new ways to improve, move new requests for changes through the process faster, or make our software faster, easier to use, with fewer errors, etc. Sometimes we need to think outside the box and try some ideas that feel a little strange at first. Quite often this exercise yields a result that wouldn’t have been considered without a group of us throwing out ideas and hammering through to a conclusion.
Try it. You might be surprised. I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but a wise customer told me once, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always be where you already are.”