Received one of my normal emails from BCS – The Chartered Institute for IT, and it raised an interesting topic. We’ve been grateful for a lot of things recently, especially frontline workers in a range of industries – we should also be grateful for the technology as well.
But there is one special recipient of our gratitude that I’d like you to focus on. In fact, that’s exactly what you’re doing this very moment; the computer, the tablet, the mobile phone you are looking at right now.
And, the communications link, the internet, servers etc. – all the various computer-based technologies that have helped use stay connected throughout the pandemic.
Day in and day out, they have helped us keep in touch.
Garfield Southall, BCS Community Newsletter
Thinking about it I agree.
While we all would have preferred this never happened, had it been 5-10 years ago it would have been a very different story.
Technology to Work from Home
It’s only been in the last few years that companies have moved from fixed desktop computers to laptops.
And in some cases that was only for certain types of roles.
It’s been even more recent that companies have started moving everyone (no matter the role) over to laptops, or even allowing people to work from home.
This leads me onto BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) – the option to use your own computer, phone or tablet to use for work purposes.
If desktop’s were the standard type of office computer, then only a very small percentage of people would have been able to work from home, instead of the numbers that have and do.
Don’t forget the Internet
I can remember a time when the internet was via a dial-up connection.
Now for most of us it’s literally all around.
Data on our phones, more free WIFI around the towns and cities, we are connected almost all of the time.
There are still places that either can’t get or have a bad connection – although those are slowly reducing as the internet providers work on providing and improving the signal – new options and versions of signal types are helping with this.
Grateful Thanks
Even in these unprecedented times, there’s a lot to be grateful and we should include the technology.
What to improve your use of technology? Take a look at my Applications Menu and then get in touch to see how I can help.
Latest Posts
- Getting Your PowerPoint Designs to Actually Match
If you’ve ever used Design Ideas in PowerPoint and never ended up with a consistent PowerPoint slide design, you’re not alone. Each slide looks lovely on its own, but look at them as a complete deck and it’s like four different presentations got shuffled into one file. I was reminded of this exact problem recently,… Read more: Getting Your PowerPoint Designs to Actually Match - A Simple Framework for Better Copilot Prompts
I’ve been testing Copilot presentation prompts a lot this month, and this time I wanted to answer a simple question: does putting more thought into your prompt actually make a difference, or is it all a bit of a lottery? Starting simple I opened Copilot in PowerPoint desktop and hovered over the Copilot icon, which… Read more: A Simple Framework for Better Copilot Prompts - Moving From Corporate to Self-Employed: How to Set Up Your Tech Step by Step
TLDR: Moving from corporate to self-employed doesn’t mean starting your tech setup from scratch. It means being deliberate: keep what works, drop what doesn’t, and learn properly the bits you never had to before. Get this right early and the admin side of self-employment stops feeling like a second job. If you’re moving from corporate… Read more: Moving From Corporate to Self-Employed: How to Set Up Your Tech Step by Step - Copilot for Presentations: Same Prompt, Two Results
I’ve been having a proper play with Copilot for presentations lately, trying to work out whether it can genuinely save small business owners time when building a deck. Short answer: it depends. Longer answer: it depends on where you open it, and even then, results can shift from one day to the next. Why I… Read more: Copilot for Presentations: Same Prompt, Two Results - Word Dictation: A Faster Way to Write
If typing isn’t your favourite part of running a business, I have some good news. The Word dictation feature has been quietly getting better for years, and it’s now useful for everyday work. Instead of typing out your next email or document, you simply talk, and Word turns it into text. I’ll be honest with… Read more: Word Dictation: A Faster Way to Write