Knowledge Transfer 2.0

Businesses and organizations can find themselves shackled to the technologies they rely on every day, whether those technologies come from Microsoft or Cisco or any other one-stop solutions provider. This episode of KT 2.0 Paul Hillman speaks with Joe Vandervest, PCG Campbell, to explore business collaboration using tools that leave flexibility and choices.

In this episode of KT 2.0, Paul Hillman talks with Dave DeYoung, the VP of and Chief Information Officer at JSJ Corporation, about when and why his team looks to outsource and when they look to keep things in house. JSJ Corporation is a privately held collection of growth companies that provide industry-leading durable goods and services to customers around the world. Several years ago, the company made the decision to centralize IT and telecommunications services as a way to improve service to its affiliate companies and reduce costs.

With the release of Microsoft's newest product line, Windows 8, Windows RT (Surface), and Windows Phone, users are curious what features and benefits each OS has to offer and how they work together as an integrated solution. In this episode of KT 2.o, Paul Hillman sits down with Jane Boulware, the VP of the US Windows Business at Microsoft, to get the inside scoop on this line of products, how they have been received, and where they are headed next.

Many IT leaders are facing a tough decision: Move to the cloud, or remain on-premise. It’s easy to see the cloud’s potential cost savings, but what’s it really like to live there? Is the transition as easy as they say it is? What about security and reliability? What do users think? Shape Corporation, a global leader in impact energy management systems in Grand Haven, Michigan, transitioned to cloud ERP in 2005 and moved to Microsoft Office 365 last year. Listen to hear what Shape has to say about its decision to move to the cloud, what it’s like living there, and what it’s learned in the process.

Last month, Microsoft held its Management Summit, where the brightest minds in IT met to talk about desktop and device management, datacenter, and cloud technologies. C/D/H sent three team members to attend the Las Vegas conference. In this podcast, we explore some of the major themes of the event, as well as the most exciting announcements and what they may mean, both for C/D/H and for our clients. Also in attendance was Adam Moneypenny, Chief Information Officer at Rehmann, and our guest for this edition of Knowledge Transfer 2.0.

Most companies are familiar with SharePoint, Microsoft's enterprise platform, but some don't think of it as a web development platform. In this podcast, Paul Hillman sits down with Amy Moore, a consultant and SharePoint architect with C/D/H, to discuss SharePoint's robust web development capabilities. Listen to hear the advantages and disadvantages of using SharePoint for the web, cost and licensing considerations, current users, and more!

C/D/H, the largest SharePoint consulting firm in Michigan, sent eight consultants to the Microsoft SharePoint Conference in Anaheim, California earlier this month. Because we believe SharePoint is a critical collaborative technology for our clients, we want to learn as much as we can to help you get the most out of your SharePoint investment. In this podcast, Paul Hillman sits down with Mark Becker, a partner and the director of client services at C/D/H, fresh off the plane from Anaheim, to discuss the conference, its highlights, next steps, why C/D/H attended and more. You don’t want to miss this show!

We have the ability to capture data that affects business, whether it's inventory, point-of-sale, sales and marketing numbers, financials, etc. But how do we pull that information together into something meaningful? Use business intelligence. Find out more about BI - what it is, when you need it, and what it will do for you - on KT 2.0. This month, Paul Hillman discusses business intelligence with Doug Brower, the C/D/H collaboration service area lead and Matt Mace, president of Kalamazoo-based BlueGranite, a firm specializing in business intelligence solutions. Doug and Matt share insights on Business Intelligence, how these systems can help companies, and how an enterprise knows when they are ready to make the leap to BI.

Technology advances and changes rapidly, but in reality, companies and educational organizations cannot always purchase the latest and greatest. And in today's economy, organizations are cautious about spending. So how do you decipher the technology must-haves for organizations that have to watch their wallets? Paul Hillman discusses how to balance technology wishes and budget realities with Kevin O'Halla, Grand Rapids Community College's Chief Information Officer.

The iPad is one of today's hottest devices. Many consumers and companies are already using this handy, non-intrusive tablet to help store and deliver corporate information - and it’s paying off! So, how do you successfully integrate the iPad into your business environment? Click below and find out how Mike Behrenbrinker and Peckham Industries, a Lansing-based nonprofit organization that provides job training and competitive employment opportunities for people with disabilities, are making iPads work at work!

Information Technology sometimes can be seen as gadgets and electronics, but it is much more than that. Information Technology from a broader perspective is the driver of innovation, solving problems and allowing us to create and produce more efficiently, and in ways never before imagined. Listen as Paul Hillman speaks with Phil Go, the first CIO of Barton Malow, about the Value of IT, and how companies can realize the return on the investment they make in staying on the cutting edge.

Blackberry and Windows have enterprise servers that allow organizations to secure data on smartphones used for business. According to some cell phone retail store managers, about 50 percent of the smartphones being purchased for business use are "open source" phones, such as the Android. These open source phones offer the user less restrictions on apps, for example, and have some additional functionality that other phones may not have, which tends to make the phones more appealing to users. But once someone purchases these open source phones, such as a Droid, Samsung, Motorola, etc., the task of integrating the phone into the business is left up to IT managers or consultants, such as C/D/H. Paul Hillman speaks with Jason Cooper, a consultant at C/D/H, about integrating open source smartphones into communication platforms for businesses.

Most people understand technology's role in the business world. People use computers every day for commerce, communication and marketing. But what about biological scientists? These lab-coat clad researchers expect more from their systems, have great data computational needs and need to analyze their research in a way that can lead to medical breakthroughs. Biology meets information technology at the Van Andel Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Bryon Campbell, Van Andel Institute's CIO, and Paul Hillman discuss what goes on at VAI, how scientists use technology to analyze their research and what projects are currently underway on Health Hill.

In these days of cost-cutting and keeping up with the latest technology, some companies and educational institutions have begun a migration away from internally supported e-mail and application systems to web-based solutions, such as Google Apps. This eliminates the need for patches, system updates and bringing e-mails through internal servers, but it also relinquishes the control and robust user interface features many of us have become accustomed to. Businesses seem to be making this shift, but what are the actual pros and cons of outsourcing all apps to Cyberspace? Click below as Paul Hillman finds out how things are going with Brian Miller, Chief Information Officer and Vice President of Information Technology Services at Davenport University. Davenport University's students have been using Google Apps successfully for two years, and Brian and his team are in the middle of planning the migration of all faculty and staff from GroupWise e-mail to Google Apps for e-mail, calendar and collaboration.

2009 saw several advances in technology. C/D/H's service area leads in collaboration and infrastructure join Paul to discuss which changes are going to stick, and which we'll have forgotten about by this time next year. Click below and find out more about Windows 7, Cloud Computing, SharePoint 2010 and Google.

In the highly romanticized culture that surrounds forensic science, it�s difficult to think about computer forensics or �digital forensics� without images of dimly lit CSI labs filled with computer chips and arbitrary blinking lights. No doubt there is some drama involved, but there are also some very important realities that business owners and managers need to think about in terms of what really is contained on all of those company hard drives.

C/D/H partners Paul Hillman, Mark Becker and Doug Lindhout recently attended Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans. At the event Microsoft laid out the company's plans for key new products and provided a larger vision for the future of Microsoft computing.

Identity management is a complex and increasingly important issue in information technology. Identity management, or IDM, is a broad term that can refer to anything from assigning user identities and identity security, to network protocols and digital certificates. With such a broad issue comes a broad set of perspectives on how to approach it.

As the communications tree at many companies opens up to include VPN, email, web conferencing, online collaboration and others, users are finding themselves with bits of important information scattered all across this range of channels. The great challenge-and great benefit-of unified communications is to integrate all of these information sources into a manageable equation. Companies are approaching this challenge with creativity and vision, and the results are winning over converts to unified communications every day.

Paul Hillman talks with Doug Brady, Chief Information Officer for Plante & Moran, one of the nation's leading certified public accounting and business consulting firms. The technology area at Plante & Moran is responsible for providing bullet-proof information resources for thousands of client services professionals around the world. In addition, IT and Plante & Moran is also expected to be an agent of change within the firm by bringing a higher level of innovation through the services they provide.