IBM recently released the results of a survey of 25k U.S. adults that attempted to measure changes in behavior and preferences caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. Among the many factors surveyed, two shifts in behavior and preference may have a significant impact on what our future workplace looks like, especially the downtown towers of glass and steel many call their office. As you might have guessed, a large percentage of the respondents indicated that would like their employer to continue to offer a work from home option upon return to normal operations, and over half said they would like to continue telecommuting as their primary way of working. As an interesting corollary, 20% of the respondents that used public transportation said they were likely to discontinue use of buses, trains and subways, and nearly 30% said they will likely use public transportation less. This may not seem significant in cities like LA, but when considering financial hubs like New York for whom private transportation just isn’t practical, how will these people get to work? My guess is they are planning on not having to commute at all (or much less frequently).

People prefer 10-foot commutes. Who knew?

Obviously, working from home isn’t an option for some professions and industries, but for a large majority of our clients, not only are they able to get the job done from just about anywhere, they are doing it just as well, if not better from the comfort of their home office. Clearly, the technology that enables us to work productively from home (or anywhere) exists and our infrastructure seems to be holding up (so far), so what each business needs to determine is what we stand to gain and lose by changing where we work, and whether or not their organization is ready, both technically and culturally, for this change. Here are some things to consider:

1. Are you equipped for longer-term, highly-secure remote access? Many of our clients had some of this infrastructure already built (though not sufficiently sized to take the whole company remote!), but just as many had to scramble to get there with less-than-elegant solutions. If you are considering making remote workers a permanent part of your workforce, do you have the proper technology in place? If not, what would the cost be, and could it be offset by savings in real estate expense?
2. Do you need to update your company policies and procedures to account for a remote workforce? There are more than a dozen pitfalls in this area that we have all been tacitly ignoring in order to abide by the lockdown, but once the danger has passed, they will have to be addressed if you plan on making telecommuting a permanent part of your organization. Here are just a few examples: workers are using personal property to handle company data. Who’s making sure those computers and mobile devices are safe? Who should be paying the internet bill? What happens if my personal computer breaks while it is being used for work duty? Who pays for repairs? Do you have metrics in place to measure everyone’s productivity? Are they truly just as (if not more) productive working remotely?
3. Should telecommuting still be considered a perk or a new workplace standard? A ton of people are getting a taste of what it’s like to work from home, and while plenty of you would probably be a lot more productive if you also didn’t have kids and/or spouses complicating things, not having to drive (or ride) to work everyday benefits just about everyone and the environment at the same time. It even benefits everyone that still has to commute because their job requires it. Culturally, I still think we’re a bit far from seeing it as a standard workplace expectation, but given the benefits to the climate alone, how can we go back?

Image by thedarknut from Pixabay

One of the unfortunate side-effects of working from home is a tendency to let down your guard, which is only natural even for hardened telecommuters and virtual business operators like yours truly. Heck, some of you aren’t even putting on pants before starting your day, and if you are (relatively) new to working from home, initially there is something deliciously subversive attending a conference call in sweats and slippers. But as I’m sure all of you have now come to realize, that particular shine wears off real quick, almost to the point where putting on “real clothes” seems like an infringement on your Pandemic-given rights. Being some place other than home – that fabled place called “Work” – allows our brains to put on its business suit and gives us an edge in guarding against internet hijacks and hi-jinx. Now that you are working from home, and hopefully comfortable doing so, your brains are slouching around in pajama bottoms, and the hackers know this.

Don’t drop your guard!

Though it may feel different, the email approaches that hackers are using in an attempt to fool you into giving up your money, passwords or data are the same tried and true methods they’ve been using for years, some with a little more sophistication than others, but there are still plenty of ways to spot the fake emails.

1. Make use of spam and malware filters. If your email service does not have this built in, you need to move to a new provider. Even the free-mail providers like Yahoo and AOL have basic filtering in place, and some providers like Google and Microsoft, have excellent filtering even on their free accounts. If email ends up in your “junk” folder, it’s probably there for good reason.
2. Roll over (don’t click) links first! Outlook and just about every email client (application or web-based) has the capability to show you where a link is heading without having to actually click it. Roll your mouse cursor over the link – DON’T CLICK – and a pop-up with the actual hyperlink should appear (if there is one). You may be surprised to see that it isn’t the same as what is actually spelled out in the email. You can preview links on a phone by pressing and holding a link, but if you are fat-fingered like me, this may result in clicking through, so I DO NOT recommend trying to preview links on a phone unless you have no other recourse.
3. Pay attention to the sender’s email address. Microsoft, Google or Yahoo is not going to send you an account closure warning from some random domain ending in “.co.uk” nor are you going to get bank account warnings from an address ending in “banksecurity.me”. Don’t let the alarming subject distract you from the glaringly obvious clues. If it looks at all fishy, err on the side of caution and call someone.
4. Sometimes the sender’s address is real, but the email is fake. Unfortunately, the one that seems to trick people the most are the ones sent from compromised email addresses. Hackers get someone’s email password (either via phishing email, dark web or easily guessed combos), and rather than changing it, they covertly take over the account and use it to trick everyone on that person’s contact list. Devious and very effective. If you get an email from someone that immediately leads to a password request, stop and back away from the keyboard. It could be a phishing trap. Pick up the phone and confirm that the email was legitimate.
5. The government does not accept bitcoin. If you get an email from a government agency asking you to pay via Bitcoin for a fee, citation, back taxes, etc. it is not a legitimate request. Neither the FBI nor the IRS will contact you via email to ask you for payment via Bitcoin or gift cards or wire transfer.
6. Your friends and family aren’t going to ask via email for gift cards to help them financially. This is a commonly used (and relatively successful) tactic by hackers that have compromised an email account. Always call (ignore that the email says to not call or that they lost their phone or any other reason provided) to confirm that they sent the email. Ninety-nine times out of 100 it is not a legitimate request.
7. Know your vendors and service providers. If you get an email from Chase Bank warning you that your account is compromised, but you don’t bank with them, that’s a bit obvious, but just received a voicemail? Make sure it’s from YOUR phone provider, and not an fake email. Just got an efax? Do you even subscribe to an efax service? Maybe not legitimate. When in doubt call, if there is a phone number available, and if not, check if you can log into the service by going to it WITHOUT using a link provided in an email. You should have your critical service providers (Internet, Email, Cell Phone, Banks, etc) memorized, and if your brain is a bit too crowded for that, have it written down with a list of account numbers (partials just to be safe) and contact numbers or website addresses. If you have elderly relatives, make a list for them and have them tape it up somewhere prominently near the computer.

Image by thedarknut from Pixabay

Many of you can now call yourselves veteran telecommuters, and hopefully you’ve done it without incurring substantial damage to your health or family situation. While residential networks have held up surprisingly well, we have definitely seen the strain during the new internet rush-hour which starts roughly when the kids finish up classes mid-afternoon, and lasts well into the late evening as families stream and game and socialize. We’ve also seen plenty of clients hit the limits of patience with their home technology including the various trials and tribulations Microsoft continues to put us through with Windows 10. Plenty of you have presented us with some real humdingers that definitely require an experienced technical eye, but we’ve twice that in issues that could be solved with a return to basics.

Things to try while waiting for IT to return your call

• Did you try turning it off and back on?
  This may sound sarcastic, but all of us were spoiled by the stability of Windows 7. In the last half of its life, that OS was an absolute ROCK of stability. Many of us could go weeks without rebooting, but this is NOT the case with Windows 10, especially if you are running it on a machine that was built for Windows 7. Try rebooting.
• Check your connections.
  Stuff comes loose or unplugged, especially in home offices where cabling and device placement is a cross between Cirque du Soleil and MacGuyver. Notorious culprits include half-out HDMI cables and Ethernet cables with broken tabs. Also, USB ports can get worn out with repeated use, so try switching ports (if you have others) or replacing cables that look worn out.
• Reboot your router/extender/modem.
  If everyone in the house is having internet issues ranging from slowness, intermittent connections or straight-up no internet, try rebooting the primary internet device in your house. Not sure which one that is? Take a picture and ask your friendly IT guy, or give your internet provider a call. You know who that is, right? If it’s just Wifi and you use a mesh system or extenders, try rebooting those (see the first tip).
• Check for updates.
  Unlike its hallowed predecessor, Windows 10 needs to be updated regularly. The longer you go without updating, the more problems will crop up. The same goes for many other devices in your household, including things like streaming boxes, smart TVs, doorbells, security cameras, tablets, the list is endless. If you are having trouble with something, check to see if there is an update for it.
• Take a picture of the problem.
  With the more transient issues, a picture is worth a thousand words attempting to describe a problem for which you have no frame of reference. It’s likely we’ve seen it before and can maybe solve the problem faster, and if not, we’ll add it to our scrapbook of crazy things that happened to our clients’ technology.
• Google it, but tread carefully.
  In case you didn’t know, Google is IT’s best friend. It can be yours too, BUT know that bad advice is just as prevalent as good advice. If the fix makes you cross-eyed or sounds at all risky, leave the fixing to us. Our Google-fu is strong, but we always get a kick when a client shares something relevant they found via their own Google search.
• Try a different way to do it.
  Primary application of this principle? The website that won’t load. Try a different browser. Microphone not working? Try pairing your Bluetooth headset to your computer. Printer not working? Try printing from a different computer (or smart phone).
• Seriously. Did you try turning it off and back on?

We’re not expecting you to become IT black belts overnight, or even over the course of six weeks or six months, but you should know that IT guys truly appreciate it when they know their clients gave it the old college try. Who knows, you might actually solve the issue, and then you can proudly say the six words we like hearing the most, “Never mind, I fixed it myself.”

Top image by thedarknut from Pixabay

Hopefully by now you’ve gotten your “home office legs” and have settled into a semblance of normalcy. If you’ve not worked from home before on a regular basis, you probably had to gin up some quick fixes and stop-gap solutions early on into this creeping crisis, but now that we are a month in, some of those hacks are probably not holding up. Like last week, I’ll be recommending products with Amazon links but I do not receive any sort of compensation or consideration for recommending these products.

Workarounds for Home Office Challenges

Reminder: If you use Amazon, please take a moment to let them know they need to treat their workers better.

• Need a better webcam? The popular webcams are still sold out everywhere so if you need something quickly, you might be able to use an “action cam” like a GoPro or Akaso plugged directly into your PC as a decent substitute. Keep in mind not all models have this capability; older models may require some extra software or firmware to work as a webcam. I’m using an Akaso EK7000 as my current webcam with a desk-mounted clamp and arm to position it. Bonus – it can be used as an action cam once normality resumes!
• Using your phone as your videoconferencing device? If you are solving the webcam issue by using your smart phone, you can position it better using an adjustable arm. It’s also great for keeping your phone handy, even when not being used as camera. If the arm is too bulky, you clip it to the top of your monitor (if it’s thin enough) with a clamp like this. Make sure you check the thickness of your monitor, and if it doesn’t have a bezel, know that the clip may obscure part of your screen or even damage the screen. Pad accordingly!
• WiFi signal not great? You can hard-wire your home office workstation without running cable by using Ethernet over AC devices like this one. Install is pretty easy, but keep in mind that electrical wiring in older and/or larger (+2500 sq/ft) houses may not be well suited to this use, depending on where the two endpoints are installed. With these types of devices, the higher-priced models equal better performance, so budget accordingly, and make sure you keep your receipts in case you have to return them.
• Where’s the dang charger? In our house, we have at least a dozen mobile devices, and never enough USB chargers. I fixed this by setting everyone up with magnetic cables. This way, the cables work for all devices, and with some strategically placed chargers and cables, everyone can be sure there is something nearby that they can use. Keep in mind that these are for charging only – they do not transmit data. The little magnetic bits will usually fit most devices, including things like Bluetooth headphones, but may not work with some cases or unusually placed USB ports.
• Videoconferencing background NSFW? A lot of us have set up to work in areas of our home that can create less-than-professional moments for videoconferencing. While I don’t have a gadget for creating a private office for you in your home, you can use a pop-up, chair-mounted screen to keep your background safe for work. A rolling garment rack and sheet will also work great, and can be set up and broken down quickly for repeated use. Bonus – it can be pressed into regular laundry-day usage when not helping you with your internet close-ups!

Image by thedarknut from Pixabay

With the governor declaring essentially a state-wide shutdown of traditional workspaces, almost all of you are transitioning to some form of remote operations, up to a full shutdown of your physical office spaces and sending all of your employees home to work. While I consider myself a work-at-home veteran – this will be my eighth year running C2 from a home office – I can definitely say two things: firstly, none of us in IT have ever seen anything like this (though I did write a plan for EY during the SARS epidemic), and secondly, the IT world is mostly ready for this, technology-wise. But that doesn’t mean everyone else was ready for the Tele-pocalypse.

Many of you will be working from home, long-term, for the first time in your professional lives.

Whether you are a principal, manager or staff, everyone will be facing many of the same challenges:

1. Residential internet is not business-class internet. Some of you may not have broadband because you’ve never really needed it. Even if you have broadband, it’s shared with everyone in your neighborhood, all working, attending classes, or just trying to enjoy a little entertainment. This may result in poor VPN connectivity, spotty VOIP phone calls, unreliable remote access connections, and general internet slowness. I know the ISP’s are trying to address this, but I’m not sure how much urgency they are putting into their effort, at least at the leadership levels. If you’ve been relying on DSL or your phone’s hotspot, it’s time to check to see if broadband is available. Get at least 25MB down and 5MB up per person in the house hold.
2. Residential-class WiFi may not be reliable enough for your work. Judging by how many calls I received even before the Tele-pocalypse hit, most residential WiFi is weak and unreliable. This will be bad now with the increased traffic, and possibly may get even worse if you live in high-density buildings like apartments. WiFi signals don’t abide walls, and if your neighbor decides to put in a high-powered WiFi router or mesh system, it could step all over your weaker Wifi, changing your normally reliable wireless network into a troubleshooter’s nightmare. If WiFi is your only option, try to sit closer to the router, or if you can, get wired with an Ethernet cable.
3. Most of you don’t have good monitors or computers at home. Currently there is a bit of supply-chain issue inhibiting everyone from gearing up with quality technology, mostly due to the rush on store shelves of people anticipating the Tele-pocalypse, but also due to a long-standing tariff battle with China, the largest supplier of technology to the United States. Also, you may have no idea if what is available is what you actually need. If you are shopping, get a 24″ monitor (maybe 2 if you are used to using dual-screens), a comfortable, ergo-correct chair, a wireless keyboard and mouse, and a computer in the $400-600 range at minimum. Refurbs are OK as long as you get a warranty and it was made in the last 4 years. Don’t go any older.
4. Using a home PC to remote into your office computer is disorienting if you’ve never done it before. It will take some time to acclimate, and whether you wanted to or not, you’ve now doubled the potential for technology issues, malware infections and what I affectionately call “general tech orneriness”. Stuff is going to stop working, or start behaving strangely, and it will slow you down. A coworker is not likely to be nearby to give you a hand, and IT may not call for several hours. You’ll get more comfortable as time goes on and you get familiar with remote technology quirks. IT will stamp out the big bugs. It may never get back to the old normal, but it will get better.

Image by thedarknut from Pixabay

As many of you might have guessed, C2 is drinking from a proverbial fire hose this week, and I know for a fact that just about all of my clients are worried about how this will impact their organizations. It’s still too early for me to have any real insights on how this pandemic will transform workplace technology, but you can be sure none of us will emerge unchanged.

What I’ve seen so far:

It’s quite apparent that our national data networks are going to be severely challenged by a widespread shifting of work load away from business districts. A great many of us are served by shared broadband architecture built around suburban grids and population densities from the 1990’s which haven’t been substantially upgraded since they were first built. Residential broadband was designed around raw download speeds and comparatively anemic upload speeds, which is perfect for Netflix and YouTube, but not as great for neighborhoods full of business folks trying to upload gigabytes of data and host videoconferences, on top of kids attending online classes. I’m certain no one thought what is happening now would ever happen on their data networks.

One positive thing I see this week is a lot of very conservative work environments being forced to consider the fact that their operations don’t necessarily require everyone cramming into a big box of glass and steel for 10 hours a day. Unfortunately, that change is going to come with a lot of pain, especially for companies that have relied on older infrastructure and put off upgrades for a rainy day, only to have to deal with trying to purchase and install technology during a national emergency. Not impossible (yet), but this like switching your business “difficulty setting” to “high”.

Last observation for this week: we’re already seeing a HUGE spike in phishing emails exploiting everyone’s insatiable appetite for information on the pandemic. Please exercise caution on every email, just as before. Don’t open attachments, don’t click links, and for goodness sake, if an attachment asks for you to log in to view it, stop, back away from the keyboard, and…go wash your hands. And delete that email.

Stay safe.

Image by thedarknut from Pixabay 

Aside from a huge spike in personal hygiene, if there is any other glimmer of a silver lining from the Corona Virus pandemic, one of them is assuredly that a lot of employers are going to need to re-evaluate their telecommuting stances. After working for more than 20 years in corporate offices, some of which had reasonably flexible telecommuting policies, I have now been running C2 from the comfort and convenience of our home for over eight years and I can honestly say I don’t miss working in corporate office at all. That being said, jumping straight into becoming a full-time telecommuter is not just a matter of grabbing your laptop and making a bee-line for home.

It can’t be that hard, can it?

1. I.T? You’re it! Sadly, unless you happen to live with an tech-savvy family member you’ll likely be the hands-on technician when things go wrong. As companies spread out, that lone office technician is going to be spending more time in the car and less time helping you, if corporate even lets them service home offices, and most can’t/won’t for a variety of reasons. You can be sure in a quarantine situation no one is going to be making house calls. Being a telecommuter means you will have to become familiar with and responsible for a lot of technology that you never had to worry about previously.
2. Is your home internet up to snuff? While broadband has largely become readily available and mostly affordable in larger metropolitan areas, I still encounter plenty of residential neighborhoods, even here in Los Angeles, where the internet provider choices are slim, slow and expensive. Before you raise your hand to work from home, make sure your internet can handle it.
3. Do you have space for an office? Just because you don’t have your own office at corporate doesn’t mean you can work long term at the dining room table at home. Even if you live alone you should try to keep your work and home environments separate for many reasons: noise, privacy, organization, and most of all, work-life balance. Make sure it’s close to the router if you can manage it, because…
4. WiFi may not be enough. Though it probably works great for enjoying music or movies around the house, home WiFi is often sub-par compared to the reliability of office networks, especially if you’ll be using a VPN or a VOIP phone, or participating in video-conference calls. At minimum, you’ll want to be as close as possible to your WiFi router to guarantee a strong, reliable signal or even a direct Ethernet connection to eliminate the unpredictable nature of WiFi altogether.
5. You’re going to need a better chair. Having been in numerous home offices, I can confidently say that most of you do not have the same quality office furniture as even the most humbly outfitted company office. That dining room chair with the worn-out seat cushion will put you in traction quicker than a car accident, especially if it’s paired with a makeshift desk built for a middle-schooler. I’m looking at you, Ikea. Pay attention to ergonomics – a sofa built for Netflix watching is going to wreck your back if you spend eight hours (or more) a day working from it.
6. Is corporate actually ready to go virtual? Even if you check all the boxes off on this list, your company may not actually be ready to go virtual, especially if they are being forced into it. Deploying a large chunk of your workforce into the field requires some planning and investment into proper infrastructure and training, both for the workers, staff IT and the leadership of the company. Don’t be surprised if everything doesn’t work like it used to when you were all in the same building. If your company has only dabbled in telecommuting, going full virtual and staying at 100% productivity isn’t something that happens overnight, even for the most nimble

Image by LEEROY Agency from Pixabay 

In case you haven’t already seen what Deepfakes are all about, here’s a relatively harmless and entertaining demonstration of what our dark future holds:

The deepfake technology first surfaced in 2017 and even at the time of its first appearance, nearly every pundit paying even minuscule amounts of attention predicted they would have significant political ramifications. Late last year, sophisticated deepfake videos made enough of an impact that legislators and business leaders both called for regulation of the technology.

Deepfake Videos Deployed in Indian Election Campaigns

Though it wasn’t the first politically motivated deepfake video, India has the dubious distinction of being one of the first countries to see a series of deepfake videos distributed by a political party as part of their official campaign. The videos, which feature the opposition party BJP president fluently criticizing the incumbent government in multiple languages he does not speak, went viral on WhatsApp, reaching as many as 15 million people. While party officials and the communications firm behind the videos describes them as “positive campaigns,” watchdogs and fact-checkers are alarmed to the point of dubbing it a growing crisis.

As we approach our own 2020 elections and the battle over “fake news” and “alternate facts” become pivotal to voters, it has become painfully obvious why everyone is raising red flags on this issue. Skillful and almost imperceptible image and audio manipulation have been around for decades now. Coupled with the lightning spread of information the internet provides, spreading fakes has become so commonplace that every picture and recording is doubted as a matter of course, leaving the average human with very unsure footing. Once video is undermined as a reliable record, we are literally left with only trusting what we see and experience in person, making our global worldview tragically smaller and provincial, which is the exact opposite of what technology was supposed to do in the first place.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay