Text Box: The FUZE Newsletter

Text Box: Humour Break

Text Box: Gas Service Two gas company servicemen, a senior training supervisor and a young trainee, were out checking meters in a suburban neighbourhood. They parked their truck at the end of the alley and worked their way to the other end. At the last house a woman looking out her kitchen window watched the two men as they checked her gas meter. Finishing the meter check, the senior supervisor challenged his younger co-worker to a foot race down the alley back to the truck to prove that an older guy could outrun a younger one. As they came running up to the truck, they realized the lady from that last house was huffing and puffing right behind them. They stopped and asked her what was wrong. Gasping for breath, she replied, "When I see two gas men running as hard as you two were, I figured I'd better run too!" Text Box: Questions, comments or feedback? Email us or call us at 204-284-9800 or 403-621-1025 You are receiving this email from Static Interactive Services Inc. because you are in our database as a contact or you have subscribed to our newsletter. To ensure that you continue to receive emails from us, add enews@staticinteractive.com to your address book today. To no longer receive our emails, click unsubscribe. Feel free to pass this email around to friends and colleagues who can benefit from it – if you are receiving this email from someone else and would like click subscribe to receive information from us regularly.

Text Box: Do you have a virus on your computer? Last issue we highlighted some signs your computer is infected, here are a few more to watch for: · You’re directed to sites you didn't intend to visit, or your search results are coming back funky. · Unexpected messages or images are suddenly displayed. · Unusual sounds or music starts playing at random. The sooner you look after a virus on your machine the better. Contact us if you need help.     Text Box:   FEATURE ARTICLE—TECHNOLOGY

Text Box: grounding operations. igniting opportunity.

Text Box: The FUZE is now available online… To view past issues or the most current issue check out the Static website or click here. Text Box:   It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste time. ~Henry Ford     Text Box: Quote of the Month

Text Box: SurfStation Kiosks Enhance Services

Text Box: Did you know that we manufacture and sell Internet Kiosks? About five years ago we started a sister company called SurfStation Interactive Kiosks. Initially we thought the kiosks would be perfect for transforming any location into an ‘Internet Café’ of sorts and we did just that - gas stations, a restaurant, laundry mat and even an arena were all outfitted with their very own pay-per-use Internet kiosks. Users could drop in their coins and surf or shop online, check and send email, even send video email using the built in webcams. When not in use we had advertising rotate to communicate messages about the location they resided in or to promote complimentary products and services to the user.   Since then, SurfStation has evolved into a vehicle for providing self-serve options. They are currently being used to: · post job listings, · provide current information after office hours, · provide after hours pay-per-print services and more. Their use is only limited by the imagination—if you’re computer can do it SurfStation can too. To discuss how a SurfStation kiosk can benefit your organization contact us, we can help. Or, check us out online at: www.staticinteractive.com/web_surfstation.htm      

Text Box: TIP OF THE DAY Text Box:    In the NEWZ... Text Box: How Much Downtime Can You Afford?          

Text Box:   Unlike at home your business relies on the Internet, email, accounting applications and number of other e-services to run efficiently. I recommend putting a price on these vital e-services to give yourself a framework for the cost of downtime. The answers will help you with purchasing decisions, staffing and communication tactics. The Formula So how do you put a price on downtime? It’s best to start with complete downtime. Complete downtime is when a power outage strikes your business resulting in everyone sitting around in the dark and unable to use any of their business tools. Here’s the formula I typically use, it’s not 100% accurate but it is definitely a good ballpark.  1. Take your gross sales for any given period, I prefer yearly but average monthly will suffice.  2. Now take that value down to the minute. For example, you have a million dollars in gross yearly sales which would work out to roughly $1.90 per minute considering there are 525,600 minutes in a standard year.  3. Next think about the number of people that work in your office to generate those million dollars of sales each year and the operating costs associated. Let’s say the operating cost is 70% of gross sales. We can estimate on your million dollars $1.33/minute is your operating cost to make your gross yearly sales. 4. Adding gross sales ($1.90) + operating costs ($1.33) gives a ballpark cost of downtime at $3.23 per minute.  But, what if only Internet is down or email? Similar to calculating total down time you can calculate partial downtime. Determine the percentage your business relies on each e-service. For instance, if your company is a financial company and relies on the web to get quotes from various lending and mutual agencies then you may place a larger value on Internet services. Only you can determine the percent each service benefits your business. The key is that you have a number in your mind and know what your tolerance is to an outage in any area.  Beware of Hidden Costs A dollar amount makes it real, but doesn’t cover all costs. You also have to consider what effect downtime has on your customers. Just because you had a truck run in to your local power station doesn’t mean that your customers are sitting in the dark. So when that potential customer phones and gets no answer or your website is down when they go to view it you don’t really know what it’s costing you in the long run. There is also the cost of resolution which is more difficult to determine.  It may just be that you have to wait for the power company to come and rectify the issue or it may be that the power blew in your building and you need an electrician to fix the issue. The electrician will have an hourly rate and so will your technology advisor. We have just determined that if this particular million dollar company had one hour of downtime it roughly costs the company $193.00. There are many products/solutions available to help mitigate the risk of downtime. Knowing your tolerance to downtime will help you determine what you’re willing to invest. For more information or to discuss your needs contact us, we can help.   Article Courtesy of Brad Wirth    

Text Box: Volume 3, Issue 4, July 16, 2009

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