A M Exclusive Blog

Greetings, fellow business leader! If you're reading this, I know you, like myself, have spent much time over the last month or so trying to procure a PPP loan for your business. Congrats on getting one! Now that the SBA has released a Forgiveness Loan Application, we can finally start projecting our total forgiveness with some confidence. I highly encourage you to start sooner than later, as it will provide you with the insight to make better decisions regarding how you are spending your funds.

If you lead a team, you already have experience navigating through uncertainty. But right now, there is so much more out of our control, leading to increased uncertainty. With increased uncertainty comes a greater potential for overwhelm. And when we are overwhelmed, we lose our ability to make sound decisions – which is key to keeping ourselves and our teams afloat.

Unfortunately, there are people out there that will try to kick you while you’re down.  Just because the world is in crisis with COVID-19, the hackers have not stopped, but are instead stepping up their game in attacking small businesses.

It is a great challenge to look at uncertainty in the eye and respond with love instead of fear, but if one does so, anything becomes possible.

The stories found below have helped bring perspective to the decisions I am facing now as a business owner, I hope that they can help you too.

STORY # 1: Excerpt from Reinventing Organizations, by Frederic Laloux

As we have found ourselves in these uncertain times, how we can best help our clients and our community is at the top of our minds. We are hoping & praying that this passes as soon as possible while keeping our eyes open for what we can learn. I was recently reminded of some truth spoken by Franklin D. Roosevelt which is reassuring still today – “we have nothing to fear but fear itself” – and it is what we will keep in mind going forward while following all the CDC recommended guidelines to limit the possible transmission of COVID-19.

Because we are a technology support company we fall within the 'essential business' classification and will remain open.  Visit www.amexclusive.com/covid-19 for current updates as to how we are providing services and what we are doing to protect our clients & employees.

Wishing you peace & calmness during this temporary 'storm'....

-  Jaclyn & The Team at A M Exclusive

This is a fast-growing trend among small and medium businesses in NYC that is only growing stronger due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak - this trend is drastically increasing productivity, cutting costs, creating happier employees, and driving more profit to the bottom line. Is it a new management style or marketing trend? No - it’s telecommuting, which is a $5 word for allowing your staff to work from home or while on the road.

Perhaps working from home isn’t something you have done in the past, but now due to the COVID-19 outbreak,  you are finding yourself required to do so and you need the technology to be as productive as possible.

As an HP Authorized Printer Service Provider and Managed Print Specialist covering the New York Metropolitan Area (NYC, Long Island, Northern New Jersey, Westchester, Southern Connecticut), we have put together a list of the HP LaserJet printer models we recommend for working from home.

In the past, as experts in repairing HP printers, we would answer the question of whether or not to update printer firmware as pretty much a hard “NO.”  The only reason we would recommend updating firmware was if the printer was not functioning the way you needed it to and you found out that the firmware update addressed that issue.  Updating printer firmware, like many things in the IT world, can be like opening a can of worms: you can unintentionally cause an issue that wasn’t happening already. (I’m sure all of you have, at one time or the other, experienced the pain caused by a Windows update!).

However, as you know, the IT world has changed, and due to the constant cyber security threats out there, what we recommend has evolved. In addition to considering updating printer firmware when it can resolve a known issue with a printer, we recommend that you also update this firmware whenever it addresses a known security vulnerability.

For example, here are some security vulnerabilities addressed by firmware updates that you may find lurking in your HP printer fleet:

Forbes.com recently published an article talking about new research exposing major vulnerabilities with office printers, where the author concludes “Those innocuous devices could be the easiest entry point for cyber attackers into small businesses, enterprises and government departments,” and encourages to “ask your support team when the last time all those printers were inventoried, checked and patched.”  Additionally, recently at DEF CON there was a session entitled, “Why You Should Fear Your Mundane Office Equipment,” that exposed additional vulnerabilities of printers across manufacturers.