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Friday Donut tip: be careful what you share

July 20, 2012 by Imanuel Votteler

Zippy{{}}

Learn when to keep it zipped. (Image: Flickr user stev.ie)

The power and usefulness of social media has been demonstrated time and time again. In 2012, your business needs a good reason not to start tweeting or getting friendly on Facebook.

But social media makes it easy to share too much. From what you had for breakfast to edgy jokes, some things are best kept to yourself. Just ask Charlie Sheen, who mistakenly tweeted his mobile phone number to about five million people.

We recently stumbled across the Need a debit card Twitter account, which retweets photos of people's debit cards in an effort to highlight the security risk of posting these details online. And it inspired us to come up with these four tips to keep your tweets safe:

  • Don't post images containing sensitive information. As well as your debit and credit cards, keep an eye out for screenshots containing private information, photos of letters and other documents, and private email addresses or telephone numbers.
  • Don't publicise holidays or absences. If your office is empty for the day because you've all gone on the annual outing, that's the ideal time for crooks to strike. And it really does happen - a small survey of criminals suggested Facebook and Twitter offer rich pickings.
  • Don't get into public arguments. Nobody ever wins online arguments. That was true before social media existed and it's true today. If you're involved in a discussion and it's getting out of hand, step away from the keyboard before the red mist descends. It's never pretty to see a professional company get embroiled in a petty online dispute.
  • Don't bash your competitors. It's undignified and it suggests you're seriously worried about the competition. You know that old saying, 'if you can't say something nice then don't say anything'? It definitely applies in this situation.

Finally, remember the golden rule of running your company's social media accounts. If you're not sure whether you should post something, it's usually best not to. There are plenty of other things you can share without risking anything.

Previous Friday tips:

Posted in The internet | Tagged twitter, tip, social media, friday tip, Facebook, Donut tip of the week | 0 comments

Friday Donut tip: four easy ways to stay focused while you work

June 15, 2012 by John McGarvey

Clocks - how do you use your time?{{}}

Do you use your time wisely? (Image: comedy_nose on Flickr)

This Friday's IT tip isn't a great shortcut or an essential way to stay secure. It consists of four simple ways to deal with all those distracting time-sinks that your computer makes so readily available. 

With new emails arriving frequently, tweets piling up, Facebook updates, instant messages and more, it can be hard to stay focused on the task at hand. You might kid yourself that by constantly jumping between different windows you're multitasking, but actually you're probably just being inefficient. Here are four strategies to help you cope:

  • Go full-screen. Many bits of software - including Microsoft Word and most web browsers - have a full-screen mode, which hides everything else on your computer. If you find yourself constantly refreshing your Twitter feed, going full-screen helps you to stay with the job at hand.
  • Record how your spend your time. The excellent RescueTime is a service that monitors exactly how you spend time on your computer. It'll show you how much time you waste on Twitter, or spend looking at distracting websites. And how much you spend on real work. Its results can really shame you into action!
  • Keep a clean desktop. As I type this, my computer's desktop is a mess of windows. I have ten web browser tabs open in two windows, several documents in the background and some other bits and pieces. Each is a potential distraction. So don't do what I do: get into the habit of closing everything you don't need.
  • Turn off new email notifications. If you're using Microsoft Outlook, its default setting is to pop up a little message every single time you get a new email. It's easy enough to switch these off, or you can just close Outlook altogether when you need to concentrate on something.

Does your productivity fall as you open more windows on your computer? How do you avoid distractions and stay focused on what's really important? Leave a comment and let us know.

Previous Friday Donut tips:

Posted in Business software | Tagged tip, software, friday tip, focused, distraction, Advice | 2 comments
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