The Datamax Thinking Blog

Educating, collaborating, and sparking ideas for maximizing the technology that matters.


Lessons from the Big Bend: Achieve Balance in Your Cybersecurity Approach

The risks associated with traveling the vast cybersecurity landscape unprepared? It’s bound to be overwhelming. Achieving balance is essential. 

Traversing a national park bigger than the state of Rhode Island? It can be awe-inspiring, if not a bit overwhelming.

Rugged yet beautiful landscapes greeted us everywhere we turned, including, notably, Balanced Rock in Big Bend National Park. The trail leading to to the rock formation was filled with scarce,  dusty desert floor surrounded by piles of boulders; the path was difficult to follow if you weren’t paying attention. But the rewards are worth the careful navigation – a huge boulder balanced and suspended overhead by two others, but also, just underneath it, a beautifully framed window into the distant mountains.

Topics: Information Technology Managed Network Services IT Consulting Cybersecurity

Swing Your Sword: 6 Strategies for Crafting a Razor Sharp IT Business Continuity Plan

The ability to act swiftly, act confidently and swing your sword with great technique and without hesitation rests on your pre-crafted, pre-tested game plan.

Mike Leach, arguably the most notable innovator in college football’s Air Raid Attack, developed a popular mantra for his team in 2003: “Swing Your Sword.”

It was after a loss where his defense looked timid, his team confused and unprepared.

Topics: Network Management Technology Support Cloud IT Consulting Business Continuity Network Security Cybersecurity

3 Reasons We're 'Sky High' on the Océ Colorado Wide Format Printer

In a diversifying market, printers need the flexibility to let their imaginations run wild. With this series, there are seemingly no limits – indoors or outdoors.

Headlining Colorado’s majestic landscape is the 58 peaks that exceed 14,000 feet – the 14ers. Nothing competes with the sky-high views atop a 14er, the widely-stretched natural landscape beneath you … all for the taking.

Topics: Production Print Wide Format

4 Strategic Moves Arkansas Healthcare Organizations Should Consider Regarding HIPAA Compliance

2018 was a record breaking year for OCR enforcement of HIPAA fines and settlements.

When it comes to HIPAA violations, healthcare organizations for years have gone the way of the ostrich, burying their heads in the sand at the prospect of facing penalties from the Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

But if the last year proved one thing, it’s this: You can run, but continuing to hide is a potentially costly risk. 

Topics: Healthcare Solutions HIPAA Managed Compliance Services

5 Checkpoints that Any Managed IT Services Partner Should Clear

Before proceeding with a Managed IT partner, it's important to set up checkpoints that ultimately secure your return on technology investment.

In the process of securing a competitive business advantage, organizations are moving fast toward the growing trend of outsourcing.

It stands to reason. Finding a trusted team in any particular business function – be it finance, technology or other – gives companies the opportunity to reduce costs, focus more on core business goals and planning, and also benefit from the specific expertise of these professional service organizations.

Topics: Information Technology Managed Network Services Network Management

5 Stats that Prove the Communication Revolution has Reached the Workforce

It's an old, universal truth: effective communication is key to team and organizational success. Without adapting to more intuitive, better integrated communication and collaboration tools, organizations will continue to hit the same communication barriers again and again. 

There’s this joke about millennials. Give a millennial a smartphone and he’ll live for a day… any longer than that and he’ll become a mindless, soulless, social media zombie.

Yes, it’s an all-too-common dig — a boomer scoffing at the 20-something across the room with his face buried in his phone. But all jokes aside, the next generation of communication systems and devices is transforming the way we work. With millennials now making up the largest generation in the U.S. labor force, the definitions of both “workplace” and “workday” are becoming steadily more hazy.

Topics: Network Management Unified Communications VoIP Phone System

Authentication: A Significant Step in Your Winding Journey to Securing & Controlling Copier Output

Today's copier, of course, is much more than just a copier. But does your organization treat it with the same vigilance as other network devices?

Chinese philosopher Laozi once said “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Topics: Printing Security Print Management

6 Rules for Diving Deep Into Your Print Environment

Developing a vision, and implementing it with strategically-placed solutions, will guide your exploration deep into the depths of your entire fleet of devices, and can lead to exhilarating new discoveries...including a dramatically more breathable bottom line. 

“Plan your Dive. Dive Your Plan."

Descending steadily toward the ocean floor, entering the wilderness of the deep sea and the marine life that inhabits it can be exhilarating... life changing. Properly planning and executing your dive under a specific set of rules and checklists helps you maintain control over your equipment – and your environment. It ensures a successful dive.

Topics: Printing Document Security Print Management Managed Print Services

Is Your IT Security Strategy 'All-Inclusive?'

Businesses often throw money and technology at the problem: firewalls, content filters, encrypted data and email, antivirus and anti-malware tools. But a more all-inclusive approach covers much more ground than just hardware. 

The nerves are shot. The internal screams of frustration finally slipped out across the salesroom floor. You need a vacation. And visiting an all-inclusive resort provides the ultimate peace of mind.

Topics: Network Management Network Security

Get Employees On Board with Copier Fleet or IT Onboarding Process

In working with your partner, how successful is implementation of new technology? Is there a Change Management Methodology that gets every employee on board safely? Or just a train wreck? 

Woodrow Wilson once famously said, “if you want to make enemies, try to change something.”

Funny, but for IT managers or business owners implementing an MFP fleet or IT-related onboarding process, perhaps a little too close for comfort.

Topics: Business Problems Productivity Tips and Tools Network Management Partnering Print Management