Intrapreneurs are employees that have the ability to see beyond the task at hand. They see the big picture in correlation with the goals of the company and they’re inclined to come up with progressive ideas that will benefit the entire company, including your bottom line.

Tim Beerman, CTO at Ensono, provides CIO with a good profile of an intrapreneur that business owners will find valuable. “These are the employees who want to get their hands dirty and are often the first people to volunteer for a job. Intrapreneurs are not content with the status quo. They often see how things could be part of a bigger picture and come up with ideas to realize this new vision." With this description in mind, can you think of anybody in your office that has intrapreneural tendencies?

To assist you further with identifying intrapreneurs and understanding how valuable they can be for your company, consider the following:

• Intrapreneurs motivate those around them, challenging others with a fresh perspective and honest feedback.
• Intrapreneurs are loyal and always look for ways to instill positive change in their organization.
• Intrapreneurs have the drive and skills necessary to be successful outside of your business, yet they choose to stay and use their skills to grow your company.
• Intrapreneurs consistently challenge the current business model and invite disruption, motivated by wanting to see the company improve.
• Intrapreneurs have the ability to spot inefficiencies in the workplace and they’re willing to introduce unconventional ideas and take risks in order to resolve issues.

Identifying intrapreneurs should be easy enough; they’re motivated, loyal, and think outside the box. The challenge then for business owners is what to do with them? It may also be a challenge for business owners to embrace such an employee and their ideas, instead of feeling threatened if they come up with a way of doing something that’s better than the way it’s always been done.

How can you take intrapreneurs seriously in such a way that encourages them to step up and share their ideas? It’s crucial that you have communication channels in place that allow for this. Otherwise, the employee’s “intrapreneurial spirit” will be crushed, they’ll see no value in speaking up, and they’ll either put in the minimal effort required to perform their job or move on to another company that values their ideas. Or, worse yet, the ignored intrapreneur will find the motivation needed to become an entrepreneur and start a new company that grows to become a major competitor of yours. Yikes!

When it comes to making sure that intrapreneurs have their voices heard and their good ideas implemented, IT professionals can be of assistance. Beerman explains, "An intrapreneur might see inefficiencies within his or her company's workflow, but may not necessarily have the experience to fully develop a solution. The IT department can then act as a partner to find the right recommendation. When intrapreneurs and IT teams are communicating regularly, there are more windows of opportunity for collaboration. Innovation and collaboration will eventually become business as usual, once initial bridges are crossed."

Implementing this kind of collaboration between intrapreneurs and your IT department may require a major shift in your company culture. Although, seeing how intrapreneurs have the potential to bring some substantial ideas to the table, it’s a change that you can’t afford to put off. To get started with implementing communication solutions for your office that ensures ideas flow freely and everybody on your team has a voice, call the IT professionals at NSN Management today at 918-770-7400.

Consider these three factors when thinking about which cloud solution fits your business needs.

Who’s Hosting and Maintaining It?
Managing a cloud solution is no simple task, and unless your business is focused on technology, chances are that you don’t have the skills required to manage one. More than that, you certainly don’t have the time to do it, either, and your budget probably doesn’t allow for the hiring of an internal IT department. In cases like this, a cloud solution that’s hosted and maintained off-site by professional technicians is of great value.

Out of the three types of cloud solutions available to SMBs--public, private, and hybrid--your organization can make any of them work for hosting and maintenance. Public clouds are stored and hosted in an online space that’s managed by the provider. Private clouds, on the other hand, can be hosted either on-site on your own private network, or virtually in a secure data center. Hybrid clouds combine the best aspects of both types of cloud solutions to offer the convenience of public with the functionality of private.

How Much Flexibility Do You Need?
It’s natural for a business to grow over time. You’ll likely add more users and other types of technology in the near future, especially as your company becomes more successful and more clients are onboarded. This next factor is one that you’ll only be able to answer if you’ve put considerable effort into thinking about the future of your business. Where do you see yourself in the next five or ten years? Will your infrastructure be able to support change?

Thankfully, the cloud is a great tool that helps organizations adapt to changes in both the number of users and the type of devices accessing the data. No matter which cloud solution you get, you’ll have control over the numbers of users and the amount of storage you have. Just keep in mind that the public cloud will likely cost more as your needs expand, while a private cloud will require investment on your end if you manage your own cloud.

How Much Security Do You Want?
Security is one of the most important parts of running a business, especially when it comes to cloud-based storage. Since it’s located in a virtual environment, it’s easier for hackers to gain access to, and therefore must be protected by security solutions designed to prevent breaches before they occur. The problem, though, is that cloud solutions don’t all offer the same level of protection. How can you know which is right for you?

Depending on the cloud solution, you’ll only have a certain amount of built-in security. The public cloud usually only offers a set level of protection since you don’t have the freedom to augment it with external features. Keep in mind that the public cloud is still relatively safe, as public cloud providers tend to have full IT teams behind the maintenance and management of them (plus they risk their own business if they can’t keep their customers’ data safe), but if you want to improve security, a private or hybrid cloud solution is your best bet. With additional security features available to you, your business can thrive without having to worry about how protected its cloud-based data and applications are (provided that you are protecting your infrastructure).

For help choosing which cloud your business needs, reach out to NSN Management at 918-770-7400.

Tavis Ormandy showed that LastPass’ browser extension can allow malicious websites to access the passwords stored within--even with LastPass’ considerable security measures. This vulnerability can be found in all extensions for major browsers, including browsers used by Windows, Linux, and potentially even Apple.

To make matters worse, the only requirements for this vulnerability to be exploited is that the extension needs to be installed. Any user who logs in or out could receive malicious code from the website that they are accessing.

Like any good developer, LastPass has expressed its commitment to solving this problem, acknowledging the threat as a legitimate issue that must be resolved. Two days after the initial reporting of the incident, LastPass released information discussing the problem more in-depth, including recommendations as for what you should do to minimize your chances of being affected:

• Launch websites from the LastPass vault: To retain the highest level of security as possible, it’s better to access websites from the LastPass vault itself.
• Use Two-Factor Authentication wherever possible: This will add an extra layer of security to prevent leaked credentials from granting easy access to your accounts.
• Keep an eye out for phishing attacks: Malicious links spread by phishing scams, so before you click on a link in a received message, take a moment to ask yourself if the link in your inbox makes sense.

You would think that developers are offended when people find problems in their services, but LastPass has accepted the issue report quite graciously. After all, it’s better that vulnerabilities are found before they are a problem rather than after they have been exploited in the wild. Joe Siegrist, a cofounder and Vice President of LastPass, has this to say regarding the information: “We greatly appreciate the work of the security community to challenge our product and uncover areas that need improvement.”

As per the policies of Project Zero, LastPass has 90 days before Ormandy and friends release the technical details of the vulnerability. In the interim, it’s best to keep LastPass’ advice in mind as you go about your daily duties--for your own network’s sake.

To ensure your credentials are protected, and to schedule a full security audit, contact NSN Management at 918-770-7400.