Central Illinois' IT Experts

The easiest way to see this trend in action is the reliance on streaming services for media consumption. Rather than pay for cable television, users would rather stream YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu. These new trends have made it more feasible for even fledgling content creators to get their products in front of audiences without depending on major distributors, resulting in a huge change in the way that people consume content they find on these platforms.

Prior to these new platforms growing in popularity, content creators generally had to go through a long and tedious process to get their products in front of anyone. They had to go through distributors for anyone to see their content, giving the distributor the power to purchase or lease the content, as well as make deals with advertising agencies and marketing organizations to bring in huge amounts of capital. There are still a lot of content distributors that go through this process, but it’s easier to avoid in today’s online content market. Many creators are beginning to put out their own paid services to collect their own revenue from online consumer demand.

While media companies relied on the scarcity of content in order to thrive in the past, this influx of new content creators and content platforms has ushered in a considerable change in the way technology is used. In particular, there are three ways that technology has driven the growth of content platforms and media consumption:

Shift #1: Media is On the Move
Mobile devices are more popular nowadays than they have ever been, and with this trend comes an increase in mobile device use for consuming media while on the go. Cisco predicts that mobile computing will drive a quarter of all video traffic by 2021. With this increase in mobile availability for streaming, more users will be able to take advantage of these services moving forward.

Media companies are now starting to roll out vMVPDs, also known as virtual Multichannel video programming distribution services. This gives users the ability to consume content on a number of devices, further customizing the way that users access it. With services like Sling TV, DirecTV Now, and Playstation Vue, there is no shortage of content streaming services. That being said...

Shift #2: Cord Cutters Are on the Rise
Cable companies used to have a monopoly on the way users consumed media, but thanks to streaming services, many users are opting to simply “cut the cord” and opt out of cable. They do this because they would rather have the on-demand services associated with streaming services. The most notable numbers associated with this have to come from the fact that cord cutting has increased by 33 percent so far in 2018 alone. While there are 186 million U.S. adults watching television through cable, satellite, or telecom-provided pay TV services, there are 33 million cord cutters, an increase of 3.8 percent--up from 2017’s drop rate of 3.4 percent.

Shift #3: Data Will Fuel Content Creation
Companies that distribute media collect a lot of data from their viewers. This data is then passed on to content creators, so they can make more informed decisions regarding what kind of content they produce. This alters advertising and the content creation process itself, as knowing what people want allows organizations to get the most return on their investment, as well as minimize production costs. While companies would once have to create many different kinds of shows and hope that one of them yields results, this isn’t necessarily the case any longer.

Televised sports are a great example of how networks and audience satisfaction can change through technology. Sports broadcasts use augmented reality to break down plays and analyze player movements, and thanks to mobile applications, viewers can engage with the content in new ways through analytics delivered in real time and data visualization.

What do you think the next big data initiative is for media consumption and streaming services? Let us know in the comments.

What Does Optimization Require?
Optimization of your operations is key to remain successful in an increasingly competitive market. This optimization will require you to do three things:

• Identify, understand, and accept the way to optimize your business.
• Change your focus to meet the demands of your market and clients.
• Give your employees the power and tools to succeed.

These three requirements may sound fairly vague, but there are plenty of ways that you can adjust your business to embrace them.

Practically Using Business Optimization Practices
To better understand the three requirements of optimization, it may help to review a few real-life scenarios in which these optimization practices would appear.

Identify, understand, and accept the way to optimize your business.
The first key to optimizing your business is to understand what about it can be improved. Through careful analysis of your processes, you will be able to identify where your inefficiencies lie. From there, you can identify whether something is necessary to your business, or is ultimately just wasting time and resources. Then you can determine if an improvement can be made, or if it should just be abandoned. With this knowledge, you can trim the fat from your processes and boost their efficiency.

For example, perhaps there is a member of your business who needs to approve projects at every stage before progress can continue, but this member is exceptionally busy and therefore can’t always review things efficiently. This would most likely hold back your progress. Understanding this could lead to a reexamination of your process, and the determination that approval may not be necessary beyond the initial implementation of a project and the final confirmation to put it into action, saving everyone involved some time and stress.

Changing focus to meet the demands of your market and clients.
While you may view your business as the culmination of a personal goal and the means to put food on the table, your audience is going to have a much different impression. The way they see it, you’re there to provide them with what they need, whether that’s a particular product or service. Since your business can’t really exist without them, their priorities will have to come first.

Automation provides a few simple methods of ensuring that you know what those priorities are, and that your audience finds your business effective at fulfilling them. This is especially true where issue reporting is concerned. Let’s face it, while the first report is useful, the rest quickly become a distraction as the issue is resolved - plus, you have to acknowledge that the report was received. The right IT can help you optimize this process as much as possible by handling these responses through automation, letting you better spend your time solving the problem.

Give your employees the power and tools to succeed.
Want to know the biggest flaw that the members of your workforce all share, including you? You’re all human beings, which makes you inherently flawed and prone to mistakes. The right technology solutions can help to make sure that your entire team is managed properly, given a comprehensive schedule to keep each of them on track and their processes standardized.

These solutions can have the added benefit of providing you with the data needed to further optimize your workflows, boosting productivity, and reducing the stress put on your employees.

Are you ready to optimize your IT? Give Decatur Computers Inc. a call at 217-475-0226, and keep coming to our blog for more handy tips and content.

Why Instant Messaging?
For a better grasp on why the instant message is rising in popularity now, it helps to look at the changing face of the average employee. Workplaces are increasingly filled with members of Generation Y, who had a front-row seat to the introduction of instant messaging on a personal scale. As a result, these employees are more accustomed to quick, to-the-point, and (most crucially) rapid communications; something that email solutions aren’t always known for.

More to the business side of things, the inherent boost to productivity that instant messaging provides is hard to ignore, as are the benefits that even the typical approach to the instant message has when directly compared to email. Furthermore, because more businesses are adopting these solutions, their security has become a priority to their developers. At the rate that security is improving, instant messaging solutions could soon be as (if not more) secure than email.

This is not to say, of course, that business email is likely to be totally replaced by instant messaging anytime soon. This is to say that email will likely shift to be used more for external communications, while business messaging applications will probably be the way that internal communications are handled.

So How Does Instant Messaging Influence Productivity and Office Culture?
The benefits of using a more “chat”-based interface to collaborate within an organization are by no means a new discovery. A study by the McKinsey Global Institute released in 2012 reported that, with managing email and collaboration attempts taking a respective 28 and 20 percent of an average employee’s week, a messaging platform for business use would be a huge benefit.

These conclusions have proven to be prophetic, with instant messaging and chat being used in businesses everywhere to provide the benefits promised while also promoting the development of a discussion. However, in order for these results to stay true in your business, you need to make sure that these tools are not abused. We’ve compiled a few suggestions on how to keep your company chat a place of productivity.

Establish Channels for Non-Business Interests
As counterintuitive as it may sound, keeping communications in the workplace strictly work-related can ultimately hurt your overall productivity. However, once a conversation in one of these messaging apps deviates from a business-related topic, it can be impossible to salvage it. One way to balance this out is to establish certain conversations for business-only matters, and others for employees to bond over common interests and casual topics.

Nix Gossip from the Get-Go
However, while a bit of casual conversation can ultimately benefit productivity in the office, the wrong kinds can just as easily eliminate it and eventually cause greater issues for the business over time. Make sure that every employee is aware that there is a zero-tolerance policy on gossip and inappropriate over-sharing. This will help you protect both your employees, and your business as a whole.

Have the Right Amount of Fun
Along with the rise of instant messaging, the use of emojis and memes in communications has also increased. While they can be incredibly efficient at communicating a message, certain ones communicate things that have no place in the business environment. Furthermore, the temptation to overuse these alternatives to text can be overwhelming, and reduce a conversation to a time-wasting and distracting search to find the silliest image to share.

Disconnect If Need Be
We get it - sometimes you need to be able to work without the interruption of notifications. Don’t be afraid to turn them off for a little while to accomplish something greater.

For more ways to improve your communications, productivity, and other business processes, keep reading our blog, or reach out to Decatur Computers Inc. by calling 217-475-0226.