The recent passing of Nelson Mandela has forced me into thinking about our society and how we relate to each other. I am now asking myself questions such as: “What am I doing to make a difference?” or “Who can I collaborate with to help influence change or make things better?”
As I look around, I see many instances where people that work together are able to accomplish more. A choir would not be able to belt out that beautiful sound if only one person was singing. In the military, the service men and women will not be able to accomplish their missions if they did not have each other. In businesses, they wouldn’t be as successful if they didn’t have all their employees working toward a common goal together. Raising awareness for charitable causes are best done when there is a group of people spreading the word.
As I thought more and more about that, I realized that’s exactly how technology works. From the bits and bytes to the devices and applications that we use, without each small piece we wouldn’t be able to experience the many things that help make our lives easier. Not only that, look at the IT departments in different organizations. We each have a different skill-set that when combined, we are a force to be reckoned with! I couldn’t imagine the success of any project I manage without the development team, technicians to help with deployment, or even the end users that will work with the product on a daily basis. Working together we are able to accomplish more.
Now let’s think about this in terms of the systems you are using within your organization. You may have a telephone system, an email system, a conference calling system, a file storage system, and of course your applications for creating documents. All those systems right now are disparate systems that do not integrate with each other in any way making it more difficult to get your job done. Can you imagine if they were all able to integrate with each other? How much more efficient will you be with those systems all working together?
With Microsoft’s Lync and Office 365, this is all possible!
Lync is a Voice over IP communications platform that provides you with voice, conferencing, instant messaging, screen/presentation sharing, whiteboard sharing, file sharing, and more. What is even better, is that you can have access to Lync on any device in any location around the world as long as you have an internet connection. Basically, you can work anywhere.
Office 365 provides email, file storage, team sites and all the Office applications you’ve grown to love (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.). All your information is available to you at any time because it is stored in the cloud. You can install Office 365 on multiple computers and have access to the same information from any one.
Putting Lync and Office 365 together gives you endless opportunities! You can start a Lync conference from a Word document you are working on and need input. Or schedule a conference call from within Outlook just by creating a meeting invitation. You can share a file through Lync instant message or email a link. Add a video camera and you can start a video call with your colleagues from anywhere. With Lync and Office 365 working together we get the biggest bang for our buck.
As you reflect on your contribution to the world, also think about your business and determine if you or your technology are working together for the greater good. If not, TecFac will be happy to help you get there!
Go forth and make a difference!
