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	Tech Prognosis Monthly Tech News You Can Use The Car Said What? "The car said it's time to rotate the tires" Have you ever started your car and heard a beep and a warning sign like "Tire rotation is due" show up? Most modern cars are programmed to monitor the health of  theiir components and alert the owner or driver when something is out of place: like when it's time to do a maintenance service or replace things: changing oil, replacing fan belts, adding air to tires when the pressure drops below the recommended thresh-hold, changing air conditioning filters... and a long list of other things that happen "behind the scene" that you would not normally pay attention to or even know existed. The Benefits of Monitoring in Business Just think about that for a minute. How many times have we checked to see when our car was due for oil change only to see that it's two months overdue. How about tire pressure? Do you know what the tire pressure of your vehicle is right now? Is it valuable for you to know that the gas in the tank of your vehicle can only take you for the next 50 miles before you get stuck in the middle of the road and a State Trooper has to come with a gallon of gas? I find that feature very useful. What about auto-correcting technology that moves your car back to your lane when it senses that you are drifting? And my favorite, auto-dimming mirrors that automatically adjusts when the genius in the vehicle behind you has the full lights on. The point is that monitoring tools are more valuable than we tend to think. It is the reason people have motion sensors on their front lawn after midnight, or dogs that bark if you get too close to their fences. Many new vehicles and homes have security systems built-in. And many of us would not leave our homes, offices or cars without turning those monitoring tools on. A lot of us have our calendars, task lists, alarm clocks, timers and a host of other "gadgets" that reminds us of things we need to do. How about the core systems that drive your business? How much have you invested in making sure you are kept up to speed when something needs to be done? How much do you know about the health of the infrastructure driving your business? And a lot of it has nothing to do with technology. Do you have "sensors" in place to monitor the health of your employees? Do you know when they are having a difficult time at home so you can reach out to help? How about that great producer on the sales team. Do you have a system in place to let you know when to take them out for that "we appreciate you" lunch or to simply say "thank you for a job well done"? On the technology front, how much do know about your computer systems? Do you have something in place to let you know when your backup system needs "rotation"? Do you know when the hard drives on your server reaches eighty-percent capacity and needs replacement? Wouldn't you like to know when the internet router, email server or web server fails, or when the database file gets taken offline? How about an alert when one of your employees copies sensitive data to a USB drive, or spends all day communicating with your competition about your business processes? Would you like to know when head hunters are browsing your website looking at the profiles of your sales team? I would. How much time are people spending on Face Book, You Tube, Hulu, Netflix etc. when they should be working? Who is using your T1 line to share files? When will you know about the tape drive hardware that stopped working three months ago? Do you know when the warranty on your servers and desktop computers expire? How are you doing on software licensing - who is using what, where and how? Do you know if the next upgrade to your accounting software will be compatible with your hardware and operating system? How about your contracts, when are they due for renewal? Technology is a business investment and has to be aligned with the goals and mission of your business. It is no longer an isolated environment where you "let the IT people do their stuff". Remember, you cannot measure what you do not know. Take action and review your business and technology environment and start making a plan to know what is going on through automation. Did you find this information helpful? Sign up to automatically receive our newsletter.
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