kinetik IT blog spot

It’s a simple question, but not so easy to answer: is your website scaled to your company’s needs? In a world where online giants offer one-click checkout and where nearly everything under the sun is available for purchase, mere mortals must find a way to compete. The key is in creating an enjoyable, efficient customer experience. 

Online consumers are fickle. Recent research from the RightNow Customer Experience Impact Report has found that,

• 86 percent of U.S. adults will pay more for a better customer experience.
• 89 percent of U.S. adults who’ve ever stopped doing business with an organization due to a poor customer experience began doing business with a competitor.
• When asked specifically how companies can better engage with consumers to spend more, 54 percent said to improve the overall customer experience.

The takeaway is that customer experience—not just the product itself, price, or customer service—is a  key determining factor in measuring business success. Customer experience has its roots in both website and database design. If either of these is lacking, your business will suffer. To create an ideal customer experience, Tony Barbagallo, Chief Marketing Officer at Clustrix, stresses the need for a “a rock-solid, 100 percent fault-tolerant scale-out database that improves website availability.” 

In addition to a slowly-responding website, the lack of proper database design causes a lack of data integrity. This can lead to unwanted consequences such as duplication of records, missing information (data), and orphaned records. At Kinetik I.T., we design databases using primary keys, relationships, unique indexes, constraints, required fields and other objects. The end result is guaranteed data integrity.

Focusing on customer experience is a cornerstone of our success whether the project is simple or a large-scale professional ecommerce system. To ensure your customer has the best possible experience, we create clean, functional, captivating and easily navigated web interface designs guaranteed to help keep customers away from your competitors. To learn more about database and website design, and a wide array of other services and products, visit www.Kinetik-IT.com or follow Kinetik I.T. on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.

With all the information we’re confronted with on a daily basis—status updates, tweets, images, trending topics and headlines—maintaining clear focus can prove challenging. Considering that most feeds on social media sites (where it’s estimated that the average 18-34 year old spends nearly four hours daily) are designed to be clickbait-heavy, it’s no wonder we find ourselves emerging from an hour-long internet-induced fog, despite having had every intention of getting work done. 

To combat this mindless time waste, developers have come up with multiple strategies to help maintain focus and productivity—simply search for “productivity app” in your laptop or phone’s app store, and you’ll be overwhelmed with the possibilities. Still, simple solutions can sometimes be the best solutions.

Similar to how service dogs know they’re on duty when wearing their harness, workers who consume massive amounts of media every day out of necessity are beginning to train themselves to perform tasks using dedicated equipment. Discussed in Wired.com’s article, How Working on Multiple Screens Can Actually Help You Focus, the trend is gaining popularity. 

The idea is to perform certain tasks (or utilize social media sites) using specific devices. In the article, one worker explains that he uses social media only on a tablet, so he’s not tempted to scroll through them when working on his laptop, instead remaining focused on work. Another said she sends articles from her laptop to a tablet, to be able to read without being interrupted by email. Though it seems counterintuitive, using multiple screens and devices somehow helps focus attention rather than scattering it. 

As with anything, however, this strategy may prove counterproductive for some. In the long run, finding what works for you—whether navigating through tabs, printing out documents in physical form, or switching devices for various tasks—is the best solution of all.  

To learn more about our wide array of other services and products, visit www.Kinetik-IT.com or follow Kinetik I.T. on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.

If you spend any time online, or on social media sites, you’ve become accustomed to seeing much of the same material—cat videos, news stories, buzzfeed quizzes—time and again. Whether it’s friends and family posting the most recent video to go viral, or magazine/news pages weighing in on the latest pro sports scandal, we often see the content repeated via multiple channels. In fact, according to Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, as much as 30 percent of online content is duplicate. But duplicative content is not the same as copyright infringement, which has taken on a life of its own. 

Some common types of infringement concern include images, music, and videos (think illegally copied pictures in blog posts, unauthorized YouTube videos of AT40 hits, or pirated downloads of summer blockbusters); however, a fair amount of intellectual property is also copied. 

Intellectual property is defined as something unique that you physically create. While an idea alone is not intellectual property, if it’s developed into a product (a book, or a brand), those creations are considered intellectual property. And copyright, patents, designs and trademarks are all constitute a means of protection.

Infringement has become a big problem. Last month alone, according to the Google Transparency Report, more than 4,500 copyright owners claimed their brand had been infringed upon. But simply having your property copied doesn't mean anything in the courts unless it's registered. You’re unable to take legal action against a party unless, for example, your logo has been copyrighted with the government, and—best case scenario—trademarked on a national level with the federal government.

To learn how to register various types of materials and property, visit the U.S. Copyright Office at copyright.gov or find a similar government portal in another country to learn about the process. 

If you run a business, having your content or brand copied may seem like a good thing—free publicity, right? Not at all. Copyright infringement can serve disreputable purposes, even diverting web traffic from your site. 

Finding out if your content or brand is being infringed upon can be difficult. The first thing is to copyright and trademark the logo, then it’s imperative to institute a monitoring system. An easy way to find out when your business info is posted on the web is by using Google Alerts. By creating an alert, the service will send a notification when related information is posted online. Google Webmaster Tools can also be an invaluable resource, allowing you to view your site rankings, as well as links to your site, and where they're coming from.

If unauthorized material is found, the process to have it removed in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is simple, yet detailed—and not always a guarantee that the information will be removed:

• Find out details about the person or business infringing your copyrights, Hosting Company, Payment Processors etc.
• Report copyright infringement to Authorities like Search engines, Hosting companies, Payment Processors, ISP and other internet crime reporting organizations 

Marketing Dock offers a step-by-step tutorial to walk you through this (somewhat confusing) process. 

Unfortunately, there’s no sure-fire way to protect your business from being a target for copyright infringement. But by registering your brand and content, as well as monitoring online activity, you will have a means of reacting should you become a victim of intellectual property theft. 

At Kinetik I.T., we’ve been in the business of helping people and businesses, and making great things happen for almost 25 years. Basically, we love what we do, and it shows. And in all those years of perfecting our Digital Superhero status, we’ve learned a few things about the (IT or technical) problems our clients face. Here’s a run-down of the problems we see most often. 

Common Problem #1: Lacking (IT or technical) Support

It should come as no surprise that the level of support you have in your office will ultimately determine how well you can function—and no, we’re not talking about the 800-number that’s printed in the printer brochure. Most commonly, businesses either don’t have any technical support in the office or they don’t have enough. And having a catch-all solitary “I.T. guy/gal” doesn’t cut it. Your business is a sophisticated, well-oiled machine—don’t assume that the small town gas-station mechanic can take care of it all alone. 

Common Problem #2: Outdated Technology (& Infrastructure)


Most software and hardware solutions will eventually reach an age where they’ve outlived their usefulness. And while it’s tempting, and seemingly easier, to keep using them despite their dated status, once your machines hit the age of five years old, they’re likely to start needing increased tech support. Dated technology also typically require updates, which can be costly—sometimes more costly long-term than simply replacing the units outright. 

Common Problem #3: Lacking Protection


We buy insurance for everything these days—do you have protection in place for your technology and information? Do you have a G.O.K. (goodness only knows!) protection plan? Whether it’s a disaster plan to deal with a flooded server or having the right equipment to deal with power outages in the office, it’s imperative to protect your equipment and your data. This is your livelihood, after all! 

Common Problem #4: Inadequate Training

Each and every employee can be a Digital Superhero in their own right, with the proper training. Every single person in your office needs to know how to use both the hardware and the software you use on a daily basis. Ensuring that your employees are well trained can prevent many common technology problems. 

Common Problem #5: Poor Security 


U.S. businesses spend billions on the fallout from IT security issues every year, including data theft, client security issues, or hacker attack that renders your equipment completely unusable. Better security means customer trust and higher productivity, but you won’t get there with off-the-shelf solutions designed to protect home computer users—custom commercial applications can defend you against the problems you’re likely to face in this digital age.

The Solution 
Fortunately, we’ve got the solution you’re looking for. Choosing the right IT partner is the first step in safeguarding your business, allowing it to grow and prosper. You want your business to be as efficient as possible, and often that means great technology that performs well. From custom database solutions to meeting your security and storage needs, we can ensure you get the IT assistance you need at every turn.

To learn more about services and products, and to stay up to date with Kinetik IT, visit www.Kinetik-IT.com or follow Kinetik on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.