Small businesses like us play an important role in supporting ourlocal communities. We love what we do and that makes our products and services as good as they can be, and we know that’s the same for many of you out there. Buying and consuming locally is investing in your own community, in originality, and in quality.
Local businesses are doing it hard right now with COVID restrictions affecting bottom lines as well as forcing us to operate differently. We need to stand by each other more than ever!
Why is consuming locally the best?
Shopping locally supports your local economy because your money stays in the community. That’s good for you, your business, and your family too. Here are some ways buying locally helps you out:
1. Strengthen your local economy
When a small business is strong there will be flow-on effects in the community. For every dollar spent at a local business, three are returned to the local economy. People are employed locally, more rates and taxes are received, and profits are spent locally. Much more money gets back into the community than if products were bought from larger companies.
2. Reduce environmental impacts
When you consume locally you are helping the environment in a few ways. Your products don’t get shipped, reducing emissions and pollution. Less packaging waste is also produced. Your food will be fresher, but it’s also an investment for the next generations.
3. Personalized customer service
We’ve really lost the personal touch over the last few decades. But as a small business owner, you’re one of the last champions of this better way to relate with customers. Buying locally will help spread this better way to live. Workers at smaller-sized businesses typically feel higher job satisfaction and are more ready to help customers in any way they can.
4. Support creativity and personalization
Large corporations tend to follow trends and do things by numbers. Finding something unique and different is hard. Instead, when you set your sights locally, you’ll be able to find unique products with the integrity and soul that are often so missing from our lives.
There are lots of local producerswho put imbue their products with their experience and creativity. Take time to visit a local market sometime and you’ll see how thriving the movement is. So many people are producing quality local products. It’ll make your day.
There might be an increase in price but think of this as an investment in your community, rather than an additional and unnecessary expense. Quality over quantity.
How we support local
At KeyTech we understand the struggles of small-scale businesses because we’ve dealt with them too. We’re always on the lookout for ways to support you – fellow members of our local small business ecosystem.
We do this with the products we buy: The coffees that we drink every morning (and afternoon) are from Red Cup Coffee in Darra, a local business that has various types of coffee as well as coffee machines. Thanks to All Purpose Workwearin Sumner, our uniforms are a customized design. Our office signage looks great thanks to EG.design’s, Caloundra, and quality work.
Introducing Love Local Brisbane
But we want to do more to support our community, as well as our customers, so we’ve launched Love Local, a Linked In group. We hope you’ll join and tell us, and everyone, what services you provide. It’s time we stopped seeing this as self-promotion and started investing in each other.
Starting in 2020 and finishing up this year, we embarked on a rebrand, turning Key Communications into KeyTech.
We had some help, with a few companies bringing our new name and logo into the real world. Here’s a little about eg.design, a Sunshine Coast design & print small business. They printed and installed our office signage, and did a good job of it too.
We’re hoping to feature more of the great business we work with, and our great customers, so we reached out to Nelly and asked her a bit about her and Clayton’s experience running Eg over the years.
(Photo: Ben, Ben and Clayton)
How long have you been in business
15 years?
What were you doing before that, and what prompted the change?
We were both in the motor industry, I was selling motorcycle accessories, studying spare parts interpretation and also studying graphic design. Clayton was selling cars.
What kind of growth have you seen over that time?
Particularly recently, we’ve seen a lot of businesses with a need to change tract and create new business models to keep their business working through Covid, which in turn has brought us work with re-branding & new business start up.
What have been the major challenges you’ve faced?
A major challenge in our industry is that most jobs are so different from one another.
There’s the graphic design side where the style that you need to create varies so much from business to business and where you need to be creative on demand.
It’s especially true with signage: the methods we use to create then install them just varies so much. So having a system in place, let alone set pricing, is mostly not possible. Every job needs to be individually carefully quoted which is very time consuming also. The amount of work we need to put in to even quote a job is huge.
Work flow is also tricky because it can’t be regulated. When it’s on its on!
What have been your major wins?
A major win for us is how we started this little business and it has grown to what it has by mainly word of mouth. We take a lot of pride in our work and are proud of what we’ve made it.
What, to you, is the best thing about running a business?
It Keeps us busy and we chose our own career path, it’s a very creative industry and we thoroughly enjoy it (95% of the time!!)! We do work full time but we still get to choose our own hours – did someone say ‘early Friday knock-off beers?’ haha!
At KeyTech we believe small businesses need real-world Marketing plans that push them towards their ultimate objectives. So we had a look at growing trends, checked some expert opinions, and came up with some best practices for a business with perhaps a limited marketing budget.
1. Virtual events
2020 changed our lives. The unusual online meetings stopped being unusual, becoming an everyday thing. In 2021, finding opportunities in the restrictions, marketers have taken those changes and created new ways for businesses to reach the world. In 2022 marketing will only continue to evolve to match the needs of restricted real-world business, and the opportunities of online business.
This year we have seen big brands such as Channel and Apple present their new collections and products with online-only events. These kinds of virtual events have exploded in the last year. Although many of us are feeling virtual exhaustion right now, there will still be a place for these types of events, even after we resume the events in person because they are hugely more accessible – for example, they are inclusive to people regardless of location or ability.
You’ve probably come across at least a few in the last year: a virtual event can be as simple as a live stream, a webinar, or as complex as a thousand user conference. The reason for the new umbrella term ‘virtual event’ is most likely the fact that these technologies are replacing real-world events. Whatever you call them, they’re here to stay and will undoubtedly grow in our collective consciousness.
Are virtual events right for you?
For many businesses, especially those that relied on physical-events pre-covid, virtual events are a no-brainer. But there’s also a rising opportunity for other businesses to get into the event space, seeing as virtual events represent the knocking down of the huge barriers to entry. So It is a good time to ask yourself if your customers might appreciate or enjoy seeing more of you, and of each other. What could you teach them as a group, and what could they learn from each other, or help each other with? Getting into the middle of this exchange might help position you more as an essential business partner to your customers.
Let’s say you want to try. How might you go about it? Fortunately, it’s not too hard.
Teams live events
If you want to try a virtual event for your business, here we can help with Microsoft Teams Live.
The first thing to think about is what type of experience you want to provide. Microsoft Teams’ Live Events is a solid platform to hold any type of event. However, if what you are looking for are participation and interaction, then unfortunately Teams isn’t your best shot.
Events that run through Microsoft Teams tend to be very formal. Attendees cannot verbally communicate with other attendees or even presenters. The good thing is that this platform does offer a question-and-answer panel so that attendees can submit comments and/or questions during the live event.
If you expect a maximum of 10,000 attendees for your event, and if it does not last more than four hours, Live Events is the platform for you! It’s also worth noting that up to 15 concurrent events can run on a single Microsoft 365 tenancy.
2. Personalized artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence has advanced over the years. Today it’s considered a great opportunity for businesses, companies, industries, and even nations.
AI for marketing seeks to understand consumer behaviour: search patterns and interactions. Examples of marketing AI are chatbots.
Mastercard created a Facebook Message bot that uses natural language processing software to decipher what the customer wants and respond as if it were a real person, automating the handling of even some complex queries.
Is a chatbot right for you?
If your business receives a lot of customer inquiries, you could start by expanding a simple FAQ page and. The next step would be integrating those questions into your messaging service, such as your Facebook page. A full-blown, AI-powered chatbot is understandably out of reach for many small businesses, but if you are constantly interacting with customers in predictable ways, it might be worth a look. These Australian companies can help create a fluid chatbot experience for your website.
3. Programmatic advertising
Do you spend a lot on advertising? The same kind of AI advances is helping people manage their ad spending.
One of the new things this year is using AI to automate ad buying so you can target more specific audiences. Real-time bidding, for example, is a type of programmatic ad buying. Automating through bots or specific programs will help you to be much more efficient and faster, which means higher conversions and lower customer acquisition costs.
4. Personalization
Although artificial intelligence and programming are a new Marketing trend going into 2022, the truth is that the personalization of a brand will always remain the key.
If you want to stand out in 2022, you need to personalize your marketing. This means personalized content, products, emails, and the rest.
Statistics show that 63% of consumers are very upset with generic advertising blasts. Customizing your content and offering a real experience will increase your sales.
An example of this super customization is EasyJet which launched a data-driven email campaign that uses customers’ travel history with the airline to create personalized stories, which then suggest where they would like to travel next. Approximately 12.5 million unique emails have been sent, which had a 25% higher click-through rate than non-personalized emails.
Another successful example is Starbucks, which uses a gamified mobile app that relies on data like purchase history and location to be as personal as possible. The app allows customers to personalize their drinks and encourages further use with its rewards system, which skyrocketed its revenue to $ 2.56 billion.
Starbucks, which uses a gamified mobile app
5. Video Marketing
Video marketing is still exponentially increasing going into 2022. Forecasts say it will be even more important in 5 or 10 years. Businesses report higher conversion rates with video marketing.
Video is a key factor in decision-making. 52% of consumers say that watching product videos gives them more confidence in making buying decisions online. Video is the simplest and clearest way for customers to obtain information about a product or service.
If your site includes video, it is 50 times more likely (50 times!) To generate organic search results compared to text. Not only do people find video content super attractive, but Google also supercharges the SEO of pages that include videos.
The great thing about video content is that it makes it easy for your content to be reformatted for other platforms. For example, information from a video can be transcribed and used as content for a blog. Adapt and share that video on other platforms such as Facebook, Instagram TV or even cut out small bites for Instagram Reels or TikTok. Another idea is to use the audio from that video to have an episode of a podcast.
Lsd statistics show that the opening rates of an email campaign are higher if you include the word video in the subject, so consumers are drawn to it.
Live video is particularly popular with many companies who use it for interviews, product/service demos, and behind-the-scenes glimpses of the brand, such as office life, how products are made, company events, etc.
But Should you bother with video in your own small business?
You might feel that it’s something only larger businesses would invest in. And you’re right, in a sense. But there are many ways to do video, and having a smaller marketing budget does not mean you have to miss out completely.
Have a look at your competitors, the ones you know are a similar size to you. If you see any video in their marketing, this is a big warning that you’ll need to start with video just to remain competitive. If they don’t have a video, great, this could be an opportunity for you.
Your first videos could be a topical discussion with an expert on your team, embedded in your blogs. You can do it with a phone – as long as you and your business look professional, consumers can forgive underproduced video as it’s becoming very normalized. In short, underproduced is better than no video.
They could be as simple as a walk-through of your premises, introducing yourselves and what you do. Especially for small businesses, whether b2b or b2c, customers appreciate realness and integrity.
This is unless part of what makes your business work is shine and polish, in which case you probably should invest in professional video production.
6. Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is not a trend. A Mediakix study predicts that the ad spends for influencer marketing could reach $ 10 billion by next year:
The reason for the success of influencer marketing is due to trust, naturalness, and personalization. Consumers trust the opinion of an influencer on a brand or product much more than they trust brands themselves. The trend is clear and 58% of people have bought a new product in the last six months due to the recommendation of an influencer.
Influencer marketing will also be affected by artificial intelligence. Every year AI makes it easier to find the right influencers to partner with by identifying those with better engagement, fewer fake followers, and a higher likelihood of generating a positive return on investment (ROI).
You might consider working with an influencer if your market is an active consumer of influencer content on social media. You’ll still need to propose a campaign, with a defined period of collaboration, and whether you want to bet on micro or macro-influencers.
7. Messages through apps
Social messaging apps are not just for sending emojis to your friends: look at these numbers:
Companies are increasingly using social networks to interact with their customers. On Facebook Messenger alone, an average of 10 billion messages is recorded between people and companies per month.
These statistics show the popularity of social messaging applications. It makes sense to market your company’s products and services where your potential customers are.
Social apps allow you to send messages to your clients directly and in a personalized way. It will also allow your clients to have direct and natural contact with you in a medium they are already comfortable with.
63% of customers return to the website of a company that has live chat. The idea of this type of strategy is to cultivate contacts, deliver information efficiently, increase sales, find your potential customers, and provide real and immediate support and assistance.
8. Smart Speakers & voice search
In 2020, 50% of all searches carried out were by voice and this trend is growing. 72% of people who own voice-activated speakers say that their devices are used as part of their daily routines.
Smart speaker purchases almost tripled between the first quarter of 2018 and the second quarter of 2019, from 9.36 million units to 26.1 million units.
Voice search plays a growing role in providing all the relevant information that people need. Many brands are already including voice search in their digital marketing strategies. This especially focuses on content strategies and actions applied to SEO. It is therefore about thinking about the passages that people will speak instead of writing. Remember to write in a conversational tone, focus on getting featured snippets on Google, and think of keywords people will be talking about instead of typing.
9. Sale on Social Networks
The integration of e-Commerce into social platforms is another Digital Marketing trend for 2022. Platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest are working to make it possible to buy from the publishers via tags, so the transaction can happen without having to leave the app.
It’s definitely a new twist on Social Networking, making them not only a place to find leads but to convert them as well.
Does this mean anything to your business? If you know your market is active on social media, and you offer products that can be sold online, you should probably start looking at your options here, so you can potentially cut out the middle man (advertising).
The idea that only large companies or governments are attacked by hackers is a misconception. The latest studies show that 22% of small businesses were attacked cybernetically in 2020. Most hackers are opportunists. Large companies have a much larger budget more complicated to access. Small businesses on the other hand are the perfect target for hackers.
The positive part is that investing in cybersecurity protection strategies will help keep hackers away from your business.
Impacts of cyberattacks on small businesses:
A cyber-attack can have a great impact on a small business. In fact, 60% of the small businesses that suffered an attack closed their doors within 6 months after. Some consequences of a cyber-attack on your business might be:
Financial losses – because they have accessed your accounts.
Financial losses – because you must halt core business operations while addressing other impacts, and while fixing your security.
Upfront costs to security experts to help secure your IT infrastructure in the short term.
Losing your database/s.
Damage to your reputation by compromising your customer data, forcing you to disclaim your vulnerabilities and fail to protect their data.
Cyber Security Solutions for Small Businesses
Some solutions that can improve your security are:
Identify your vulnerabilities
Determine what your vulnerabilities are in order to know where to focus. Identify the most important data your company keeps. that might be your client database, your intellectual property, inventory, or financial information, etc.
Analyze your processes
Look at your workflows, including yours and that of your staff. Think about how you collect your information, where you store it, and how you delete that data. List all the points through which this data travels and each point where it could be leaked or stolen.
Analyze the consequences
Consider the results of a cybersecurity breach for you, your employees, your customers, and your partners. This is more to understand the risk.
Protect your equipment and devices
The second question is… Where do you store this data? The computers, mobiles, tablets, and other devices likely contain or access that important information. However, since these devices are connected to the Internet and a local network, they are vulnerable to attack.
Here are our guidelines to improve your security across the entire spectrum of your company’s IT systems.
Keep your software updated
A simple and safe way to keep your equipment safe is to regularly update the software of the systems you use.
Microsoft and other software companies are always looking for vulnerabilities in their software. When they find one, they release an update that fixes it for their users. Make sure you download these updates whenever they are released.
Protect yourself from viruses
Install anti-virus software on all computers in the office. Antivirus programs scan incoming email messages, as well as all files on your computer, and delete or quarantine any viruses that are found. Hackers are always creating new viruses, so you should update your antivirus frequently.
Accessing the Internet using a VPN is also a security enhancement. VPNs make tracking your computer or decrypting your data extremely difficult for hackers. A good VPN provider will also send you a security warning when you try to access suspicious URLs.
Set up a firewall
Most likely, your office devices are connected to a broadband Internet connection that is always active. Hackers are always probing these networks and looking for vulnerabilities to gain access to your computers.
Installing a firewall is the best way to avoid hackers. Firewalls allowing only authorized traffic into your network. A good firewall examines every packet of data that enters your network, makes sure it is legitimate, and filters out packets that it considers suspicious. Installing a firewall is a complicated process that should only be done by a qualified professional. This makes your job easier; all you need to do is talk to your system administrator and make sure your network is protected.
Precautions for laptops and mobiles
Laptops and mobiles are easy to access, as they are intended to be used outside the office. The risk information on these devices is high. Because you use these devices on public networks. We recommend a series of measures to protect your data; including using strong passwords and backing up data.
You must be prepared for a company mobile to be stolen or lost. If you use a cloud solution, look at the mobile device management features of your provider. The main cloud computing providers allow you to delete the account of a device that is lost.
Protect your data
No matter what type of business you run, your data is the core of the business. Without your customers’ contact information, your inventory, confidential information, and everything else, your business simply won’t be able to operate. Your data can be lost in a thousand ways: hardware can be damaged or broken, hackers can break into your system and take over, or you can suffer a natural disaster. Your objective, therefore, should be to insure yourself against a possible data loss by taking precautions against the worst consequences that it would have.
Online Payments
Recently we have begun the process of moving our customers into WisePay, a third party payment provider that will also give our customers historical easy access to their invoices and accounting with us, as well as plenty of payment options. Such a solution requires a bit of legwork to bring customers on board, but it’s certainly safer and potentially time-saving in the long run. Once up and running, it’ll take a load off the accounts team too.
Backups and backups
There are two types of backups. The first is a full backup of all the selected data, saved on another device or transferred to a different medium. The other is a gradual backup, which means adding new data to an existing backup.
The simplest and most efficient method is to combine the two. Perform a full backup periodically and a gradual backup every day in between. Another option is to do a full backup every night after business hours. It is crucial to check that your backups work and to understand how to restore the data.
There are many ways to back up your data. You can store them on a physical device such as a USB drive or secondary hard drive or store them in a shared folder on your network; you should also keep backups in a secure offsite location.
Unfortunately, storing your data in a specific physical location will not help you if a natural disaster or theft occurs there. The safest thing is to invest in a backup system in the cloud. At KeyTech we have a SAS Backup Service that allowing cloud-based collaboration with total security.
Encrypt your information
Most small businesses store their information in a cloud. Some can be a platform like SAAS (Software as a Service) or in a Storage System like Dropbox. When choosing where to store your business information you must examine its security measures.
There are measures to ensure that your data is even more secure in a cloud. For example, encrypt your data. Several programs can help you do this.
Protect your passwords
The most common way to authenticate the identity of whoever accesses your network or your important data is through a password. Unlike other high-tech authentication systems like smart cards, fingerprint scanners, or iris recognition, passwords are useful because they cost nothing and are easy to use. However, they are always susceptible to brute force attacks.
Hackers have developed sophisticated automated tools that allow them to crack simple passwords in a matter of minutes. Another way to access your passwords is to use fraudulent methods like phishing. Pishing is a method in which hackers pose as an official entity (for example Google or Amazon) to trick people into giving them their passwords. It is important that you keep updating your passwords, that you do not keep them in sight, and that you try to create a strong password that is not easily accessible. Creating a stronger password is not that difficult. Use a password tool like this one, which tells you how secure your password is and how long it would take a hacker to crack it.
Set access levels and permissions
You must take steps to restrict access to your System. For example, determine access levels and only give people access to what they need, such as installing software – the top level being your systems administrator.
If you’re using Windows, you can assign different permission levels to users based on their roles within the company, and if a staff member is absent for a long period or has left the company, remove their access and permissions as soon as possible.
Be careful when browsing the Internet
When you and your staff surf the Internet, activities are tracked in various subtle and unnoticeable ways. The activity is usually recorded by third parties without any consent. Your employees could browse dangerous web pages that steal your company information. Your personal or business information could be compromised if it is entered on web pages through an unencrypted connection. Set a web use policy that restricts web browsing for personal purposes. Using a good firewall will also help reduce this risk.
Protect confidential information created by remote workers
Many small businesses work with freelancers who work remotely. Remote workers can pose a risk to your cybersecurity. You must know that the networks they use for their work are secure. For example, they can log into your office network and work from there, using remote tools such as Windows’ remote desktop connection feature.
Employee training
Employees can leave your business vulnerable to an attack. Research shows that 43 percent of data loss stems from internal employees who either maliciously or carelessly give cybercriminals access to your networks.
Many scenarios could result in employee-initiated attacks. These can be an employee losing a work tablet or giving away login credentials. They can also include opening fraudulent emails, which deploys viruses on the network.
To protect against threats from within, invest in cybersecurity training for your employees. Educate them what they should do if they get for example a suspicious email.
It is important to encourage a culture of cybersecurity within your company since a single breach could cost your company millions. It should also be a priority for all departments within your organization, not just IT, although your IT experts must be given responsibility and authority to identify and minimize risk. When everyone takes cybersecurity seriously together, you’ll have a much higher chance of success.
Investing in Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity is a preventative strategy: The fact is, all small businesses face a relatively high risk of being attacked. But even with a modest investment in defenses, you should be able to avoid and/or minimize most attacks in 2021 and keep your business moving on up as it should be.
Microsoft does not want to lose its, position over Apple and Google. The company has been preparing the launch of Windows 11 for 6 years. In the words of Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, they are facing “one of the most important updates to Windows of the last decade.”
Microsoft’s top priority is to offer an agile, competitive, and up-to-date system. You’ll find a new interface and several new features aimed at enhancing productivity, particularly as more of the world works between home and the office.
What are the biggest new changes?
For tablets, Microsoft has aimed to improve the experience for touch, with more space between icons on the taskbar, and adding gestures. Windows 11 also adds haptics to your digital pen, so you can hear and feel vibrations as you use it for taking notes or drawing. Finally, the OS introduces voice typing and commands across the system.
What stands out the most is the more modern interface that looking for. The changes, however, go beyond the surface.
More apps, mobile apps
This update also introduces more variety that can be found within the traditional PC ecosystem allowing, the use of Android apps without the need for a mobile device. A touch-optimized experience will allow you to spend more time in front of your computer.
Those are the changes that stand out to us, but here are some other updates that have people talking:
The New Start Menu
Visually, Windows 11 is going to be different from Windows 10. The old start menu, which for years has been located in the lower-left corner, changes position and format at last (let’s just forget Windows 8 for now). The start button and the access to the main applications will now be on the century screen. This change reminds us of the MacOS Dock. However (and thank goodness), if you don’t like it here, you can change it right back.
The next change is that when you click the start button, the taskbar is not “stuck” to the bar but will desktop. The corners are rounded, which seems a significant departure from the almost brutalist square shapes we’re used to.
Thirdly, there are no more animated tiles in the start menu. Microsoft has populated it with recent applications icons, and below shortcuts to recently accessed and suggested documents and files.
Another improvement is in multitasking. Alongside the old Window, snapping is the new “Snap Layouts”, which is a lot more flexible and dynamic. When it comes to positions and proportions. To avoid having to organize the windows every time you reconnect a monitor, “Snap Groups” allow you to save groupings of windows and reuse them whenever you want.
A related change that really allows you to get more out of the operating system comes with the Windows 11 implementation of virtual desktops. Windows will let you set up virtual desktops like Macs, toggling between multiple desktops at once for personal, work, school, or gaming use. In Windows 10, this was harder to set up and use.
Iconography
In this new Window iconography changes remarkably. There are changes to the Windows logo, which is now without perspective and sports on-theme rounded outer corners. Windows also change the design for application icons and important folders such as Documents, Downloads, or Pictures.
Teams integration
Now we can use Teams natively. Windows has decided to go all-in banking on its messaging platform, relegating Skype even further to the background. Teams get a facelift and are integrated directly into the taskbar, making it easier to access (and a bit more like Apple’s FaceTime). So it sounds like Windows might be a bit of a smoother experience for Teams users, but don’t worry, you’ll be able to access teams on, Mac, Android, iOs, and the rest.
Windows Widgets
The Windows Widgets will allow a much more personalized experience within the new Windows. Powered by artificial intelligence, these widgets will offer us content according to our preferences or our user experience. We’re keen to see just how much more this offers us compared to the current News and Interests feed we know from Windows 10.
Moving Games Forwards
But it’s not all about productivity, of course. With Windows 11, games will get a visual boost. Innovations such as Auto HDR support promise a heightened experience.
Keyboard and Input
With Windows 11 you can have an on-screen keyboard including direct access to emojis, GIFs, clipboards, handwriting, or Word suggestions. But a few features from the Windows 10 on-screen keyboard, including the ability to show a numerical keypad, are missing.
Variable Refresh Rate
This new feature will help windows users on mobile devices and laptops save battery and work or play longer. Most computers and screens have a fixed refresh rate. That’s how many times per second that the display shows a new image the standard being 60hz (interestingly, gamers love 120hz plus but movies typically run at 24hz). Running at a higher rate can quickly consume power. If you have a supported device, you can turn on the new dynamic refresh rate setting that can will reduce the number of screen refreshes in scenarios where the image being displayed doesn’t really change that often, such as when doing emails.
Better Updates
The roadmap for Windows 11 makes it clear that from now on Microsoft will offer a single major update per year and not two as happened until now. Hopefully, this will mitigate the stability issues that have plagued the biannual release of Windows 10 updates.
Additionally, there will also be improvements in the rest of the “normal” updates, which according to Microsoft officials will be up to 40% smaller in size, which will reduce download and installation time.
Reasons to Upgrade
As we get more details on Windows 11, some doubts begin to arise as to whether it is worth upgrading to the new version from Windows 10, which in retrospect has been one of the best Windows releases ever. Here are a few improvements that have us convinced we’ll be upgrading to the new version, at least to try.
Improved Productivity
Windows 11 will improve user productivity. For example, being able to resume what you were doing after an interruption, even between computer shutdowns. It will also allow sessions to resume on a different computer. For devices with removable screens, Windows 11 will notice when the keyboard is attached, or not, and adjust the input methods, allowing you to continue what you were doing.
Better Security
For years Microsoft has been developing new hardware to power high levels of protection. The company claims Windows Hello that a combination of Windows Hello, device encryption, virtualization-based security, hypervisor-protected code integrity (HVCI), and secure boot, have been shown to reduce malware by 60 percent. That sounds good to us, especially when your computer is mission-critical in your business.
Reasons not to Upgrade
Goodbye to Timeline and Cortana
One of the things we’ll miss will be Timeline, even though Microsoft Edge will have similar functions. We’ll also be sad to say goodbye to Microsoft’s virtual assistant Cortana, who will be gone from the taskbar, although those who use her daily will still be available through an application for those who need her.
Higher required storage capacity
To be able to install Windows 11, you’ll need at least 64GB of space, and a computer with a 64-bit CPU with at least two cores at 1 GHz, and here comes the kicker: there will be no support for older 32-bit processors. Although for years most processors have supported x86-64 / AMD64, having no 32-bit option in Windows 11 is a clear step into the future.
You’ll also need at least 4 GB of RAM. For the installation it is also necessary to have a Microsoft account and internet connectivity: it seems that it will not be possible to create local accounts in this new edition which is also a leap forward that is bound to bothersome.
Another key requirement is the need for TPM 2.0. This standard is designed to ensure hardware security through cryptographic keys, and although it has become a common component among PC and laptop manufacturers in recent years, this could pose limitations for many users who bought their computers, even as recently as 2019.
One way to test if our computer has the requirements for the update is through tools such as Microsoft PC Health Check.
How do I update?
The good news is that for all original licensed Windows 10 users, Windows 11 will be a free upgrade. However, the new version has certain requirements.
It is noteworthy that the current version of the Windows 11 released on June 28, is a beta version that will only be available through the Windows Insider program. The digital trends portal warns that this version still contains bugs, so they suggest waiting for the most stable version to come out. According to Microsoft, this version will be available by the end of this year.
Our advice is not to install this beta release on a business or production machine – only on a computer used for less critical operations.
Windows 11 Date and Availability
Microsoft has indicated that Windows 11 will be available as a free update on new PCs and some existing PCs starting next Christmas.
Did you know that if you use Teams, you can control its sounds and notifications? In this article, we are going to teach you 6 techniques for personalising teams.
1. Where are the notification settings?
Access your notification settings by selecting your profile photo in the upper right corner of Teams, then Settings> Notifications.
2. Enable or disable notifications
To choose whether to play a sound with each new notification, select the three dots next to your profile picture in the top right corner of Teams, then Settings> Notifications> toggle between off and on.
In this state, the notification sounds are on.
Note: Currently only Android mobile devices can choose what type of sound is played for notifications.
3. Default settings
By default, you’ll receive desktop notifications and activity feedback alerts for @mentions, direct messages (chat), and all-new conversations and @mentions on the channels and teams shown in your list.
All of these defaults can be changed.
4. Ways to be notified
The activity feed
You’ll find it in the upper left corner of Teams. This is where we’ll let you know what’s happening on your teams and channels.
Then there is chat
This is where group and one-on-one conversations happen. As you receive multiple messages, we will count them for you.
Desktop, also known as Banner, notifications
In Windows, they will be displayed in the lower right corner of the screen and then moved to the Action Center.
On Mac OS, they are displayed in the upper right corner of the screen and then moved to the Control Centre.
Note: If you use Teams on the web, some browsers will only display notifications in the browser tab where you are running Teams.
Windows
Mac
5. Email
If you want to use email to keep track of Team conversations as they happen, use the missed activity email. You can choose how often you get them.
For a summary of the day’s activity, please use the summary email. You will receive this email at the beginning of each day.
6. How notifications work in the mobile app.
One of the first things you’ll want to do is choose whether to send notifications to your phone always, or only when you’re not active on the desktop. (you are considered inactive after 3 minutes of desktop inactivity.)
The other thing you’ll want to set up is your quiet hours. To do this, go to More in the upper left corner of the mobile app, then Notifications > Quiet hours. Then, set a specific time of day when you want Teams to hold your notifications. You can also choose full days.
Need more help? More Info.
If you need to know how each of the notifications work step by step, we recommend you read this guide from the Microsoft support blog.
How to suppress noise in calls
A great feature of Teams is AI based noise suppression. This eliminates unwanted background noise from your surroundings. It works by using deep neural networks to analyse audio sources and separate human speech signals from unwanted noise.
How to turn on noise suppression
Click the three dots next to your profile picture in the upper right corner and then select the Settings option.
Choose Devices on the left and then under Noise Suppression, select one of the following options: Automatic (default), Low or High.
It is important to note that your processor must support Advanced Vector Extensions 2 (AVX2) to opt for the “high” setting. Users will be able to change this setting at any time, and once changed, the setting should be retained for the next meeting or call. Alex Eggers, Microsoft MVP, created a video that delves into its inner workings with the settings.
The advent of AI-based noise suppression is important step for Microsoft Teams. This should help limit distractions in a remote work setting. Although Microsoft says the feature will be generally available to desktop users in mid-December, there is no news on whether it will be rolled out on iOS and Android.
