June 2019

630.850.9039 Continued pg.2 We love this stuff! We are committed to helping businesses use technology to run their organization successfully and profitably. Your Image Here What’s New This monthly publication provided courtesy of Catherine Wendt, President of Syscon Inc. June 2019 School’s out for summer; the pools are open; summer camps are starting up; and many of us have vacation trips planned. We’re focused on Windows 7 end-of-life planning. We have FAQ sheets for users; checklists for techs during the upgrades; we’re working on other educational webinars and videos for the coming months. This is a big deal! We’ll be closed Thursday July 4th for the July 4th Holiday, enjoying parades and fireworks with our families! Please be safe; you need two hands for all that typing! - Catherine Wendt Peyton Manning doesn’t need much of an introduction. Whether you’re a football fan or not, you’ve got to respect his hustle: Considered one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, with a career spanning 18 seasons of play, he’s the only quarterback in history with Super Bowl wins under his belt from two different franchises. Not only that, but he’s been named MVP five times – more than any other NFL player – and holds the record for career touchdown passes. To top it off, he’s a consummate philanthropist: His charity, the Peyback Foundation, is dedicated to providing opportunities to disadvantaged and atrisk kids. With so many accolades squirreled away in his trophy case, it’d be easy to assume that the friendly, easygoing Manning you see off the field is only a fabrication. As far as I could tell from seeing him speak at a recent boot camp, though, the man is frustratingly faultless. Luckily, as a born leader, he is also eager to share his wealth of knowledge with others. Here are three of the top leadership strategies I learned from the retired football icon during a recent industry event I attended, and how to implement them in your life and business. 1. THE 4 KEYS TO BEING A TOP PERFORMER At his peak, Manning was one of the few individuals in the world to truly reach that lofty pinnacle of being the absolute best at what he did. Asked what got him there, he cited an attitude founded on four primary pillars for success. Whatever field you’re in, he says, “You certainly gotta have the ability.” But, of course, that’s far from enough. “You gotta combine that ability with a strong work ethic. You hear about it in sports all the time: ‘hard worker, just not very talented’ or ‘super-talented, just not a very hard worker.’” If you cultivate both traits, he argues, that’s what will set you apart from the pack. Top 3 Leadership Strategies From Peyton Manning -- 1 of 4 - All Things Tech June 2019 (continued from page 1) And then, what will drive you a notch higher is your passion. “You gotta love your job. [My brother] Eli and I always used to kid – we’d never tell the owners this – we would play for free, ’cause we loved football that much.” If you lack that fire for what you do, he adds, “it’ll show up somewhere.” The final component, he says, is a sense of accountability. “That’s what always kind of drove me, that people were counting on me – coaches, teammates, fans. You don’t want to let them down.” 2. DO YOUR HOMEWORK Manning had a reputation for being one of the most consistently prepared quarterbacks in the NFL. By all accounts, the sheer level of detail he would put into his game plan was second to none. When asked what steered him toward this habit, he has a pretty straightforward answer. “I always felt that preparation was where I could get an edge on the competition,” he says. “I couldn’t out-throw anybody, I couldn’t throw at 75 to 80 yards down the field. If you’ve ever seen me play, you certainly know I couldn’t outrun anybody; I had a coach tell me once that I couldn’t run out of sight in a week – that was nice. But I thought that I could out-prepare anybody, and so that’s what I based my game plan on.” When he was growing up, he says, his dad was always providing him with the wisdom of sports leaders. When he was 14, his dad gave him a quote from Chuck Noll, then-coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers: “Pressure is something that you feel only when you don’t know what you’re doing.” It’s okay to get nervous and excited, Manning says – that just means you care about your work. “But pressure means you haven’t done your homework.” It’s easy to get bored of the fundamentals, he says, but their mastery will be what leads you to victory. 3. LEARN FROM YOUR MENTOR’S EXAMPLE, AND THEN LEAD BY IT Manning was fortunate to be coached for years by some of the most skilled sports leaders in the country. But one of his greatest influences was the legendary coach Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts. “He had a very unique style of leadership,” Manning says. “Never raised his voice. Never used any kind of language, but he treated you like such a professional that you just didn’t want to let him down.” According to Manning, Dungy peppered his coaching with a lot of pithy little expressions, things like “Take care of the little things, and the big things will take care of themselves”; “Expectations, execution”; “No excuses, no explanations.” “He was just as calm in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl as he was out there at practice every day. When your leader is calm, the rest of your team following can be calm as well.” The best leaders, Manning says, walk the walk as well as they talk the talk. Pay attention to the habits and advice of those you admire, implement them into your own practice and success will always follow. Cathy and Larry Sightings Catherine attended the C12 Currents ‘19 event in Atlanta, GA and visited several clients, too. The event speakers were fantastic with closing remarks by Mark Sharrow. Got some nice pictures of our clients, too! Larry was invited to play French Horn with the Scottsdale Philharmonic; an excellent concert. ‘Even monkeys fall from trees; just don’t blame the branch.’ - Doug Lipp 630.850.9039 When it comes to personal accountability, Mr. Miller believes we can make better choices. He starts with a great story about a young waiter, Jacob Miller, who found an interesting way to accommodate his customer’s request. When faced with a problem, we have choices as to how we respond. The questions we ask ourselves about our situation can shape how we feel, empowered or like a victim; these represent the question behind the question (QBQ). QBQ’s are questions we ask ourselves. There are three rules when asking ourselves a QBQ: 1. Begin with ‘What’ or ‘How’ (not ‘Why,’ ‘When,’ or ‘Who’); 2. Contains an ‘I’ (not ‘they,’ ‘we,’ or ‘you.’); 3. Focus on action. With this formula, the rest of the chapters walk through life scenarios we all can relate to, then applies this QBQ formula. Warning: It’s tempting to think about who should read this book, but focus on you instead! Definitely timely and recommended! - CMW QBQ! by John G Miller -- 2 of 4 - Shiny New Gadget Of The Month: Intel—A Flaw In The Chip Modern computer processors are quite smart. They use ‘speculative execution’ to try to predict what an application or operating system might need next. This makes an app run faster and be more efficient. If the prediction is wrong, it just discards the ‘guess.’ Why do you care? Sensitive data can be briefly stored in the processor including passwords, account tokens, and similar. So, if a hacker targeted this information, it could be exploited, according to TechCrunch.com writer Zack Whittaker. There’s a targeted attack called ‘ZombieLoad’ that has four bugs that are going after the Intel processors. Usually, apps can only see their own data. This bug takes advantage of the ‘guessing’ the processor has ready to execute, and lets the details ‘bleed across’ boundaries, making the info visible outside the app. Unlike other viruses, this isn’t just PC’s and laptops; the cloud is also vulnerable. Intel said patches to the microcode will help clear the buffers of the process and prevent this cross-reading. No attacks have been publicly reported yet and Intel feels they’re ahead of this virus. The research on speculative execution is just getting started, so it’s unclear what else they might find! CMW Top Tips To Protect Your Business From Social Engineering Attacks Every year, millions of attacks are successfully carried out against businesses like yours. It’s important to know what you’re up against and how to protect yourself. The most common social engineering tactic is phishing, often coupled with a strategy of pretexting. By gaining the trust of the victim, hackers are able to lure them into giving out sensitive personal information. Also be on the lookout for baiting, in which attackers offer free downloads, such as movies or e-books, and demand personal information from the victim. The best tools against phishing are online filters that automatically detect phishing scams, security programs, antivirus programs and education on best online practices. It should be obvious to your employees that giving out personal or company information is something they should never ever do outside of trusted sites that they can confirm are genuine. SmallBizTrends.com, 2/28/2019 All Things Tech June 2019 630.850.9039 FlexSafe Is Here To Protect Your Valuables From the Techs -- 3 of 4 - All Things Tech June 2019 Construction Corner Sage 100 Contractor, version 22.1 In late April, I was at Sage Summit with other Business Partners from the Construction division. A long-time friend and programmer for S100C gave a few of us a sneak peak at the new features (and fixes) for version 22.1 slated to be released June 20th. As Third Party Developers who write custom integration software, we also get a Beta release so we can do some testing. We don’t have the test results yet, but here are some highlights! The first one that most of you are going to love is the ability to reprint a completed bank reconciliation. There is also a feature to roll back, ‘undo’ a finalized bank rec; really a timesaver! There are some security improvements when logged on as Administrator. There are new options to control the users’ ability to view sensitive info such as wage rates, net pay, and total costs. You can even more easily View what security is turned on and at what level. Some grids already allow you to sort the screen by a selected column. This feature has been expanded throughout the program; another time-saver. You can even sort grids by name even on columns that combine number and name. The release notes say they’ve made it easier to transfer between cash accounts without impacting the bank reconciliation. I haven’t tested this yet, but if it’s true, that would be a welcomed change! For those of you who use the Over/Under billing report and really love the 31-report, they’ve added the ability to select by posting period, just like the 21report. They’ve even added some new selection criteria to this print menu. Here’s a good one—the 6-4-2 Print Change Orders~Approved report will now correctly include previously included change orders regardless of the order in which they were approved. I know a company in Washington DC who is going to love this! There’s more, but this is a good start. If you’re using third-party software, check to be sure there are no expected compatibility issues BEFORE you install this upgrade. —CMW Collecting Time From the Field Just Got Exciting! The FIT system has received some great comments from field users and the office staff. You won’t find a better, fully integrated, field time collection solution than ours because we wrote it to do what our clients told us they needed! Interested? Join us Thursday, June 27th, 11:30am Central Time. 630.850.9039 This month’s trivia question: According to researchers, which of the following letters is pressed most frequently on the computer keyboard? a) A b) T c) R d) E Congratulations to last month’s Trivia Contest winner, Leslie Ahlquist with Service Master DSI, IL! Leslie’s name was drawn from the ϐishbowl for last month’s correctly answered Question: Which of these is not a computer operating system? d) Photoshop Who Wants To Win a $25 Amazon Gift Card? To enter: Go to www.Syscon‐inc.com/Trivia and type in your answer. All correct answers will be put into a ϐishbowl and we’ll randomly draw the winner. The Winner will be contacted shortly after the deadline and will be announced in next month’s newsletter. Deadline: June 20, 2019 -- 4 of 4 -