As we enter 2020 and look back on the past decade, we see how much business and technology have evolved. For example, smartphones went from being a toy that those dang Millennials couldn’t get out of their faces (and the real reason they don’t have jobs, according to everyone’s uncle) to one of the most important fields of computing and marketing.

Unless you run a not-for-profit entity, the point of just about every business is to make money. Ironically, for many businesses, especially small businesses, this is the easy part. The hard part is keeping that money. Between paying vendors, purchasing supplies and materials, paying employees, and even yourself, you may find your balance sheet just breaking even.

You may have noticed in the past ten years or so, we’ve had more variety and better prices than ever before when shopping for — well, just about anything! This has been due in part by a global economy where competition is greater than ever. That’s great news for consumers but presents more pressure on companies to differentiate their goods and services from everyone else.

The worst kept secret in the IT world right now is that Microsoft will end support of Windows 7 on January 14th of 2020. If you’ve been following this story at all, perhaps you’ve seen that many people are discussing this across all industries. And if you haven’t been following it, you’re probably wondering why this is such an important topic.

Managing a business is a lot like managing your weight — if you take in more than you put out, then you'll have major gains at the end of the year. And with both business and personal weight, those gains can have consequences.

As a business owner, the goal is to make as much profit as possible, but remember that those profits come with a nasty little caveat: taxes.

Using technology in any business is an absolute necessity in the modern world. For this reason, most larger businesses employ CIOs to oversee the technical aspects of business, ranging from purchasing to implementation and maintenance.

While this may work for large corporations, many smaller businesses find themselves without a single, dedicated IT professional on staff, let alone a department with a CIO. However, that’s not to say that companies of this size wouldn’t benefit from this type of support.

You spend your whole life up to date with every new singer and song. Then, one day, you realize that you don't recognize anything on the radio, and they don’t make music like they used to. You start to avoid the new stuff only listening to things from your college days.