“HOW TO MASTER EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND SUPERCHARGE YOUR CAREER”

With over 15 Years of experience in IT and the home health care industry, Beau Sorensen from First Choice Home Health presented on mastering emotional intelligence. He started off with a quote from Charles Bukowski “It’s not the big things that send us to the madhouse, not the loss of a love, but the shoelace that breaks when there’s no time left.” It is important to know those who work around you and know yourself. This can be achieved by rating yourself. Then you can begin to understand that customers want two things, to solve their problem, and leave them feeling great about the experience. As Maya Angelou once said, “They may not remember what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.”

The number one reason customers quit or leave, is perception of poor service. Customers want and need to connect to your human side before your technical side. The keys to winning with your coworkers and customers is through your attitude and skills.

Fortinet - Kevan Paul

“ADVANCED THREAT PROTECTION – FORTISANDBOX”

Kevin has over 15 years of experience in the engineering field and presented on behalf of Fortinet. He started off by stressing Forinet’s mission “…to deliver the most innovative, highest performing network security platform, to secure and simplify your IT infrastructure.” Some of the things that set Fortinet apart are its approach to security supported by their own labs, and not a third party group. With their FortiASIC processors, they boast strong performance, and with a custom OS, they offer consolidation.

In the US, an estimated $300 billion a year of Intellectual Property is stolen. Although victims had up-to-date antivirus, 67% of hacked companies learned about it from external companies, and 46% of the compromised systems had no Malware. Fortinet’s Advanced Threat Protection offers a strategic defense system, as well as helping companies overcome intrustions and data breaches.

Barracuda - Chad Haskell

“BARRACUDA DATA PROTECTION PLUS”

Chad has been with Barracuda for the last six years, and discussed the burden of IT departments having to be flexible with an evolving workplace, work under high expectations or data recovery, and carry the burden of supporting growth. Barracuda addresses these issues with a robust solution called “Data Protection Plus”. The protection solution grants IT directors greater flexibility and easier management over data. Currently the tool is offered in 6.0.

Data Protection Plus gives directors the control they need to maintain availability. Mobility further extends the tools used by directors by offering employees extended company file shares, an email archiving system, and a mobility authentication tool. Barracuda also offers a tool called SignNow, which is an electronic signature solution, to ensure control over critical documents.

VLCM – Speed Networking

Vendors were assigned a permanent table while the various IT directors were given the freedom to move about the room to seek out the vendors they were most interested in. Topics included: Backup/DR, Cloud Solutions, End-User Computing, IP Video Security, Virtualization, Storage, and Network Security. Just like most first dates, the first fifteen minutes were kind of quiet. However after the ice was broken, IT directors were able to share successes and failures associated with the vendors and topics around the room. Most of those who participated really enjoyed this portion and several found the answers to questions they were looking for.

We would like to thank everyone who participated in the event. We will keep everyone posted as these events come up, and for those who have to miss the events, we will keep up the blog for you.