Our customers are smart (after all, they chose Manawa) and great at what they do.  We recently took a poll asking our customers what topics they want to learn about or more importantly what burning questions keeps them up at night, that they wish somebody would tell or show them the answer.

They responded, telling us that technology is now an integral part of their professional and personal lives. They are overwhelmed and want technology to help them do more and get more done to be more successful. They want to be better informed, when making decisions and want to know how technology can be used to improve productivity, enhance quality of life and get the most value for their hard earned money.

As a result, we created “Business Insider Tech Tips”, a weekly series, that will appear on our blog and newsletter, directed at decision makers in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises.

Today’s Business Insider Tech Tip is about minimizing errors and embarrassment when sending emails using Microsoft Outlook. It comes from a customer, who sat me down in his office, excited to share his knowledge about a tool called NK2edit that works with Microsoft Outlook. I consider myself a veteran, having supported customers with their IT needs for more than a decade.  So, I’m delighted and humbled when a customer takes the time to teach me something new that I can share with other customers.

NK2edit is a tool that allows a user to easily edit or remove unwanted email addresses that appear in their AutoComplete list. The AutoComplete list is a separate list of email addresses from your contacts that gets updated when you send people email by typing their email address in the TO field of Outlook. The next time you type the first few characters of an email address in the TO field, Outlook will show a list of suggested email addresses based on the best match.

For example, if you type an email to a paul@…, the next time you type the letter ‘p’, this same email address along with all others that start with ‘p’ that have ever been sent in Outlook automatically appear.

Unfortunately, over time this list can get quite large and polluted with email addresses of people who you longer have contact with. Even if you delete emails from your contact list, they won’t be removed from the Autocomplete list.

N2KEdit is free for personal use and makes maintaining the Autocomplete list simple. And to think I’ve been doing it the hard way all these years. Thanks Z!

If you have a burning question about how to leverage your IT for your business, please email us at tips@manawa.net.

If we select your question to write about, you qualify for your choice of:

·         A FREE 25-Point Business Technology Audit, or

·         A FREE IT Decision Consultation, or

·         A One-Month FREE Trial of Manawa’s Dedicated Support Service

I’d like to share a story about the best Christmas present I could have asked for, and in fact, have ever received. It was simply to have my dad come home to his family healthy.  I received a call from my mom that dad had a heart attack at the cottage while he was collecting firewood on Friday, December 9^th in Muskoka.

At the time, I was at our annual Manawa Christmas party, celebrating another successful year with the entire team.  It was a joy reminiscing about a great year, joking and reconnecting with colleagues and friends.

Early that day, my dad started to experience severe chest pains, headache and numbness in his arms while gathering wood. After getting back to the cottage, my mom called Dr. Lester Affoo, a GP and family friend, who has a nearby cottage. Lester practices in Alliston and asked my parents to drive to Southlake Regional Health Centre in Newmarket immediately. As they drove, Lester called to check on them every 10 minutes.

When they arrived, Lester was at the emergency entrance waiting. My dad was admitted and monitored by the emergency department staff. While in the emergency department my dad’s symptoms had improved and the ECG looked normal. Lester went to see Dr. Steve Minor, a professional colleague, who is a Cardiac Interventionist at Southlake. Dr. Minor saw my dad after his current patient and performed an angiogram and angioplasty.  Dr. Minor said my dad’s arteries were severely blocked and was surprised he made it out of the woods. My dad was transferred to the Cardiovascular Care Ward and on Saturday was met by Dr. Charles Peniston, the surgeon. Dr. Peniston told my dad he would need triple bypass surgery and scheduled it for Sunday morning.

Our family stayed with my dad as long we could until visiting hours ended Saturday evening.  We said our goodbyes. My dad told us how proud he was of each of us and how much he loved us. My dad had one simple wish saying, “I just want to wake up after surgery and see you all again”. Sunday morning was one of the longest days in my life, waiting for any news of dad’s surgery. When someone’s life is in the hands of a few healthcare trusted professionals down the hall, time feels ever so precious. We were heartened when the surgeon came out and informed us the surgery had gone well. My dad would be kept asleep in the Cardiovascular ICU, until his vitals stabilized. We stayed with my dad while he was sleeping all day Sunday. On Monday, when my dad awoke, he was ecstatic to see us, to see the hospital staff, to see everyone. His wish had come true.

The quote below by William Arthur Ward sums up the emotional jubilation and overwhelming gratitude my dad felt after he woke up for the hospital staff on the Cardiac ICU floor.  

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it

 is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”

 Well, my dad, whose name is Randy by the way, didn’t waste any time and sent the rest of the family on an errand for chocolate truffles – all 150 lbs. of chocolate! He wanted to personally give every staff member at the hospital on the fifth floor a box. He walked through the hallways in his Hospital gown with his “Harry Potter like” glasses interrupting anyone to give each and every staff member truffles. It didn’t matter whether they were a cleaner, admin, security guard, nurse or doctor.  A nurse who hadn’t worked on my dad asked, “Everyone is getting chocolates?”  As my dad handed a box to the cleaner, he expressed with sincere appreciation saying to them both:

“You all worked on me, because if the guard wasn’t keeping everyone safe, and the cleaners weren’t keeping things clean and sanitary, you couldn’t work. Even though you didn’t work on me directly you were doing something else for someone else freeing up the people who did. Without all of you, I wouldn’t be here.”

Dad asked each and every person involved in his care and recovery to sign his heart-shaped pillow, because he wanted to remember the people who helped save his life. Now, as he recovers at home, dad often gets teary-eyed looking at the signatures on the pillow, feeling a sense of connectedness. He knows the Southlake staff are right there with him. Each time he grasps the pillow against his chest to push back the pain when he coughs, he feels that same support and love he experienced at the hospital.

An Attitude of Gratitude is a popular theme during the Christmas season. I believe the amazing care and attention my dad received would be the same had he been admitted to Southlake at any time of year. Organizations that deliver incredible service to customers do so because of the talented team of people that consistently deliver.

And that brings me to nurses, a group known for working long hours and being underappreciated for their contribution. A website, called Nurse Uncut, an online community for nurses ran a contest asking nurses why they choose the profession.

Just like the staff at Southlake, their responses offer a glimpse into their “Attitude of gratitude” view that extends far beyond the holiday season. Three contest responses, for which we might learn from are:

1. “True fulfillment comes when you know that you’ve rendered love and care selflessly to a complete stranger.”

2. “Because each day I go home feeling like in some small way I have helped at least one person. Whether it is a clean bed, assistance to walk to the bathroom or a shoulder to cry on. Someone feels better due to the attention they receive from me. Even the flower in my hair makes someone smile!”

3. “I’ve stayed with Nursing because it has enabled me to journey deeply and broadly in understanding what it means to live a human life. By encouraging compassion, common sense and communication in all of life’s situations, inside and outside “nursing”, it has given me gratitude, joy and laughter.”

Nurses truly are ambassadors of compassion, care and good will. They live an attitude of gratitude for their patients (my dad seen with some nursing and hospital staff above).  I’m glad our family was able to recognize them with our small gesture of appreciation. Life really is like a box of chocolates and you never know what you’re going to get. I got the best Christmas present ever. My dad did too! Our family and Manawa Networks wish you and your family a safe and joyful holiday season and a new year filled with gratitude and success.

I often wonder why trust is so rare, considering the amount of business service professionals and companies receive from referrals. It has happened to me and if you are reading this, it has probably happened to you. I’m talking about that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you realize you’ve been ripped-off.

Wikipedia defines rip-off as “a bad financial transaction. It refers to an incident in which a person overpays for something. A rip-off is different from a scam in that a scam involves wrongdoing such as fraud; whether or not something is a rip-off, on the other hand, is a matter of opinion.”

I wanted to share a story about my mechanic shop STM Automotive, owned by two brothers Steve and Terry. I will never leave STM Automotive! Before I found them, I went to several mechanics and felt like I was being sold, unsure of whether I really needed all the things they recommended. Like most people, I don’t know about cars the way I do technology. I rely on my mechanic’s best judgment to tell me what I need. When I met Steve and Terry, I was ready to spend quite a bit on my suspension because I felt something major was wrong. It turns out, there was a problem with the suspension but it was very minor and they recommended an inexpensive clamp be tightened. Nothing more! I couldn’t believe my luck and good fortune to meet two mechanics who told me the truth and didn’t try to sell me a bill of goods (that I was ready to pay for).

Each time I took my car in, I would ask, “Should I fix this…. should I fix that?”  Again and again, they said, “It’s not necessary”. What I appreciated most, was that they gave me a reason, explaining the problem and telling me when it made sense to take care of it in a proactive rather than reactive way. With these mechanics, it really felt like they were lending me their good judgment, giving me the “smart choice”, about what was best for me. My good fortune in meeting Steve and Terry turns out the be the same reason Manawa exists to serve its customers. These mechanics really do want to nurture long-term relationships and do the best for their customers rather than earn a few extra bucks for things the customer doesn’t need. My experience is that customers are much smarter today and talk. They eventually find out if they are being ripped off.

I have experienced the full spectrum of customer emotions from feeling helpless and dejected to elated and delighted. Our company, being service obsessed, came to be because we want our customers to know, “we’ve got their back, no matter what”. Our customers are hard working, successful professionals from many sectors. What they want are trusted advisors to join their team to help them grow. When they win, we win! The best way we help our customers is to remember, always, to put ourselves in our customers shoes and make sure their technology works all day, every day.  We work hard to earn the trust and confidence of each and every customer. If a referral follows from a customer, we always thank them and immediately get to work on how we can do best for a new prospect or customer.

We’re always looking for fantastic people. If you or someone you know has a great positive ATTITUDE and loves working with people and technology, please contact me us careers (at) manawa.net with “Attitude is Everything” in your SUBJECT line. If you want to keep in touch, please follow us on on our Facebook page or  @ManawaNetworks

Images from here

“Thanksgiving is coming up, that time when families gather together to share food, extend gratitude, and marvel at how Dad still uses Internet Explorer 6.  No, seriously, Dad, how can you be using a browser developed during the Clinton administration? That was like 10 presidents ago.

This year, though, do something different. Don’t just explain to Grandpa or Mom or your father-in-law that there is a whole world of secure web browsing out there. No, take a firm stand. Tell them they won’t be able to watch funny fishing videos on YouTube with IE6 anymore.

Microsoft has backed Madrigal’s effort, urging people to upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 if they’re on Windows XP or Internet Explorer 9 if they’re using Windows Vista or Windows 7.

Microsoft’s Scott Armstrong echoes Madrigal’s views, saying:

“For many people, going home for the holidays is a step back in time. Not just because you may be returning to your childhood home, but because you might see IE6 or IE7 on your parents’ home PC.”

The Microsoft team has posted the top 10 moments this Thanksgiving holiday to update your parent’s browser.

Top-10 Moments To Update Your Parents’ Browser

10. When they’re manning the fire extinguisher dealing with the yearly deep-fried turkey accident.

9. When they’re telling your cousins “when I was your age” stories.

8. When they’re face down in the eggnog punch.

7. When they’re fighting over the right way to carve a turkey.

6. When your mom kicks you out of the kitchen for peeling potatoes “the wrong way.”

5. When they’re sent to the grocery store at 2PM on Thanksgiving Day for extra cranberries.

4. When they’re sitting at the Adult’s table (rally the other kids to help).

3. When they’re standing in a Black Friday line. 

2. When they’re untangling Christmas lights.

And the number one time to update your parents’ browser is…

1. When they’re distracted by grilling you about when you’re going to get a real job,  when you’re going to settle down, and when you’re going to give them grandchildren. 

Happy Thanksgiving to all our American friends from the Manawa Team!

I received a phone call from an employee, who works for one of our larger customers.  She was on maternity leave and became quite agitated because her backup drive crashed along with all her digital photos of her newborn son. I gave her instructions and walked her through the steps about how to recover her data. I also gave her, the name of one of our partners to call, if her efforts didn’t resolve the issue.

I felt that helping an employee recover her files was just part of the job. The email I received from her the next morning was unexpected and reminded me why we started Manawa. It read as follows:

If you didn’t already know this, your last name in German, means “hero”.  And you certainly lived up to that yesterday!  Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me about my hard drive issue — your advice was so invaluable, since last night at 11 pm, I was able to recover all of my files!!!! So, smile and feel good for doing something really nice for me.  You are my hero!  –Tamara

In his book, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, Tony Hsieh, talks a lot about building trust through customer engagement. Yet, rather than use social media or integrated marketing to build buzz, he prefers the telephone – that antiquated low-tech device few people associate with technology anymore.

Hsieh says, “The telephone remains one of the best branding devices out there. You have the customer’s undivided attention for five to ten minutes, and if you get the interaction right, what we’ve found is that the customer remembers the experience for a very long time and tells his or her friends about it.”

At Zappos Inc., phone sales account for only 5% of their business (most sales are driven through the Website). On average, a customer contacts Zappos at least once during his or her lifetime. According to Hsieh, “we just need to make sure that we use that opportunity to create a lasting memory. We’re not trying to maximize each and every transaction. Instead, we’re trying to build a lifelong relationship with each customer, one phone call at a time.”

Kerry Bodine, an analyst with Forrester Research, echoes Hsieh’s views. She  writes in her blog:

“Call centers sit on the frontline of customer experience, where they provide sales, support, and customer service functions. They’re often customers’ first — and sometimes their only — human interaction with a company. Even with conservative estimates, it’s easy to make the case that large call centers have customer influence on par with, if not greater than, that of mass advertising campaigns.”

Since 2007, Forrester has been tracking US consumer satisfaction with phone conversations across multiple industries. In 2010 surveys, consumers rated interactions with call center agents not only lower than in-store interactions, but also lower than faceless online interactions in 12 of 13 industries. Customers actually prefer dealing with websites instead of people over the phone. Only one sector, namely investment firms saw customer satisfaction rise in the past 4 years.

Most customers experience a feeling of dread and rarely have high expectations when calling a company for support. Consequently, if the customer is helped and treated with respect during a call, they are much more likely to spread their positive experience to friends and family.

The late Steve Jobs, who built Apple into one of the wealthiest companies in the world is quick to point out that brand equates with trust, which directly impacts customer experience. Jobs elaborates in this 2006 interview:

“Brand equals trust. If we have a good brand, that means people trust us to make great products and to give them a great experience and if something goes wrong, to take care of them. Focus on the basic stuff. We don’t spend a lot of time talking about the brand. We spend a lot of time about making the best products in the world. How to make the best buying experience in the world? How we take care of customers? If we do that, customers will trust us. Companies that worry about their brand instead of worrying about their products maybe don’t get what customers want.”

More often than not, we take for granted the simple and easy ways to make a difference. Answering the phone or calling someone back quickly to listen to their concerns and needs is simple and easy. It really is the perfect opportunity to make someone’s day by spending a few extra minutes with them that puts a smile on their face. 

Photos here, here, here and here

Toronto, Canada – September 6, 2011- Manawa Networks, a leading full service IT consulting firm dedicated to making customers happier by taking away their IT worry, announced a new onboarding mentor program for new recruits. Most organizations today face tremendous pressure to create a dynamic talent community of people who really care about each other and their customers. Many new recruits often feel overwhelmed by the learning curve, getting comfortable with the team and the challenge of delivering impeccable IT support and service to customers.

For this reason, Manawa Networks has developed a new onboarding mentor program, where each new recruit is assigned to a senior mentor. The mentor has the IT experience, a willingness to share and advise, is capable of engaging and transferring knowledge and provides guidance that can directly enhance the performance and career development of a new recruit. According to Carmine Tiano, Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer for Manawa Networks, “Most IT professionals have the technical knowledge locked down but lack in other areas. The mentor program accelerates the path to becoming an outstanding well-rounded IT consultant allowing them to build fantastic long-term relationships one customer at a time.”

Ensures that new recruits, whether new to the organization or to a specific knowledge base, know immediately where they can turn when they have a question.

• Ensures continuity in the manner in which customers continue to receive exceptional support and service. Experienced mentors can shed light on the why, when and how things are done in a certain way for a specific customer during the job-shadow period.
• Ensures stronger communication and relationships are built amongst team members encouraging knowledge sharing, camaraderie and faster problem solving.
• Ensures open communication about how to be successful consulting and engaging on client projects by assessing strengths and weaknesses with a fellow team member.
• Ensures that each team member has ongoing support allowing for more effective ways to collaborate and make decisions for the customer in addition to leveraging the strengths of each team with specific experience and expertise.

For more information:

Flavian DeLima, Manawa Networks, Tel: 647.547.0216 fdelima@manawa.net

About Manawa Networks
Manawa Networks is a full service IT consulting firm. They make organizations, large and small, in Canada happier by taking away IT worry. From proactively diagnosing and solving problems as your complete IT department, to supporting your internal IT group, to just-in-time support when you need help fast, they get it done. Their team of dedicated specialists have a proven track record with industry expertise in building and supporting trouble-free secure networks designed for zero unscheduled downtime. Based in Toronto, Canada, they welcome you to learn more at www.manawa.net

Here are 5 reasons why your business must have a disaster preparedness plan in place prior to a catastrophic event.

1. Losing Data is Costly

Whether a natural disaster, a hard drive crash, theft or human error, losing data has become a fact of life that occurs when we least expect it.  70% of small businesses in the U.S. experienced a data loss in the past year due to technical or human disaster alone [AMI U.S. Small Business 2009 Annual Overview].

According to a Forrester survey, 66 percent of small businesses with less than 100 employees admitted they did not have a business continuity or disaster recovery plan if their main office systems and servers went down. 

2. Losing Data Often Results in Business Failure

Losing significant amounts of data often places a company in a state of extended analysis paralysis not to mention heighted anxiety levels and an inability to focus.
 
According to a three-year-old study from Price Waterhouse Coopers, 70 percent of small firms that experience a major data loss go out of business within a year. Additionally, 93% of companies that lost their data center for 10 days or more due to a disaster filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster. 50% of businesses that found themselves without data management for this same time period filed for bankruptcy immediately. (National Archives & Records Administration in Washington).

For small and medium sized businesses that spend a life time building a business and a quality of life, this is no reason for a business owner to throw in the towel.

3. Losing Data Affects Reputation with Customers

Most businesses have a tendency to focus internally on themselves after losing significant data. They often neglect their customers and the domino effect that follows. Additionally, they fail to understand and manage their reputation, image and negative  sentiment with their customers. This often results in lost referrals and sales.
 
Many small and medium sized organizations have no disaster plan in place. The reasons cites are often incorrect according to Cloud Computing, some of which include:

•  “My business isn’t big enough.”

• “It’s more important to focus on networking and establishing the business.”

• “All our important data is stored on my laptop, so my data is safely offsite every night.”

• “My server is brand new, so I’m not worried about backing up my data yet.”

• “I don’t have the time to perform a daily back-up. Once a month is sufficient.”

• “Daily offsite back-up is too expensive, particularly as this will exceed my data cap and I will have to purchase additional bandwidth.”

4. Disaster Preparedness Increases Employee Productivity

One of the key benefits of having a partner participate in disaster recovery planning is the strategic guidance resulting in short and long term improvements in data management. In the short term, employees benefit from faster and improved data access, centrally stored and backed-up data and automated processes for tasks that save time. In AMI’s 2009 U.S. Small Business Annual Overview Study, 22% of small business responded that “improved data management” was the number one reason for investing in IT in the upcoming year. Being prepared helps employees do their jobs and more importantly do them well.

5. Peace of Mind

When a disaster happens, businesses scramble to solve many problems on a long list. Lost data should not be on that list.  Most people underestimate the real and tangible benefit of peace of mind from not having to worry about data loss.  What is surprising is how often the same people who buy travel and health insurance while on vacation for peace of mind, delay investing in disaster planning with backup systems in place. Isn’t it time you experienced that reassuring feeling saying, “we’re taken care off”, the next time you are asked if your company lost any data following a disaster.

We’re always looking for fantastic people. If you or someone you know has a great positive ATTITUDE and loves working with people and technology, please contact me at careers (at) manawa.net with “Attitude is Everything” in your SUBJECT line. Also, if you want to keep in touch, please follow us on on our Facebook page or  @ManawaNetworks

Images from here

Today, creating and managing a fantastic customer experience requires a fine balance between science (analytical thinking) and art (design thinking). Anyone questioning this trend in the business world should consider that in Apple’s latest fiscal quarter, the company sold more iPads than Macs in a category that did not exist two years ago. 

With the rise of instant communications and social media, customers’ expectations are rising quickly. Customers want to be heard when broadcasting opinions about the products and services they use. These conversations extend to their social networks and to companies directly. What has changed for companies is that users expect products and services to be highly intuitive, friendly and easy to use. Failing this, customers now communicate through their social network and conduct research quickly for alternatives. Not surprisingly, opportunities are abundant for companies that blend critical and design thinking with customer needs.

This post is based on an article published in Harvard Business Review by Tim Brown, CEO and President of IDEO, entitled Design Thinking. The author argues that thinking like a designer creates a strong sustainable competitive advantage for companies. While we didn’t explicitly think about design thinking when we started the company, we agree with principles of design thinking when creating value through customer experience.

Mr. Brown describes the process of design thinking metaphorically as a system of spaces rather than a predefined series of orderly steps. The spaces include any type of related activities that form a continuum of innovation and results, which at times are chaotic, non-linear and deviate from the type of analytical analytical that has dominated the business world. To break it down further, design projects are broken down into 3 spaces including Inspiration, Ideation and Implementation. The first two are often repeated in order to arrive at the best possible solution for a customer.

In the article, Mr. Brown references Thomas Edison as one of the earliest and most influential and innovative design thinkers in the past 100 years. Rather than invent a single device, he had an ability to envision how others would want to use his invention. His insights came from considering users’ needs and preferences, which led to the most appropriate engineering specs.

Mr. Edison’s genius was his ability to surround himself with other gifted thinkers, improvisers and experimenters, which allowed for endless rounds of trial and error.  It was in this period where he is quoted saying, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” He rebuked the ‘lone genius inventor” label in favour of creating a team-based approach to innovation where his experimenters challenged every hypothesis to learn something new after each iteration. As Mr. Brown writes:

“Innovation is hard work; Edison made it a profession that blended art, craft, science, business savvy, and an astute understanding of customers and markets…. Like Edison’s painstaking innovation process, [design thinking] often entails a great deal of perspiration.”

It may be useful task to ask how well your organization leaves the comfort zone, brings disparate people and strengths together and questions assumptions that lead to new customer insights.

As technology psychologists, we are that human face for customers, looking after them and taking away their day-to-day IT worry. Rather than talk at them, we prefer talking with customers asking questions and creating options that help them be their very best. The goal is to maintain an open dialogue learning new insights by ensuring their technology ‘just works’ while also growing their organizations. 

The merits of balancing design and analytical thinking are becoming self-evident as some brands stagnate while others soar based on their relationship with customers. In a future post, I plan to highlight the personality profile and characteristics that make for a great technology psychologist which overlaps nicely with design thinkers.

Photo credits here and here

Toronto, Canada – July 5, 2011 – Manawa Networks, a leading Canadian IT consultancy that serves as a single point of contact for all their customers’ technology needs, announced a strategic partnership with Nexenta Solutions, the leader in OpenStorage solutions. Under the terms of the agreement, Manawa Networks will sell NexentaStor software, a ZFS-based, enterprise-class NAS/SAN solution, configured specifically to meet each customer’s needs atop select industry standard hardware.
Manawa Networks customizes each hardware solution around its customers’ requirements so that the solution is fully integrated with NexentaStor software, thereby offering organizations enterprise-class storage capabilities without the high cost or customer lock-in of legacy solutions.

“Today, Manawa Networks is delighted to announce our new strategic partnership with Nexenta Systems,” said Matthew Held, CEO of Manawa Networks. “We recognize the strong demand for NexentaStor certified solutions on the part of our customers and look forward to a long relationship with the company. The Canadian market is ready for storage solutions that offer high efficiency and performance, with a clear focus on the needs of small-and medium-sized companies. Manawa Networks is very proud to combine our hardware expertise with the exceptional software of Nexenta Systems.”

NexentaStor is the leading hardware-independent storage solution built upon ZFS. NexentaStor runs on industry standard x86 servers and provides NAS and SAN capabilities, including support for CIFS, NFS, iSCSI, and Fiber Channel storage access. By bundling NexentaStor software on select industry standard server hardware, Manawa Networks’ customers across Canada have access to enterprise-class, unified storage capabilities and advanced storage management functionality. Key system capabilities include:

• High performance CIFS, NFS, Fiber Channel, and iSCSI storage from the most widely deployed solution based on the revolutionary ZFS
• Air tight end-to-end data integrity, including the ability to detect and correct silent data corruption, support for superior RAID and continuous data protection, and remote site disaster recovery
• Unmatched support for virtualized environments, including VMware, Citrix Xen server, and Hyper-V integration that allows for consistent backups and simple replication and provisioning of virtualized environments
• Native use of Solid State Drives (SSDs) to create hybrid storage pools for cost-effective and simple-to-manage performance enhancement with low power consumption

“Partners like Manawa are a fundamental reason that NexentaStor is amongst the fastest adopted enterprise-class storage systems in history. The combination of our enterprise-class storage with Manawa Networks’ passion for customer success and technical expertise is far superior to aging legacy storage solutions that rely upon customer lock-in to drive growth,” said Evan Powell, CEO of Nexenta. “We are happy to be working with Manawa Networks to deliver storage solutions that are more flexible, higher performing, and less expensive than alternatives on the market today.”

For more information:

Flavian DeLima, Manawa Networks, Tel: 647.547.0216 fdelima@manawa.net

About Manawa Networks

Manawa Networks is an IT consultancy that serves as a single point of contact for all their customers’ needs. We serve small- and medium- sized enterprises, the non-profit and public sector, as well as corporate. With our dedicated approach to personalized, passionate care built on trust, integrity, and respect, Manawa partners with customers, providing managed services, onsite and help desk support, network design and implementation, and consulting services. The company is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

About Nexenta Systems

Founded in 2005 and privately held, Nexenta Systems, Inc. has developed NexentaStorTM, the leading open storage, enterprise-class, hardware-independent storage solution. Nexenta sponsors NexentaCore, an open source operating system that combines the high performance and reliability of OpenSolaris with the ease of use and breadth of applications of Linux. Both solutions leverage the revolutionary ZFS. With more than 20,000 total users and more than 975 license sales, Nexenta’s mission is to make enterprise-class storage available for everyone.

For most people, their most valuable learning comes from looking back at their mistakes. Personally, I find most people don’t go back far enough reflecting on past mistakes they made early on in their work life. Many of my biggest life lessons came from working part-time jobs as a child at my father’s grocery store, and as a teenager in the produce department at No Frills, and behind the deli counter of Bruno’s Meat and Deli.

One story I want to share with readers was an experience that I had at Bruno’s that I’m sure will resonate with business owners. One day I showed up to work late because my mother was late in arriving home from work. I couldn’t get the car in time and when I explained that to Luigi Bruno, he said something that I’ll never forget. He said, “Carmine, you’re making your problem my problem” and then he sent me home!  I was upset at the time, but when I reflect on this now, Luigi was absolutely right (his photo below).

The importance of honoring one’s commitment to another and taking ownership of one’s actions is the foundation for any strong and enduring relationship. As a society, we’ve grown accustomed to saying, “It’s not my problem” when someone else’s problem falls outside our area of concern.

Luigi’s lesson is applicable to most businesses because they all face the same challenge of finding people who own their problems as well as their customers end to end. In his book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t, Jim Collins asks an executive at one of the good to great companies to name the top five factors that led to the transition from mediocrity to excellence. Without hesitating, the executive responds,

 “One would be people. Two would be people. Three would be people.Four would be people. And five would be people. A huge part of our transition can be attributed to our discipline in picking the right people.”

At Manawa Networks, we have a fun, dedicated talent community of self-starters who believe they are part of something special. We love people with a “no problem is too big” attitude like Damian Clarke, who does our books and has this plaque on his desk.

We’re always looking for fantastic people. If you or someone you know has a great positive ATTITUDE and loves working with people and technology, please contact me at careers (at) manawa.net with “Attitude is Everything” in your SUBJECT line. Also, if you want to keep in touch, please follow us on on our Facebook page or  @ManawaNetworks