Varsity Technologies Blog

I have been fortunate to experiment with and actually use mobile technology in a variety of situations. Using tablet computers long before the iPad enabled me to better understand functional limitations of the technology in different environments. For those who might remember, tablet computers started out on Windows XP with very limited pen integration. The swivel displays were great and certainly eye catching, but the pen functionality left much to be desired. Weight and battery life all added to a relatively poor experience. But as someone committed to eliminating paper and making information more accessible to our staff and clients, I forged ahead with its use. Always the early adopter, I've seen the best and worst of this technology and have yet to see one product that stands out to truly meet the specific needs of schools and non-profits.

We all know that yoga is a healthy practice to integrate into your daily life. When you practice yoga, you just feel better. In addition to the physical benefits such as increasing flexibility, and soothing and elongating the muscles, the mental benefits of practicing this peaceful tradition are perhaps the most valuable. Yoga is, in many ways, exercise for the mind. The act of consciously slowing down our breath and quieting the mind can have a profound impact on our capacity to deal with daily stressors and handle tense situations in a way that doesn’t leave us wanting to pull our hair out at the end of each day. We all deal with stress in different ways, but it is no mystery that this little chemical/physical reaction in our bodies can be extremely dangerous depending on how we deal with it. (Great article on the subject: The Conscious Lifestyle: Facing Your Stress.)

It's that time of year when many of our clients are finalizing budgets for the next academic year. For those readers who are not involved in the budgeting process (and even if you are), here is some information on how it typically works.

We recently upgraded one of our data cards to a Sprint Mifi 4G LTE device. The device from Sierra Wireless was purchased for about $50 on a 2 year plan with a 12GB data transfer plan.

We have been talking about some kind of bowling party for a while around here. I have to admit, I was a tad skeptical in regards to the turn out, and how successful something like this could be. I always have the same worries – at the end of a long day, will people actually want to hang out with each other? Am I forcing them to “have fun” with one another? Will we be able to get away from talking shop? Is this totally lame? This has been a recurring state of mind for me over the last year as we have begun to encourage and support similar initiatives. This has self-doubt written all over it...but before I turn this into a personal blog post, I do have some professional points to make.

These days, it is difficult to find a career with which you can feel completely happy. The good news is that there are plenty of great jobs waiting for the right person to fill them, but you have to know how to look, and what you want to find. In order to tackle the overwhelming job, of finding a job (ironic?), you should first take a deep breath. Now that you are breathing, it is important to come to terms with your expectations and realities, so that you are applying for jobs within your career development level that suit your interests or career goals. This is especially important if you are shifting industries. Although roles and job functions may be similar, if your goal is to move from selling medical supplies to wine sales, the process of fully understanding a new industry can be a huge undertaking. And if you are interested in changing job roles, you will also face challenging hurdles.

Non-profits large and small have been in cloud evaluation mode for the past couple of years. Every conversation with every organization we run into involves, early in the discussion, a review of their cloud application options. Inevitably, business applications are the first or second item on the list, and this means Google Apps or Microsoft Office 365. Where the Microsoft vs. Apple conversation ended, the Microsoft vs. Google has taken over. In this blog post I'll cover some very recent updates as well as some important points to help you in your decision making.

I founded Varsity with the idea that a technology company could be both innovative in working with schools and non-profits, and also profitable. Over the years, my vision for Varsity has been met with much skepticism and downright cynicism from many business people. It’s not that anyone disagrees, but for a business it is commonly understood that it has to be about profit, making it difficult for others to understand when we choose to pass on an opportunity that would otherwise bring us a gain in profit but compromise our values.

On many an early morning I'm often sitting at home getting a head start on emails and other work (I’m known for my 4:00am emails). For me this is a time when things are quiet, and I have room to breathe and calmly get some work done. Although traveling with my MacBook Air has been great, I find that using it for extended periods of time - while sending out my early morning emails for example - just isn't comfortable or convenient. But rather than switch to using a tablet like a Microsoft Surface or the Samsung Note, I thought I would look at alternative configuration for using my laptop to better suit my various work environments.

Let's do a quick recap on Varsity's most recent (and awesome) events: