We often say things like “I have to get this project done” or “I have to attend an event tomorrow.” These are pretty banal comments, but there is an incongruence hidden in them that costs us energy, time, and personal power upon deeper inspection. Simply altering one word in the above sentences can change their entire meaning. By saying “I get to finish…

Remember the time you said, “Man, I am just too productive right now – I better slow down and be less effective with my time.” Yeah, me neither. Because no human experiences this. Instead of slowing down, we search for ways to accelerate our productivity. We have to, if we want to keep our heads…

Get Your Goals Right… Welcome, friends, to the most anticipated New Year in modern history. Never before in your life has society craved a fresh beginning this much. Never before have we seen so much optimism packed in a simple reboot of the calendar. However, you and I know that changing our year’s last digit…

Enter The Grateful Flow Last Thursday marked a day intentionally set aside for gratitude and expressing the appreciation we have for the blessings and abundance in our lives. This year was no doubt more challenging than recent years due to the invisible enemy threatening our collective health. However, in the spirit of making the most…

It’s 7 am on Monday morning last week; the sun is just breaking the horizon. I make my daily drive to the office. I park my car. Right before I open the front door, I notice something odd: a small stack of cardboard boxes leaning against our warehouse door. Unusual? Yes, yet this is a…

Defeating the Panic Monster   Why We Must Develop a Habit of Acting Promptly and Boldly to Avoid Procrastination in Our Lives. There’s a highly entertaining, laugh-out-loud TED talk that’s well worth the watch for anyone interested in becoming more productive, gaining a sense of control, and feeling less shame in their life. In the talk,…

The Power of Patience On the wall next to our fridge, in a place you can’t avoid, a large, heavy sheet of solid steel is drilled into the wall. The kitchen revolves around the phrase etched in steel, attributed to the ancient philosopher Epictetus:  “No great thing is created suddenly.” This phrase reminds my wife…

Resilience & The Black Swan We have now lived nearly two full months in a world where the loudest emotions are confusion, panic and fear.  The Black Swan event has come (our first in nearly 12 years!) and this one seems to have some sticking power. Black swans, as Nassim Nicholas Taleb explains so eloquently…

Don’t Let Disruption Disrupt You Right now, the cloud is changing things.  Your clients now must choose between putting resources into the public cloud or make investments in their own private clouds (aka traditional IT hardware – read our take here >). As solution providers, the clouds come with new turbulence (yes, we love the…

Is Consolidation (Always) Bad for Your Business? Like many yes/no questions, the answer isn’t so simple.  First, consolidation is a fact of our industry – whether we like it or not. The bigger national companies grow bigger – and gain more leverage. Meanwhile, specialized IT providers lose leverage.  In the IT market, we have a…

These days, IT architectures are in flux. Some major IT trends – like Big Data, AI, IoT, and virtualized everything – have led to a radical change: The underlying networks + nodes of enterprise IT are now designed to harmonize with futuristic tech. When applications employ AI, IoT, and the like, they increase the demand…

The commoditization trend has been unstoppable As part of the digital transformation across numerous businesses – and across many verticals – the IT hardware supply chain has become complicated and fractured. The good news? Our unique – and independent – position between wholesale + resale helps us understand commoditization better than anyone in the channel.…

There’s a lot of hype out there about “digital transformation” and “disruption” . . . You’ve noticed it? Yet when you put aside the emotional components – the fears of falling behind digital trends, the marketing pressures to jump on the latest bandwagon – there are calm, steady structures to rest on. An Ingram Micro…

As holiday gift ideas plaster your screens, from Echo Dots to Furbo treat-dispensing dog cameras . . . what’s on your wish list this year? Anything from the good ol’ Internet of Things (IoT)? (And let’s be honest . . . did you buy any IoT gifts for yourself during Cyber Week? We saw those…

As autumn approaches, new things are beginning! In the spirit of all things new … when’s the last time you chatted with your customers about trying VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure)? Although this technology has been around for over a decade, recent advances have changed end users’ attitudes. This year, we’re seeing more VDI projects launching than…

Do you need to switch? If you’re cruising along with Cisco, do you need to switch to HPE Aruba? Conversely, if HPE Aruba products are among the 5 things you’d bring to a deserted island, do you need to consider Cisco? 1. If you stick with – or switch to – Cisco … They’ve led the…