Newmind adds to leadership team

Wow. We can’t believe its almost been 10 years since Newmind was first founded in 2003.  In the early days we did simple computer and server maintenance and as we grew, larger and larger companies began to take notice and ask us for help.

Now we are nationwide, 900 customers strong, and bringing new innovations to our friends in education,  winning awards, and setting the standard for our clients on how to execute “smooth and painless” technology upgrades. We’ve also had a lot of fun along the way.

Today we open a new chapter at +Newmind Group as we welcome a friend from the past into the key role of leading our Sales & Marketing that will help us move forward.  +Matthew Vollmar was Newmind employee #3, and along the way he left us to have some new adventures and find his path.   He is now returning to Newmind with the exact skillset, knowledge, and experiences that we need to take our team into the future.


To say we are excited is a massive understatement.  So here is a little Q&A with Matt.  We know you will love him as much as we do.

What did you do at HP?
I was an Account Delivery Manager in the HP Enterprise Services organization.  This means that I managed the day-to-day delivery of the IT Outsourced services for a client, including management of SLAs, Customer Satisfaction, Employee oversight and Finances.

How do you plan on using that experience to move Newmind forward?
Newmind uses technology to make work more productive, profitable, and enjoyable for our customers.  To me, this is the epitome of a great IT Services philosophy, with the focus being on service and the relationship that we build in order to make that service better.  I’ve developed a lot of expertise in lining up IT Services with the expectations of a customer.  Since Newmind’s focus is on customer relationship, I have the opportunity to help grow this unique company so that more customers can benefit from our blend of technical skill and strong customer relationship.

What is your personal philosophy on managing a team?
I was taught from an early age that a true leader is someone who serves those that are being lead.  To me, this means helping others find their groove and increasing their level of awesome.  I like to work with people to move roadblocks out of the way so that they can succeed more and more often.  If my team wins then I win.  It is a humbling but pivotal moment when you realize that the skills and accomplishments of the team outweigh your own as a leader.  My goal is to cast the vision of where we want to go and harness the skills of each individual member of the team to bring that vision to fruition.

Last thing you read?
Since this position offers a lot of new challenges for me in a very practical sense, I’ve been reading some sales and marketing thought-leader blogs.  I’ve also read a couple of Sherlock Holmes stories, the autobiography of Ben Franklin and a book on parenting.

Favorite superhero?
Interesting question.  I love to watch Sci-Fi and Superhero movies but I don’t know that I’ve ever really picked a favorite.  I wasn’t a comic book geek as a kid (my loss).  My favorite image of a hero is Jesus because of his love for people and his example of leading through serving.

You left Newmind, but came back. What do you think has changed more in the hiatus: you or Newmind? explain.
I think both Newmind and I have matured significantly. I’ve transitioned from someone who avoided people-management and was only interested in technical work to discover that my true passion is in leadership.  Newmind has taken a strong leadership in the local entrepreneurial community as well as excelling in the technical fields that they’ve pursued, including developing a strong relationship with Google.  In a sense, both Newmind and I have come into our strength over the last 5-7 years and now we will join forces and become invincible!!!!  Or at least a lot more awesome.

Newmind Internships

Gumption. Chutzpah. Call it what you will, but you know that spirit of confidence and adventure? That stuff inside a person that made pioneers move West or caused a man to move out to the woods to live deliberately (that’s not too grandiose, right?). That ingredient in a person that allows them to step outside the confines of the “norm” and purposefully move forward. Yes, THAT. That is the stuff Newmind interns are made of.


Any internship is about experience, and a Newmind internship is no different. With Newmind though, that experience comes with seeing how a successful team operates, working with today’s technology, and cultivating a talent that our interns know they have but aren’t sure how to use. All of these are invaluable to someone starting out or changing paths. The one common thread with some of the past Newmind interns is that the time that they’ve spent in their internship helped them find themselves and their path into the future.

Nicolas Yarosz
Certified Google Apps Trainer
Certified Google Apps Sales Specialist

“[Applying] for the job was a bit of an adventure,” Nicolas, a past Sales intern says. “I knew starting out would be a challenge, but that it would be satisfying because it would be an accelerated learning experience and a safe place to take risks. It was an opportunity to work with a company that would provide me a lot of room to grow, and grow quickly. It was worth the investment of my time.”

What is it about Newmind that makes an internship worthwhile? Apart from getting their hands dirty with technology, the culture is what past interns harken back to. “Each person [in the organization] has a lot of influence, and the group is really a family. The fact that I can make a difference for so many people is rewarding. In so many jobs you don’t see the fruits of your actions and this is really exciting. A collaborative environment, honest communication, honest feedback, honest exchange, the freedom to be myself and for my personality to shine. I don’t need to conform to the man, man,” Logan, a Newmind Tech Intern, laughs. “Newmind trusts their employees. I’m personally responsible for my own space and my own work. I feel like I have ownership of my own position, and having so much personal responsibility can be much harder than just being trained to be a yes man.”

Logan Jensen
Certified Google Apps Trainer

“The culture encourages me to let my personality shine," Nicolas continues. "I’m not thinking in the back of my mind that I’m not saying the right thing in the right way. That makes customers more comfortable because they know they’re talking to a real human being. I’m cared about by my owner and my co-workers. A lot is expected of you, but it’s not a corporate thing, it’s a cultural thing.”

Like a lot of industry internships, the Newmind internships are unpaid for a time. “We begin with a list of clear goals for each intern,” says Daniel Jefferies, founder of Newmind. “As soon as the goals are met, normally within the first 1 to 2 months of part time work, interns start earning a modest hourly wage. Some interns become full time members of the team after their internship is complete”

Our interns agree that what they get out of the experience is worth it. “It wasn’t too exciting to not be paid,” Nicolas says. “It was tough, but it was worth the sacrifice. Interning with Newmind Group provided me with the skills and experience that will always make me a more valuable employee. They have made me valuable to Newmind as well, and prepared me for a real life job. This job forced me to learn how to prioritize and organize well, and that is invaluable in many other areas of my life. What I learned at Newmind as an intern has not only affected my job here, but also how successful I can be in life.”

Newmind is currently accepting applications for internships.
Visit http://www.newmindgroup.com/site/jobs/  for more information.

Password Security and Protecting Yourself Online

There is a 14 year old right now in their parents' basement on a computer. They don’t know your password, but with a little time and ingenuity they could get into your email account. Once they’re in your email account, it’s just a matter of time before they’re in your Amazon, Netflix, bank, and even Paypal. Heck, even public figures have learned the hard way that password reminder tools can hurt just as much as they can help.

That password that stands between you and chaos, can be a string of six alphanumerics or if you’re a real overachiever it might be 16 characters and substitute a $ for an S. Ohhhh, tricky.

The thing is, that pa5$w0rd helps spread a false perception that your online data is secure. These days, accounts are daisy chained together for your convenience, but it’s pretty convenient for a hacker too. How many sites are setup with your email address as your username? How many other sites are setup to login with your Facebook or Twitter account? Get one and you’ve got them all, and that’s not hard to do with some of your personal information that’s publicly available and easily found online.


Hackers compromise data every day, and it doesn’t always make the headlines. For every incident of Anonymous taking down the banks and government agencies in Israel that makes national news, there are countless others that don’t. Hospitals, schools, insurance agencies, NASA. If they can get in there, your little email account is no sweat.

The move to the cloud has been a slow one, so it’s no wonder that we’ve been lulled into complacency.  In the early days of the internet, the “cloud” was barely a vapor, so your passwords could reasonably serve their purpose as their were few avenues of mayhem that a hackers could follow.

Now though, your photos, documents, money, communications... they’re all in the cloud. They’re safe from physical destruction there. A fire, flood, or hurricane can’t compromise them, but as these online accounts have blossomed, online providers have acquiesced to the user desire for convenience and have created a system riddled with vulnerability. We’ve been told that our savior here is the password, but the notion of a “strong” password is a lollypop we’re given to cover up the bitter taste of inherent weaknesses in the system.

Passwords can be guessed, stolen, cracked, lifted, and reset. Yes, people still choose terrible passwords. Yes, people recycle usernames and passwords from site to site. Yes, criminals can be tricky and make you think you’re doing one thing when you’re really doing another. And yes, the bad guys can take much more nefarious levels of tricking you. Then end result is the same though.

So what can you do? I mean, this is all pretty bleak! Short of installing a usb retina scanner or moving to the hills and going off the grid, what are your options?

There are actions you can take. There are actions you should take. And now.

1. Two factor verification. 
Some sites use multiple factors to authenticate the user at login. These can be knowledge factors (something you know like a password or PIN), inherence factors (something you are like a biometric of some sort), and possession factors (something you have like a mobile device or IT card). 

If you’re using Google Apps, you can enable 2-step verification for your domain to add that extra layer of security. Once it’s been enabled for your domain, the user selects the method for receiving their verification code on their mobile device: text message, phone call, via the Authenticator app on smartphones. 

After the initial setup, at the next login the user will enter their username and password as usual, then on a second page they will be prompted to enter their verification code from their phone. 

This two factor authentication is just the start for the Google, who is looking into other methods of verification and is vigilant at watching the patterns of your account and letting you know if anything odd happens. 

What happens if a device is lost or stolen? Google Apps supports Mobile Device Management tools, and Android devices that are registered in the Account Admin Panel can be remotely wiped if they might be compromised. 

2. Lie to your security questions.
Trick ‘em. What city were you born in? Where did you honeymoon? What is your mother’s maiden name? The Sea of Tranquility, Xanadu, and Mad Max. If it’s something I can look up on your Facebook page, it’s not something that should be guarding you online. Make up answers and stop being so predictable. 

3. Create a new email account. 
Make a whole new email account that isn’t tied to your name, and use it only for your password resets. If you use a password manager like LastPass, tie that to this new email account as well. The key is to NOT have all of your eggs in one basket, and to stop daisy chaining everything together. 

4. Have some password savvy. 
Substituting numbers for letter is sooooo 2010.  Most hacking tools have these built into their tools now, so stop it. But don’t use dictionary words either, unless you’re using a string of them. Simplicity, length, and variance are all factors to consider when you’re choosing passwords. 

5. Erase the loose ends.
Head over to spokeo.com and search for yourself.
Freaked out yet? It’s easy to hop on sites like Spokeo, Pipl, or Whitepages and find out the basics to start an attack, but it’s also simple to preemptively go on those sites and have your listing removed. Do it. 

We didn’t want to bring you a bunch of doom and gloom to darken your day, but being on the cloud in this day and age means being vigilant in keeping your data as safe as you can. Luckily, if you’re using Google Apps, there are some extra measures you can easily take that will make you that much safer online.

Security training. Auditing. Two factor authorization. It can all be a little overwhelming. If you have any questions about online security tools, or how to incorporate them into your business, contact Newmind today. As always, we’re here to help.

You talked. We listened.

Teachers Have Great Ideas!

We love hearing from our customers, and we use your suggestions whenever we can to improve our services. A suggestion came up recently that has made us look at our Chromebooks packages and decide to make some changes.

The story goes like this. The purchasing agent for a school district in Texas placed an order for several of the original Samsung Series-5 Chromebooks back in April 2012. During implementation, the technology instructors found them to be great devices for their students and in September, 2012 the purchasing agent called Newmind up again to order a bunch more Chromebooks as well as some charging carts.

The catch? During the lapse between these two orders, Google had announced the much faster and sleeker Samsung 550 Chromebook, and it was these that the purchasing agent requested for the second order. What the purchasing agent didn’t know was that the tech instructors in the school district were consistently using the VGA dongles, included with every Samsung Series-5 Chromebook, to connect to powerpoint machines, etc., which Samsung had decided to not include with the new Samsung 550 Chromebook.

So, when the second order of Chromebooks arrived in early October, Vicki, the head of technology instructors for the district, called us up wondering where her dongles were. I explained that Samsung had discovered that most Chromebooks users had found them to be of little value so they were not being added to the 550 Chromebooks.

Needless to say Vicki was bummed by the news. We talked about it for a while and she completely agreed that having a VGA dongle for every Chromebook wasn’t really that useful and understood their decision. She did have an idea for us though.

Vicki’s suggestion? For every charging cart we sell, include one VGA dongle so that each “mobile Chromebooks lab” has a way for teachers to connect to their power point machines. This way, no matter if purchasing agents, teachers, principals, or others are the ones actually placing the orders, the folks in the classroom who end up using the Chromebooks will have the tools they need to be successful.

All of us on the Chromebooks team here at Newmind talked about Vicki’s idea. We all love it and have decided to implement it. In those larger organizations that have different people making the purchases than who end up using the devices, we want to be that stop-gap to make sure that the end-users have what they need to be successful.

A big thank you goes out to Vicki in Texas for helping us identify this way for us to better help our customers. For all you other Newmind clients out there, we’d love to hear what you think are good ideas to make us better at meeting your technology needs, so don’t hold back.

Halloween is for ChromeBOOks

From the scary fast startup times to an undead battery, remember the the Chromebook for everyone this Halloween. 

Contact us to chat about the Chromebooks and how they're different from any other device out there.

Tech Tip: Most Often Missed Gmail Labs

By Steve Chang, Google Apps Certified Deployment Engineer




Customization has always been in my blood from cars, sportbikes, and even PCs. It is a way to personalize something that you own to something that you enjoy. Sometimes when you are given something that is a very useful system like Google Apps for Business, you just want to personalize and squeeze out more performance. That is where you find Google Labs.



As you may know, Google engineers are encouraged to take 20 percent of their time to work on something company-related that interests them personally and that they are passionate about. Although Google Labs has stopped producing new products, many are still available for your Google Mail enjoyment. Here are my top 3 picks of Google Mail Labs currently available to customize your Google Mail accounts, so here we go.

#3: Canned Responses
Within communication in any industry, there has always been a time where you typed the same email over and over again making both the process and the material monotonous. At least with the Canned Responses lab, you reduce some of your time in tedium by building templates you can efficiently revise. This will allow you to build your emails quickly without the need of re-typing or copy/pasting repeatedly. Another great feature of this Lab is that you can create a filter that will use a Canned Response to auto-reply to emails with specific search criteria. Who wouldn’t want that?

#2: Insert Images
For a long time you could not add images in-line with text within an outgoing email and could only attach the file or photo to the email to download first before viewing. Enabling the insert images lab will add a little picture icon across the top of the Compose section that will allow you to embed images into your email. You can insert and attach from your PC or from an URL on a website. Now you can paste those funny Memes to your fellow co-workers quickly and make them readily viewable.

#1: Signature Tweaks
When you first compose your email after creating a Signature in your Email Settings, your signature shows up at the bottom of the email. When you reply to an email, though, your quoted text shows up above the Signature that you thoughtfully made. The recipient will need to scroll down to the bottom of the email in order to find your contact information or to just marvel at your creation. Signature Tweaks under Gmail Labs places the Signature above the Quoted text so that it will always show up to your recipients just below the new email or email response.

There are quite a few more Gmail Labs available in the list presented to you under your Email Settings > Labs tab in your Google Mail account. So what are you waiting for? Go on and enable some Gmail Labs for yourself.

Greenleaf Hospitality Group chooses Google Apps

Greenleaf Hospitality Group, recently named among the 50 Most Engaged Workplaces in the U.S., is a hospitality management company that oversees two hotels, five ice arenas, seven restaurants, two retail shops, a spa, and is currently 800+ employees strong. Their locations and employees are spread out across an entire state, and employees can often be found on the road between locations. Getting them data when they need it is crucial to operations. Recently, Greenleaf was looking at opportunities that would allow them to move away from their aging and undersized IT system, including Exchange.

Michael Cross
Dir. of Technology Services

“We were looking at changing our entire infrastructure, and email was at the top of the list,” explains Michael Cross, Director of Technology Services. “We had explored staying with Exchange, as well as moving to a cloud solution like Office365 or Google Apps.”



Greenleaf was looking at finding better tools for their employees who were always on the go, to help them stay on top of projects and reports at their many locations.

“I was already familiar with the many benefits of Google Apps, and I already knew of Newmind as a Google Apps partner,” Michael continued. “In the end it really boiled down to cost being the most significant factor in our decision. Google Apps was 30% less than the cost of Office365, and only half the cost of using a self-managed Exchange server. When we calculated the ROI, we discovered Apps would pay for itself in only 18 months.”

Greenleaf Hospitality Group decided to make the switchover with a well-planned “rip and replace” strategy. “Only a dozen or so users had been given a preview of the new tools,” Michael said. “But everything went as smoothly as we could have imagined it to go. The Exchange server caused complete data migration to take longer than we would have liked,  but the entire cutover took four hours at the most.”

“Having Newmind Group manage our deployment was a critical success factor,” Michael goes on to say, “Doing it ourselves would have been possible, but there were a lot of ‘gotcha’ moments that would have delayed our efforts. Having Newmind Group involved helped us plan and get those roadblocks out of the way. Newmind’s assistance with training was also essential. They enabled a seamless, smooth process.”

The biggest benefit Greenleaf has seen since their move to Google Apps has been that now all of the employees can access their email from any device, anywhere. “As an IT guy, I really appreciate the freedom I can now give my colleagues to use what they like. The Android people are happy, the iPhone people are happy. Plus, my IT staff are happy now that we no longer have to support old devices that were losing their value and functionality.” Michael explains.

Prior to the switch, Greenleaf employees were locked into using antiquated devices as their only option for handhelds. They were difficult to work on and incapable of performing the functions employees yearned for, but the company was locked in. They had zero choices if they wanted to be able to access their email. If an off-site employee didn’t have a company-issued device they were forced to trudge through a complex vpn connection. One employee recounted a time when, in the legacy system, they were out of the office and needed to check their email. “After an hour of unsuccessfully trying to connect to the Exchange mail server with the vpn, I simply gave up,” the employee said. “When I returned to work the next day I discovered that there had been a crisis in my absence. Because of my inability to access my email, what could have taken seconds to clear up (with Google Apps) instead took days to rectify.”

By harnessing the power of the cloud, Google Apps has enabled Greenleaf Hospitality Group staff members to access their email, calendar, and documents from any device anywhere in the world.
In terms of delving deep into all of their new tools, Greenleaf’s training intentionally only covered the basics, leaving employees with the freedom to explore everything else on their own. “Now we’re starting to see widespread adoption. Chat was the big one to become adopted first, and now we’re starting to see people using forms. A lot of users are not computer savvy, but the fact that they are finding these tools on their own and are using them is amazing,” Michael says. “We’re lucky to have users that are used to and willing to accept change.”

“In hindsight, I can honestly say that every aspect of switching to Google Apps with Newmind went really well. The biggest success factor for me is that on the switchover day our CEO was on vacation and was able to get his email. He was on a boat, in Alaska, in the middle of nowhere, and he was able to get his email and reply to it,” Michael laughs. “In fact, as an organization we decided we should use this project as a tool to measure all future projects on how smooth and painless they should be.”