Our first Reboot & Refocus workshop was a great success this week. Over 50 people joined us at the Board of Trade to discuss the steps small businesses need to take to whip their computer networks into shape to improve productivity and profitability.

We went through a proven 10-step plan for securing a small business computer network and eliminating productivity-sapping downtime. We detailed an automated, secure and affordable approach to backing up data and ensuring a business is protected from disaster.

We also had great speakers participate in our expert panel. Chris Bockhop from IBM spoke about improving productivity, efficiency and eliminating downtime starts with a company’s server. Emanuel Green from Cisco talked about what small businesses need to do to ensure a high level of security for their network. Both speakers generated a great dialogue and lots of questions.

Five lucky people walked away with copies of Windows 7 – two days before it was released by Microsoft, who also gave us two copies of Microsoft Office Ultimate as prizes. We also gave away an iPod and lots of other USB sticks, pens, bags and books provided by our partners at IBM and Cisco.

Thanks to IBM for being our lead sponsor for the event and all their support in putting it together (our rep Cathy Sewell was awesome!). We were able to provide a great lunch from Oliver and Bonacini free of charge because of IBM’s involvement. We wanted to thank Cisco for sponsoring the event as well and helping us offset some of the other costs of putting it together.

Several of our clients also agreed to do videos for the event to share their computer and network challenges so other businesses could learn from them. Thanks to Hayley Ohlig from Amplis, Sarah Hogan from RE/MAX Hallmark, Dr. Izchak Barzilay from Prosthodontic Associates and John Hertel from DECOSTA. Jack Szymko and Mary Anne Ramirez from JR Shooter also took time to be videoed and we very much appreciate it.

We’re planning to hold these events regularly in the New Year. If you didn’t get a chance to attend this time, make sure you keep an eye out for the next one!