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Nura and Carolyn discussed the ins and outs of supporting a few staff members and managing a few Macs, whether in a Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace environment.
The days of leaving your Mac users to manage their own devices are long gone – current cybersecurity risks require full management of ALL your end users. You might try to get all your staff on the same laptops, but Mac users really love their Macs and are reluctant to give them up. How can you best ensure their device is secure while letting them use the machine that makes them the most productive?
There are a lot of advantages to allowing Mac users to keep their Macs. It increases the pool of qualified talent you can hire, and can make your office more able to recover from cyber attacks by having a variety of laptops running different systems even if they are united on Microsoft or Google platforms.
Nura recommends starting with policy – even if you are only managing a few Macs, you are going to want to include those users in your Acceptable Use Policies. You’ll also want to document the expectations on your IT team or IT provider for their level of Mac support.
Second, do not leave your Mac users behind in terms of IT support. If you allow them, support them. If you are hiring for an internal IT team, ensure the ability to support Macs. And if you are hiring outsourced IT, be thorough in questioning their support agreement to manage a few Macs.
Finally, Nura gave us some ideas in three issues:
Nura is a Senior Consultant at Community IT. In that role, he proactively oversees technology infrastructure for select clients, providing strategic IT advice, recommending IT solutions and solution design to meet business objectives, and then overseeing solution implementations. Nura provides leadership and guidance for strategic planning and solutions architecting with clients who have sophisticated technical and business requirements. He gathers core business, technical and IT service management requirements through a variety of activities including key stakeholder interviews, document review and technical assessments.
Nura started his career at Community IT as a Network Administrator. In 2012, he was promoted to Network Engineer and assumed a supervisory role in IT service operations, then became an IT Business Manager, where he has guided some of our largest clients through complex implementation of effective technology investments and utilizing efficient IT services in direct support of their missions. He has a lot of experience in making IT governance work for your nonprofit.
Prior to joining Community IT Innovators, Nura served as a member of the technical support team at George Washington University and held a Network Specialist role at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament in Abuja, Nigeria. Nura holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering and Master of Science in Electrical Engineering, both from George Washington University.
Community IT has been serving nonprofits exclusively for twenty years. We offer Managed IT support services for nonprofits that want to outsource all or part of their IT support and hosted services. For a fixed monthly fee, we provide unlimited remote and on-site help desk support, proactive network management, and ongoing IT planning from a dedicated team of experts in nonprofit-focused IT. And our clients benefit from our IT Business Managers team who will work with you to plan your IT investments and technology roadmap if you don’t have an in-house IT Director.
We constantly research and evaluate new technology to ensure that you get cutting-edge solutions that are tailored to your organization, using standard industry tech tools that don’t lock you into a single vendor or consultant. And we don’t treat any aspect of nonprofit IT as if it is too complicated for you to understand.
Many outsourced IT providers simply won’t support Macs in a Window environment. Because so many nonprofits see the advantages in managing a few Macs if it means their staff are happier and included, Community IT has a robust practice of all-Mac or some-Mac support.
We think your IT vendor should be able to explain everything without jargon or lingo. If you can’t understand your IT management strategy to your own satisfaction, keep asking your questions until you find an outsourced IT provider who will partner with you for well-managed IT.
If you’re ready to gain peace of mind about your IT support, let’s talk.
Join Heather Ritchie of Build Consulting for a webinar on using this powerful change management tool. September 18th at 3pm Eastern, Noon Pacific
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