December 12, 2019
IT professionals are tasked with a very important job: protecting their companies’ digital infrastructure and digital assets from all threats and intrusions. It’s a big job. And, often, it’s a thankless one. After all, in many cases, the only interactions co-workers have with IT staff is when something is wrong.
December 11, 2019
Well, it’s almost here… 2020, the new year, the start of a new decade (depending on whom you ask). And that means we’ve nearly made it through another memorable 12 months.
November 19, 2019
Cybersecurity vulnerability isn’t just an American problem. It is a truly global concern. That recognition has driven international cooperation among the world’s governments, best exemplified by early agreements like the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, and supported by more recent measures, like the Obama Administration’s Executive Order promoting the sharing of private sector cybersecurity information.
November 18, 2019
With Thanksgiving almost upon us, many marketers are in full bore prep mode for Christmas season.
November 7, 2019
Welcome to the holiday season, everyone.
October 24, 2019
Big plans for Halloween this year? The October 31st holiday is an annual pilgrimage to the Altar of the Sweet Tooth for the kids. For adults, on the other hand, the celebration is closer to a fetishization of all things horrifyingly scary. If you’re a small business owner or an executive tasked with keeping your company’s digital infrastructure and business data safe, however, you might be forgiven for wanting to skip the terror-fest this year. Why? Because the number and variety of cyber threats just keep increasing exponentially, year after year, making every day Halloween.
October 22, 2019
There is so much marketing information out there these days.
October 15, 2019
As a profession, software developers have a reputation for being, um… let’s say eccentric. Or, quirky. Or, unique.
September 25, 2019
At Beacon, our success hinges on how well we know our clients. That’s what empowers us to anticipate their needs and deliver the right solution to the right problem at the right time. That doesn’t just happen by accident. It happens with a purposeful effort to get to know and understand our clients, their business needs and future goals. And, as with any successful relationship, it all starts with asking questions. Every once in a while, we wrangle one of our clients for an honest conversation about what we’re doing well and how we can improve. After all, you’ll never know if you don’t ask. This month, we had the privilege of chatting up Ken Dobbins, Vice President and General Manager of RSVP Communications, Inc.
September 19, 2019
Ah, September… for those of us tired of sweating through the sweltering summer heat, this month offers a welcomed respite.
September 6, 2019
This applies to Cascade Velocity formats. If you’ve ever had to pull in content through an external feed that has rich HTML, this piece of code may help you. Sometimes you may see HTML tags or code output into the content of the page. Such as, <Content goes here.>.
September 5, 2019
As your flagship marketing instrument, one of the primary roles of your higher ed website is to attract applicants to your school. How well it’s able to do so depends on how appealing your site is to your target audience – high school juniors and seniors.
August 28, 2019
In the last decade, the healthcare industry has undergone a dramatic evolution in the way that medical records are managed. If you work in the medical field, whether as a doctor, nurse, technician or administrator, you could not escape the implication of the “big switch” to EMR (electronic medical records).
August 27, 2019
The U.S. is home to the largest population of international students in the world. And, up until recently, the number of new international students arriving on U.S. college campuses each year has been climbing higher. However, it appears that the trend might be over.
August 7, 2019
From a student's perspective, picking the right college is getting more and more complicated. It might seem contradictory at a time when applying to schools is easier than ever.
July 25, 2019
Is your small business optimized for digital security and productivity? Pretty much every business takes measures to protect its network and IT infrastructure. With the extraordinary proliferation of malware and ransomware attacks in recent years, it’s just prudent planning to set up strong defenses against potential intruders. Managed IT services, which focus on more mundane tasks like updating and patching business applications, typically don’t receive the same level of scrutiny. But, they also play a key role in protecting your company’s key digital assets.
July 24, 2019
Have you ever seen the movie Big?
July 9, 2019
Have your friends or family members ever surprised you with great insight into a decision you were making or problem you were trying to solve? Maybe someone helped you with great advice on the best neighborhood for your home purchase or pushed you to chase the next challenge in your career.
June 25, 2019
The battle for higher ed students starts early. If you harbor hopes of success for the upcoming recruiting year, the summer months are the best time to fine-tune your game plan.
June 25, 2019
How do BITS customers really feel about the job we do for them? We’re sure that almost every business asks itself a variation of the same question. After all, being successful is all about maintaining relationships. Here at BITS, we really wanted to know the answer. So, we decided to take the radical step of, you know, actually talking to our clients about how our services impact them.
June 14, 2019
Congratulations from the Beacon team on completing another busy academic year!
June 4, 2019
If your project requires parallax background images, you’ll want to keep this note in mind. If your slider or content area that the parallax resides in has a 3D transform attached, you’ll want to remove that code for the background parallax image to properly work.
May 29, 2019
Is your institution thinking about a redesign? Perhaps it is time for a new look and feel, or maybe you are trying to attract more prospective students. With a busy academic schedule, it can seem daunting to tackle a redesign. However, with some planning and a little help from Beacon your redesign can become a reality.
May 22, 2019
For many juniors and seniors, one major decision comes to dominate the closing chapters of their high school careers: where to go to college. It’s not a secret that your higher ed website can – should, even – play a large role in the decision-making process. Often, it’s the first interaction between a prospective student and your school.
May 22, 2019
Your company’s email accounts represent some of the most vital assets of your business. They contain important client correspondence, extensive team processes and projects, working copies of various reports and deliverables, and a host of additional valuable bits of information. A loss of a record, or the inability to find or retrieve archived information, can cause tremendous harm to a business relationship with a client, vendor, regulator or even your own employees. That’s why responsible business administrators take steps to protect their business email accounts through comprehensive email backup solutions.
May 7, 2019
This is just a quick helpful how to tip for Font Awesome 5 custom CSS icon fonts. When adding your own custom styling to the fonts, be sure to add a font-weight: 900 style. This will allow the icon to properly show on the page. Otherwise, you may get an empty icon placeholder in the web browser.
April 24, 2019
Don’t look now, but hurricane season is once again bearing down upon us. Last year was predicted to be a below-average season. Instead, the Atlantic Ocean spit out 15 named storms, including eight hurricanes. There’s no telling what this season will bring. But, while you can’t predict when, or if, a major storm will strike, smart businesses plan for these types of disasters to ensure that they can survive and bounce back as quickly as possible.
April 19, 2019
If you’re a marketing professional in the field of higher education, you already know how important your institution’s website is in terms of attracting prospective students. This audience is an important, if not the most important, segment of your website’s traffic.
April 16, 2019
Is there a better way to approach campus visits in the information age?
April 4, 2019
Spring is a popular time for campus visits. In April, campuses everywhere swell with high school upperclassmen, parents in tow, taking part in information sessions and embarking on campus tours. It's an exciting time, filled with intrigue and possibilities.
March 26, 2019
It’s all happening. Birds are chirping. The first flowers are gingerly poking through the soil. Trees are sprouting buds and proudly displaying their early signs of new life.
March 19, 2019
Ever notice how one small change can cause a cascading series of bigger changes? It’s the classic butterfly effect in a nutshell – a butterfly flaps its wings in China, and 12 hours later a tornado hits, let’s say, Kansas. One small thing leads to a seemingly unrelated, bigger thing. The relatively recent rise of the cloud and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provides an excellent example of the theory in work. Of course, these trends are more significant than a single flap of butterfly wings. And the aftermath is surely less destructive. Nonetheless, the changes that adoption of the cloud has ushered in have been immense, and not always predictable.
March 13, 2019
It sure feels like those dazzling days of spring are just around the corner. More daylight and warmer temperatures are starting to tease nature back to life from the slumber of winter. It’s hard to ignore all the energy and buzz in the air.
February 26, 2019
Some of the biggest companies in the world were hit by some of the biggest cyber security breaches in 2018. Of the 24 largest breaches of all time on the USA Today list, three of the top 10 occurred last year – Marriott, Under Armour, and Quora. But it’s not just the digital novices who are vulnerable. Cyber breaches were also a problem for tech giants, like Google, Facebook, and Twitter last year. If Google isn’t safe, what chance do small and medium-size businesses have of keeping their digital infrastructure secure?
February 21, 2019
Sometimes it's hard to appreciate the routine things we use every day. Tools, possessions and even people we see on a daily basis tend to get less and less of our full attention.
February 14, 2019
Happy Valentine’s Day from all of us at Beacon! Many of us relish this day as an opportunity to express and share our appreciation with our partners and loved ones. We hope today is all about love for you, too.
January 29, 2019
You've done it! Months of late nights and dedications to the design of the perfect higher ed website have culminated in a beautiful launch. It is all easy sailing from here, right? Well, maybe not.
January 28, 2019
Happy New Year! What are you looking to do better in 2019? The turn of the calendar tends to bring with it thoughts of personal growth and improvement. But, for many business owners – their identity being tied directly to their enterprises – New Year’s resolutions often translate to things they can do better for their companies. So, let’s restate the above question: What are you looking to do better for your business in 2019?
January 15, 2019
Is your higher ed website weighed down with too much old, under-performing content? January is the perfect time to prune outdated content. Find out how.
