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There’s a reason why baskets have been around for centuries. From babies to bread, our prehistoric ancestors understood how useful baskets are for carrying, storing and transporting just about anything. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best. Thousands of years later, we’re still using baskets to transport our groceries and store our laundry. Just as baskets help make chores and shopping faster and more efficient, it turns out baskets are good for business too! Whether you’re offering in-person training, managing a distribution centre or facilitating vaccinations, if your operational process includes sharing devices, our Basket system provides multiple benefits. PC Locs slotted device Baskets enable hand-out and pack-up of devices in less time, giving you more time to focus on operational goals.

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Over the past 60 years, the Community Blood Center (CBC) has supplied life-saving blood to 800,000 people throughout Kansas and Missouri. They are now serving 70 counties, and to meet the needs of patients at 60 different hospitals for blood and blood components, the Community Blood Center relies on approximately 500 donors every weekday. In order to fulfil this need, blood donation cannot happen only at the blood centre; they must depend on blood drives throughout the two states.

Challenge                                                                                                                                                                             

To collect enough donations, the Community Blood Center has invested in mobile blood banks–a fleet of vans that are fully stocked with everything necessary for a blood donation procedure. The medical equipment they are using is loaded into vans that travel to satellite locations where blood can be collected in public places around the two states.

It’s no small feat to manage all of the technology that goes into a mobile blood bank. Their mobile technology needs to be loaded into the van every morning and unloaded from the van every night–as well as unloaded from the van to the blood collection site and back onto the van to be transported back to the blood centre.

When moving as many as 16 laptops/tablets, 8 keyboards, 3 wireless printers, 3 webcams, and all of their power supplies (per van), the task can be fairly daunting. With some ingenuity, the Blood Bank was able to come up with a custom solution that met their needs.

The Solution

The blood bank needed a “mobile device kit” that could easily charge, store, secure and transport a wide variety of mobile devices and all necessary power supplies. They found success in the PC Locs Carrier 40 Cart. Because of the open-concept design, they were able to remove half of the Baskets and retrofit their own padding and shelf to accommodate their unique needs.

Durability, easy transport of devices and efficient charging without removing devices from the Cart were all critical components of their successful mobile device deployment.

Results

A generation of Kansas and Missouri citizens has grown up with the Community Blood Center, and they know if blood is needed in the community during an emergency, Community Blood Center will make sure it’s there.

 

*  Please Note: The Carrier 40 Cart is not recommended for outdoor use. Modifications were made to the exterior of the Cart to make it suitable for outdoor use–including industrial strength wheels, reinforced chassis and a customized cover.

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Is your organisation preparing for remote employees to return to the office? Keep in mind, when your team members come back, so do their contaminated laptops, tablets and phones. Streptococcus, MRSA and E. coli have all been found lurking on devices. Nonporous surfaces like smartphone screens can also make them a perfect environment for the coronavirus.

As an employer, it’s your responsibility to have infection control policies, procedures and training in place. You must also provide infection control supplies.

As you create a plan for a safe return to work environment, it’s essential to include steps to mitigate the risks of maintaining and sharing devices in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. We’re here to help with five tips to reduce the spread of smartphone bacteria and infections by improving sanitisation and limiting physical interactions.

Tip 1: Clean Your Hands and Your Devices

No single tactic for keeping employees safe is 100% effective, advises the Cleveland Clinic. However, multiple layers of effective interventions serve as safeguards when used together. “The more layers of effective interventions that are implemented, the less likely your business will contribute to the spread of COVID-19.” In addition to masks, social distancing, routine cleaning and frequent hand washing, device sanitisation can reduce infection risk and increase workplace device safety.

By touching a contaminated surface, then texting and making calls, your phone can become a culprit for spreading infection. By lowering germs on surfaces through proper sanitisation methods, you’ll break free from the endless loop of cross-contamination.

While alcohol-based wipes will disinfect touch screens, they take upwards of three minutes to be effective. The UVone™ UV-C Disinfection Station is a better way to disinfect touchscreens because it works in just 30 seconds—six times quicker than traditional wipes. UV-C light also disinfects in a consistent manner, making it more reliable and efficient than wipes. Plus, it is the perfect zero touch solution to ensure technology cleanliness and does not degrade the integrity of devices over time.

Tip 2: Create an Overnight Charging Location for Shared Devices

Recently, the Little Friends^® non-profit agency transitioned back to in-person schooling at its new facility. With staff and students’ health and safety in mind, plexiglass partitions were installed, social distancing and mask protocols were adopted, and a nightly cleaning schedule was implemented. In addition to these mitigation measures, the administrators sought a way to give parents the assurance that shared iPad devices were routinely sanitised. They also needed a comprehensive strategy for charging, storing and securing shared iPad devices.

The decision was made to mount a UVone next to a Carrier™ 10 Charging Station in each classroom so that devices can be quickly sanitised before storing and charging overnight. This overnight charging solution goes beyond a school setting to fit into any work environment.

If your employees share tablets or hand-held devices, a designated overnight charging location in your office gives everyone peace of mind. Your staff will know that their shared devices are disinfected and fully charged at the start of each shift. You’ll have the confidence that company devices are stored securely and not at risk for costly data breaches.

Tip 3: Deploy a Zero-Touch Model for Maintaining Mobile Devices 

Maintaining social distancing protocols is challenging when broken equipment needs to be exchanged and new equipment distributed. One way to make office-based employment safer is through contactless device distribution. Here are just three of the ways FUYL Towers can eliminate physical interactions between IT teams and employees. Start by choosing an accessible location at your facility to place one or more FUYL Tower 5 or 15 stocked with sanitised, ready-to-go devices, then:

• Deploy devices: For employees who need a new device, provide easy access to tablets and laptops.

• Provide Loaner/Break-Fix Devices: For employees who need to exchange a broken device or check out a loaner, easily swap the failed device or provide a replacement.

• Distribute Other Essential Equipment: For employees who need more than just a laptop to perform their jobs, simplify the distribution of tools, paperwork, lost cables and more.

Tip 4: Don’t Forget Your Remote Workforce 

Despite many schools and offices reopening, the remote workforce is not going away in a post-Covid world. Recent forecasts estimate at least 25% of employees will continue to work from home multiple days a week. If your staff is fully or partly remote, technology mishaps are bound to happen at home or as they’re lugging devices to and from the office. Not to mention the increase in forgotten charging cords, power supplies and other vital equipment.

When nearly 20% of mobile devices break or go missing each year, the burden usually falls on IT staff. These responsibilities drain your tech team’s time, and broken devices add significant downtime for employees who can’t work.

Have you ever asked yourself just how much time your IT department wastes physically running around gathering and replacing broken devices or supplying cables? By centralising and automating your time-wasting manual break/fix program with a smart charging locker, you could save hundreds of hours a year. A FUYL Tower 5 or 15 allows you to keep several devices charged, secure and connected in a location in your building that onsite workers or nearby remote workers can access. With FUYL Towers, a manual process that once took an hour to complete now takes less than a minute!

Tip 5: Lean on Us

We’re on your team, helping to plan your defence against the spread of germs and keep your office-based employees and remote workforce healthy! In such a tumultuous time, technology that works for today and is flexible for the future is more valuable than ever. PC Locs products are backed by a lifetime warranty and exceptional customer support.

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Between 1 July 2019 and 30 June 2020, the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) “responded to 2,266 cyber security incidents and received 59,806 cybercrime reports at an average of 164 cybercrime reports per day, or one report every 10 minutes.”[1]

Hackers aren’t looking to find out what grades your students received on their latest spelling tests. As Mary Kavaney, the chief operating officer of the Global Cyber Alliance explains, school environments “have some of the richest personal information on people.”[2]

How can educators protect digital assets and information in schools? Here are five strategies to increase protection.

1. Secure your devices from physical attacks

Would you believe that the second most popular password is “password?” Its popularity is only surpassed by “123456,” which has been the most common password for five years running. Suffice it to say, these passwords may be easy to remember, but they are not secure. The Texas Computer Education Association recommends these cybersecurity tips for teachers using technology in the classroom. “Frequently change your password throughout the school year, and don’t ever write it down. Always make sure to log out of your computer when you step away from your desk, and avoid letting students use your computer, especially when it’s logged into your account.”[3]

Are you wondering how you’ll ever remember all of those passwords if you can’t keep them on a post-it “hidden” under your keyboard? Password managers help create better passwords and keep track of all of your login information to strengthen online security. Wired calls them the “vegetables of the internet.” Because “We know they’re good for us, but most of us are happier snacking on the password equivalent of junk food.”[4] It’s time to listen to our mothers and eat our veggies!

2. Lock up your devices

Not using your beloved pet’s name for a password is a great first step to securing your school’s digital assets. But we think an even better one is keeping devices out of the wrong hands in the first place. Did you know that 41% of data breaches are due to lost and stolen mobile devices? It’s essential to protect your students and your school by securing devices with both digital security and physical security when not in use. Implementing durable, secure charging stations will protect devices and the data that’s on them. Not to mention decrease costs. As careful as educators try to be with their hardware, 10% of mobile devices break or go missing in the first year of a smart classroom deployment. A centralised point of secure charging helps schools provide a repository for tablets and laptops, reducing breakage and loss. As the use of technology in education increases, the critical oversight of not protecting your devices when not in use can create painful hassles for students, teachers and administrators alike. By using a secure device charging station from PC Locs, you’ll minimise per-student and per-educator device costs.

3. Keep programs up-to-date

“Updates ready to install.” We’ve all seen this message before. Unfortunately, many of us are quick to click the “remind me later” button without giving it another thought. Until, of course, it pops up again later. If you want to prevent malicious attacks by shutting the door malware uses to exploit loopholes, it’s critical to keep your software up to date. Software updates are patches that often fix security holes. Don’t be the one-in-ten users that never installs them.[5] Enabling automatic updates will keep your devices safer without those pesky notifications because your device will automatically install critical updates when they become available. As security specialist David Longenecker writes, “If your car had a factory defect that might leave you stranded on the side of the road, and offered a free fix, you’d take them up on it, right? This is the same thing.”[6]

4. Have an incident response plan

Just as your school has a plan in place in case of a fire, educators need a plan in place in case of a digital emergency such as a security breach. An incident response plan will prepare students and staff if a cybercrime occurs. According to the U.S. Department of Education, “Prompt response is essential for [minimising] the risk of any further data loss and, therefore, plays an important role in mitigating any negative consequences of the breach, including potential harm to affected individuals.”[7] Check the ED’s helpful Data Breach Response Checklist, which illustrates some current industry best practices in data breach response and mitigation applicable to the education community.

5. Educate staff and students

All levels of education benefit from training programs for both faculty and students on cybersecurity. Don’t assume staff members automatically understand how to handle the enormous responsibility of accessing student data. As Tech Edvocate advises, “Staff members need to know how to access information responsibly, know how to use a notification system for breaches, and should understand what to do in case of a breach.”[8] Also, students need instruction on how to manage their digital identities. By teaching students how to manage their personal data, maintain digital privacy and identify data-collection technology used to track them online, they’ll not only be protected at school, “but for the rest of their lives.”[9]

 

With PC Locs solutions, teachers don’t have to worry about the safety of the devices. Contact us to learn more.

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Sources

[1] ACSC Annual Cyber Threat Report – Australian Cyber Security Centre

[2] Hackers are targeting schools, U.S. Department of Education warns – CNN Business

[3] Four Cyber Security Tips for Teachers – TCEA

[4] The Best Password Managers to Secure Your Digital Life – Wired

[5] Americans and Cybersecurity – Pew Research Center

[6] Back to school cyber tips – CSO

[7] Data Breach Response Checklist – U.S. Department of Education

[8] 9 Steps to Keep Student Data Safe – The Tech Edvocate

[9] 4 Tips to Help Schools with Privacy and Security Compliance – EdTech

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