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Múcua Guide

Operating Digital Technologies

Introduction

Given the rate at which technology develops, it's nearly impossible to make a recommendation on the digital technologies that enterprises should have in order to operate in cyberspace. Whatever we might recommend would become obsolete in less time than it will take for anyone to read the Múcua Guide.

We think it is a bit more useful to refer you to articles and videos (from our

YouTube Channel⁠

) that we author as time passes and technology evolves. At time of writing, we would suggest that you read the following articles from the section “Thoughts” in our

website⁠

“Thoughts” is our regular blog site. We will endeavour to publish useful and interesting articles about the state of business technology in the world and thus provide you guidance on how to make sense and how to most benefit from the avalanche of tools that keep emerging nearly every week.

All of our articles in “Thoughts” are not about technology but many are. Here’s a list of technology related articles:

⁠

A volatile world⁠

⁠

AI Processes⁠

⁠

SCM through Dashboards⁠

⁠

Enterprises of Today⁠

⁠

Classical Systems aren't enough⁠

⁠

Anywhere in the World⁠

⁠

Work in Cyberspace (video)⁠

⁠

When paradigms shift⁠

⁠

Classical Systems will disappear⁠

⁠

Lessons from IT Projects⁠

‘Office’ Technology

While technologies evolve perpetually, in the last few years we’ve seen a convergence of approaches to how people work virtually. Because of that convergence, we can suggest a platform that should be suitable for so-called “office work” that will be supportive of Teal organizations with a Digital foundation. From time to time, we will update this construct but,what we’ve seen in the past 5 years is that the architecture doesn’t change much; it’s the tools that change.

Generally speaking we recommend that you shift to an environment that leverages Apple technology. There are several reasons for this but the main ones are:

The iCloud ecosystem - iCloud can be seen as a storage platform but that’s not its main feature. Through iCloud, all your Apple devices are automatically connected. What’s beautiful about it is that you don’t need to setup anything. The devices will be connected through your Apple ID and anytime you setup a new device, if you use the same Apple ID, the device will be automatically synchronized with the other devices. This capability is free, it’s always there, it’s transparent and it’s a huge productivity gain strategy.

App combination - part of the Mac operating system and the mobile operating systems (iOS and derivatives) is the ability for apps to move content from one to the other through the Share ‘button’. This allows you to have many 3rd party applications, knowing that they are compatible and content from one can be shared to another. This capability is tremendous because you can have diverse applications in the same workflow. You can liberate yourself from the Microsoft and Google suites and have billions of apps available for business in the App Stores.

Apple tools are far simpler to use than Microsoft tools. Mac’s and iPad’s are extremely reliable which cuts support costs immensely (a Mac environment, for instance, requires 5 to 7 times less people to support than a Windows environment).

Workstation

Thus, as workstations, you should adopt:

A Mac (preferably laptop)

An iPad (the iPad Air will suffice to most use cases)

The Mac may be needed by those who need access to applications and systems that only work with Windows. Those are usually legacy systems (e.g., SAP). With a Mac, you do this:

Get a license for Windows

Install the Parallels app

With these tools, using a Windows application with a Mac will be transparent. You won’t notice Windows as such. It’s possible to do the same with an iPad but it will cause you to incur other costs.

The easiest approach for iPad’s is:

Obtain a service from either Azzure (the Microsoft cloud) or AWS (the Amazon cloud)

Get from them a virtual Windows desktop - that’s a Windows environment that runs in the cloud

Access that desktop from the iPad

This setup works extremely well.

eMail

Forget Outlook. If you have an Internet Service Provider, they provide you with eMail in your company domain. You then just use a free Mail app to access those emails. You can use the Apple native Mail app that works pretty well.

Collaboration

There are various options when it comes to virtual collaboration but, if you only want to use a platform for conversations, our suggestion would be:

Workplace from Facebook

Workchat also from Facebook

Today, however, we believe that the target platform would be something that allows people to co-author and to reach out to each other with great ease. In that case, our suggestions would be:

Tandem

Discord

Teamflow (at teamflowhq.com)

Content management and Project management

Creating content is traditionally seen as distinct from conversations and from project management. Thus, people usually have separate apps for each.

There is a new family of tools that emerged recently where you can do all at the same time - create content together, have text conversations and manage tasks. The one we recommend is Coda. With Coda, you also eliminate the need to have file systems because the Coda structure can be used to both create and display content - within the same structure. That structure is better than a filing system.

Coda can be used from within Tandem, which is a great way to do co-authoring and to have people reach out to each other easily.

Tandem + Coda is probably the best environment for “office work”.

Coda is better than our previous favourite - Asana - because it does what Asana does plus co-authoring of content.

Classical Documentation

If you need to or want to go the route of classical content - Word, Excel, PowerPoint - in the Apple world you have the iWork suite that is free. Contrary to the Office suite, the iWork tools - Pages, Numbers and Keynote - are full-functionality only, whether in the iOS world (iPad, iPhone) or the Mac world.

File storage

Most likely, you will need a folder system to store documents. That being the case, use iCloud and the Files app in iOS to structure and store your files. In the Mac, the Finder app will include the iCloud storage.

Video Conferencing

Use FaceTime.

FaceTime has recently evolved to be able to conference from your Apple device to anyone who doesn’t have an Apple device. You simply send a link from FaceTime and the other person connects through a web browser.

FaceTime also allows you to make audio calls from a Mac or an iPad without a SIM card, using WiFi.