Authored by Katie, Communications Specialist at ImageSoft
Looking at my newly renovated, shabby-chic farmhouse bedroom makes my heart happy – but my head? Oh, it aches.
Any visitor can tell you I stitched this room together with too many Etsy orders and plenty of time at home during quarantine. What you wouldn’t know by looking at my room, however, is that most of these renovations were born out of several, less-than-graceful mishaps.
While I cringe thinking back on this moment, let’s rewind to a few months ago when my boyfriend had a touch of the flu. For context, everyone affectionately refers to him as “the human garbage disposal” because the man’s stomach is an endless repository for every and any kind of food – he rarely complains of a stomachache, even after a heavily indulgent Taco Tuesday at El Charro’s. So when he nonchalantly mentioned a “not feeling great,” I knew he was sick. He, however, didn’t think so, casually popped some Pepto-Bismol chewables and went to “rest his eyes.” A few hours later, I heard him vomiting – all over our white down comforter. Goodness… Within an hour, he was cleaned up and we were making bets on whether the stains would come out with a dousing of stain remover and a few wash cycles (spoiler: it didn’t). Covered with our spare-room bedding, we went back to sleep. Until half an hour later, when that horrendous sound woke me up again. I’ll spare you the details but yes, we ended up needing new bedspreads. One new comforter set, two new sheets and a few weeks later, we were playing with the dog when my boyfriend leaned up (a little too abruptly) against our paneled closet door, pushing it down and doing some irreparable damage. At first, the expense of a new door and installation services had me frustrated – we were heading to Nashville soon and saving for a vacation fund (because a glass of wine in the music city is not the average price of wine in Metro Detroit). But, looking around the room, I decided to lean into this series of unfortunate events and took on the mantra, “go big, or go [to someone else’s] home!” Within a month, we had a freshly painted room, new signs hung and an overall more comforting, bedtime feel. With old blinds previously covering the bedroom’s sliding door onto the deck, I was all too excited when the curtains were delivered. We set them up, only to realize they’re about a foot short of our floor. “Can we catch a break?!” I thought. I was just about to package them back up for an exchange when Joey, our 90 lbs. dog, scratched at the door, touching only the door! We realized that shorter curtains meant his pawing wouldn’t catch the fabric. Yes, despite a sideways look from the average house guest, these curtains are actually the perfect length – falling completely in line with the now piecemealed character of this room.
When It All Seems to be Falling A Part, It’s Actually Coming Together
Have you ever been here? When it seems like one thing after another, after another, is standing in your way?
As the storyteller for our customer transformations, I couldn’t help but see parallels in what I went through with my bedroom renovation, and what so many of customers endure prior to digital transformation.
Take, for example, this insurance agent. He travels onsite for pictures when a sudden storm hits, soaking the agent, the policyholder and the paperwork, while also interfering with a quality picture. Arriving back at the office, he’s waiting for the photos to upload from the memory card onto his desktop and decides to review the file. Reaching for the already-rained-on manila envelope, he knocks over the coffee he bought to warm himself up – spilling it all over the documents. Someone comes by to help him dry up the papers, but he waves them off because of the information’s sensitive nature. Once his pictures upload, he reprints documents and tries to decipher the few hand-written Post-It notes he had, now blurred with rain and coffee.
For many other insurance agents, DOI personnel, court clerks, government officials and, really, all cross-industry professionals, these series of unfortunate events are not isolated incidents. Just when they solve for X, another “why me?” comes along.
Replace that Lingering Gray Cloud with Cloud Services
Most of our customers also have a closet-door moment, adopting the “go big or go home” attitude that jumpstarts process renovations. They’re tired of coating expensive paint over holes in their legacy systems, only for it to wear off too soon. Stressed from running low on expendable funds because of expensive crash-and-repairs. Held back from leveraging staff time on monotonous, manual work instead of higher-quality endeavors.
Housing data in a more secure, cloud-based platform breaks ground on a refreshing new way of work-life. Secured with double-process authentications, encryptions and full audit trail securities, adorned with visibility and reliability from the centralized framework and embodying scalability to adapt with evolving business needs, the cloud provides comfort, ease and assurance to all its users. Not to mention that its seamless application integrations makes the cloud a turn-key solution for expanding digital transformation into various departments and collaborating with outside organizations.
Take a walk through for yourself here – they’re bound to make you feel right at home.
You Can Be Trusting and Still Lock Your Doors
Renovating my bedroom, I knew I would benefit from the fresh cosmetic appeal. What I wasn’t thinking about at the time was the added layers of security the transformation would provide: my new curtains have a “black-out” feature, which not only blocks out the early morning sun, but also means the neighbor kids can’t see into my room when they hop the fence to get their ball. The new closet door is much sturdier and conceals my protruding clothes better than the last. And my new comforter set is heavier and much warmer than the original down comforter.
Likewise, digital transformation isn’t always initially sought after for its protective measures, but data integrity is actually the most sacred advantage. Emails, spreadsheets and shared drives may get the job done, but the data within is risked. Social security numbers, addresses and other personally identifying markers are vulnerable even amidst public record searches and FOIA requests.
These concerns are widespread among our nation’s government communities. Among these conversations has been Kevin Albrecht, Hyland’s Senior Customer Adviser for Government. If you’re interested in learning more about data governance and how several government agencies are already leading the way toward more integrable, complaint processes, you can tune in to “Spreadsheets, Shared drives and Emails: The Scary Side of Enterprise Search” on The Paperless Podcast.
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