March Madness is here again. The brackets will be in the paper Monday morning and all over the country self proclaimed experts will use their fool proof systems to fill out winners for the 65 games that will be played this year. I myself will be working out a way for the KY Wildcats to go all the way and win it all. Office pools for March Madness are one of the most popular group gambling experiences in the world. For the longest time the March Madness work interuption stopped there, that is until a few years ago with the introduction of the games being streamed online. Now companies have even more to worry about, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world.
This year CBS Sports will be streaming every game of the tournament, for free at www.cbssports.com.
For the companies that completely forbid their workers to watch any streaming video at their desks: Good for you! You’ve made a decision and you’re sticking to your guns. Well done.
But for the companies that allow a little levity for two days out of the year during the first round of the NCAA Tournament, this article isnt necessarily about how to keep your workers working, but more about how to make sure that your network resources remain available to the workers that are still working while the others are watching the ball games.
Here are a few tips:
1. Try to stream the games on as few computers as possible. Have one person stream the game on his second monitor and turn the volume up. Whenever a tense moment comes up everyone can group around this person’s computer.
2. Recommend that your employees use the various Apps that are available for iPhones, iPads, and Droids. These devices can use their own bandwidth for the streaming and the Apps themselves are free this year.
3. Bring in a TV or two. I worked in an office where we had a common area with a big screen TV. Employees would come and go throughout the day, hang out for a few minutes or even a whole half of a game and then go back to work on their own.
All of these ideas can lessen the impact that March Madness will have on your network this year.
If you have any ideas of your own then be sure to let me know.
Go Cats!
Dennis Edmondson Jr
Computing Concepts LLC
