

App of the Month: iMindMap
iMindMap 10 - The ultimate creative digital thinking space. Any professional who has been faced with a business problem that required a creative solution has found themselves in a brainstorming meeting. These meetings typically consist of sitting down a team of individuals in a room with a white board and throw countless ideas onto the board until the consensus can decide that someone had an idea that could pass as "acceptable". There is no need to be caught in this rut, ther


Procedural Improvement, then Automation
This photo starts the story; where the two cogs of process and automation meet. A few months ago, we published an article that spoke about the top trends that will influence organizations heading into 2018. As you could imagine, automation was one of the trends. Many businesses are shifting towards automation to minimize costs, mitigate human error, streamline processes and allow human capital to focus on creative/innovative improvements for the company. Now don't get this mi


Mainspring Insights: Gamification
Gamification: the application of game mechanics to non-game environments to motivate people and change behavior. For years, the concept of playing a game was typically intended for leisure or entertainment; detached from the professional world. However, a recently growing trend within businesses is the concept of gamification. The predecessor of this idea was contests within the office; i.e. a chart tracking individual performance that would eventually award something to the


App of the Month: Slack
Speed up your communications with one of the most intuitive enterprise communication tools on the market. Slack is a messaging application designed specifically with businesses in mind, bringing all of your communications and files together in one hub. It has been proven that organizational teams benefit from having communication hubs that can act as a database for all activities, especially when it is all searchable on your desktop or mobile device. Not only can you take Sla


2018 Budgeting - Strategize & Review
It is that time of year again... The time when you ask yourself, "we have to plan for 2018 already"? Aside from making a clichés remark that "good managers should always be planning for the future", I too felt like the year went by quickly. Nevertheless, budgeting season is upon us. A time to evaluate our 2017 goals and formulate a strategy for the new year. So why do we budget anyways, besides to keep our accountants happy? It seems like a fairly simple answer: because we ne


Mainspring Insights: The 'Big Data' Phenomena
Technology is changing so rapidly that in nearly every industry, companies must either adapt to the challenges ahead or be rendered obsolete. To address this exact issue, Gartner (an American technology research and advisory firm) wrote an article that discusses six forces that are changing the face of the business world, and will define business by the year 2030. In this edition of Mainspring Insights, we will discuss the fifth trend that Gartner defined, which focuses on ne

App of the Month: Sprout Social
Everybody is on social media... no really - everybody. I'd actually be willing to wager that if your enterprise is larger than 50 people, it has some sort of social presence. This is because social media is increasingly becoming the number one way in which mobile users interact with brands that they are interested in or relevant to them. However, just consistently posting on social media isn't enough anymore for your company to make a splash. A well thought out and formulated


Operational Playbook
The NFL season is officially underway! America's favorite sport kicked-off in the beginning of September, thus effectively driving down all Sunday afternoon productivity. But with all of this football consistently on the TV, we at Mainspring Solutions have been thinking about the parallels that can be drawn between what takes place on the gridiron, and what occurs within your enterprise. If you're unfamiliar with the game of football, the quarterback is the most important pos

App of the Month: Todoist
You have a lot to do each day. Many of us do. Keeping track of it all... not so easy. After plenty of searching for the best task organizer, we find here "Todoist". Perfect for helping you keep life in order. Todoist is an intuitive online and mobile application that can be used as a real-time task manager, helping you prioritize your daily tasks/projects on the go. You can organize each of your tasks by different colors, set 3 priority levels, and share your list with anyone


Healthcare Spotlight: Physician Preference Items
In recent years, supply costs have been the mitigation target of many healthcare institutions. Opposed to more fixed costs such as overhead and labor, supplies are rather discretionary and has less impact on outcomes, and thus, patient satisfaction. The Association for Healthcare Resource & Materials Management is now predicting that supply costs will surpass labor as the largest expense in hospitals in only 3 years. Though there are many initiatives and groups that help redu