The book “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and it’s all Small Stuff” (Richard Carlson) came into mind at our recent Event in Sheffield…
During the Sheffield IT Partnership SharePoint presentation of their solution for HR Management – the worst nightmare happened – technology failure!! Know the feeling?
Historically, this would have been the cause of much sweating and running around; and probably the end of the demonstration…but the event carried on…
What went wrong?
1. The presenting laptop broke
2. The Rooms WiFi would not connect, nor did the one upstairs
3. There was fire alarm (not a drill)
How did they carry on?
After a bit of trying, the laptop would not work again, so they got another laptop to carry on with. For some reason, this did not connect to either of the two WiFi signals. So John got his mobile out and turned it into a Mobile Hotspot. The laptop connected to the Internet from this and Mark carried on with his demonstration. No sweat!
The Cloud is great…there are many ways to connect to the Internet
A few years ago, not being able to get the presenting laptop up and running would have been the end of the demonstration and would have been a big let down to the audience as well as causing immense stress to the presenter. But because all the files, servers and presentations were stored on the Cloud they were not floored by the laptop dying on them; nor were they fazed by the WiFi not working.
Because there are many routes to the Internet, they carried on working with only minor inconveniences.
What does that mean to your business?
What would you do now if a laptop / PC broke down? Would you have to reload all the software (from where?) and then restore from backups (they do have one, right?) – how long would that take?
What if you or your team could not get into the office as the trains were not running, the car broke down or there was snow? Could you just fire up a laptop at home (or a coffee shop) and carry on working?
Summary
Yes, the cloud needs the Internet…but with Mobile & WiFi Hotspots, Dongles, etc there are plenty of alternative routes to the Internet.
So, maybe staying with in-house Servers & Software is actually more risky for your business…
What do you think?
