Some of us have become so accustomed to the convenience of the Internet that we take it for granted. We do the same with our computers and mobile devices, assuming that the information we store on them will remain forever until we decide to delete it or move it elsewhere. Not so. Forget about hackers and viruses, smart phones and laptops get lost or stolen all the time. If you haven’t taken the time to back up all the photos, music files and other important information on an external hard drive, memory stick or on the Internet, then it could all be permanently lost.

Mar. 31, 2012 is World Backup Day, a day set aside to remind everyone – not just business leaders – of the importance of backing up information stored on desktops and portable devices. To ensure the security of your important information, you should have more than one backup. You could store the most important data on these devices, which should then be put away in a fireproof lock box. Saving your information online is another option. Some data security companies, like Kaspersky, offer backup and recovery in addition to data security and firewall protection.

How you decide to back up your data depends on your needs. Photographers and writers, for example, could probably benefit greatly from online backup because they are constantly creating new data. Every time you download a new song from the Internet or upload a family video or photo to your desktop, you should back it up in at least two different places. Believe it or not, DVDs and CDs work, too. In fact, for the average person, DVDs and CDs are sufficient, provided he either makes two copies or saves the information on a memory stick or external hard drive as well. Keep in mind that you have to update both backups. It’s all too easy to remember to update the CD that’s always nearby and forget to also update the one that’s locked away.

It’s not hard to back up the important information on your computer. Establish a routine such as taking time to save your important data before you shut down your computer. To make life easier on yourself, you could prioritize your data and separate them based on what you update regularly and what you update periodically, such as tax returns.

Why wait until World Backup Day to start the good habit of backing up your important information? You could get started today.

Do you have a robust backup strategy in place with your business?  Gone are the days of simple tape backup.  Everyone needs a secure, robust and scalable business continuity service.  Speak to us today about a customize backup and disaster recovery solution designed to protect your business.

World Backup Day is here, what are you doing to protect your business from data loss or even worst a serious hit to your business when a crisis hits.  Trust us to protect your business from any data loss.

Backing up company data on the Internet is becoming more popular with each passing day. In many ways, Internet, aka cloud, storage is much safer than using external hard drives or memory sticks. And as companies grow, the amount of data that needs to be backed up grows, too. Cloud storage providers can easily accommodate the needs of growing businesses, and if anything unexpected should happen, such as a fire or natural disaster, the company data can be recovered, sometimes, within minutes. But not all backup and recovery providers are the same. Business owners need to shop around to find the ones that work best for their businesses.

To assist you and other small-business owners with the not-so-easy task of choosing the right backup and recovery provider, BUMI (Backup My Info!, Inc.) has written a white paper with nine things you should consider while conducting your search.

1. Disaster Recovery. Every small-business owner should have some kind of disaster recovery plan. Quality cloud storage providers will work with you to create a disaster recovery plan that’s tailored to your business’ needs before entering into discussions about backup.
2. Customized Backup and Recovery Solution. No two businesses are exactly alike, even businesses in the same industry. So, the backup and recovery plan for your business should be as unique as your fingerprints. Make sure that your backup and recovery plan is designed to recover mission-critical data and applications first. This reduces downtime and maintains productivity.
3. Monitor Backups. There are lots of small-business owners who have horror stories to tell about data that disappeared because no one checked to make sure the data was backing up properly. A good backup and recovery provider will have regular monitoring with alerts and problem solving as part of the solutions package.
4. Reliable Support. It’s always nice to know that whenever you have a question or want to make changes to your backup and recovery service, you can get in touch with someone who is not only knowledgeable about the services in general but also about your company’s particular needs.
5. Money Matters. There are so many different cloud storage providers out there that choosing one of the “bargain” firms seems like the best way to save money. Think again. Anyone can become a cloud storage provider. You want to go with a firm that specializes in backup and recovery, has a knowledgeable staff of IT professionals and a reputation for providing quality customer service. That may cost a little more, but in the long run, spending extra for quality could end up saving you money should the worst happen.
6. Location, location, location. BUMI recommends learning as much as you can about potential backup and recovery providers’ data centers, where they’re located, what kind of hardware they use, etc. Just as it’s a good idea to have a mechanic check out a used car you’d like to buy, it’s also a good idea to consult an IT professional about the backup and recovery providers you’re considering.
7. Time is Money. You need to know how long it will take your backup and recovery provider to recover lost data, whether you need to recover it at 11 am on a Wednesday or at midnight on a Saturday. You’ll also want to know what procedures the provider will follow should you have data that’s too large for an online recovery.
8. Get References. Don’t discount testimonials, case studies or solution broadcasts on a potential provider’s website. They help. But you should still get the names and contact information of clients who aren’t mentioned on the website. In particular, request references who have companies of the same size as yours in the same industry.
9. The Devil is in the Details. It’s just as important to know what types of security and encryption a backup and recovery provider will use to protect your company’s data as it is to know about the data centers where that information will be stored. Don’t be afraid to ask. You need to know that your data is safe at all times.

If it seems like a lot of work goes into finding the right backup and recovery provider, you’re right. You don’t want to entrust your company’s mission-critical data and your customers’ personal information to just anyone. You want to entrust them to a team you can trust. 

Are you ready for the new Facebook Pages?  Do you understand the rules?

By now, we all know the power of social media. A Facebook page is one of many “must have” tools for every business’ marketing toolbox. But just having a Facebook page isn’t enough. Business leaders and marketers have to know how to use them in a way that gets their companies’ pages noticed without offending their host in the process.

On Feb. 29, 2012, Facebook revised its Pages terms. Particularly if you’re new to Facebook Pages, get acquainted with the Data Use Policy, Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and Community Standards before looking at the Pages terms. Facebook reserves the right to remove any page at its discretion, so it would be wise to avoid giving its monitors a reason to do so.

Naturally, only authorized representatives of your organization should have access to your Facebook page. If you’re a small-business owner, and you decide to delegate management of your company’s Facebook page, make sure it’s delegated to someone whom you can trust to properly represent your company’s brand. Pages are public, so you don’t want someone posting content that is contrary to your company’s mission or vision or damaging its reputation.

When it comes to naming your Facebook Page, Facebook commands that:

• The page names not consist solely of generic terms such as pizza or beer.
• All page names must use proper, grammatically correct capitalization and must not include all capitals, except acronyms.
• Page names must not include character symbols, such as excessive punctuation and trademark designations.
• Page names must not include superfluous descriptions or unnecessary qualifiers.

Another section of the new Pages terms that bears mentioning regards data collection. Facebook states:

“If you collect content and information directly from users, you will make it clear that you (and not Facebook) are collecting it, and you will provide notice about and obtain user consent for your use of the content and information that you collect. Regardless of how you obtain content and information from users, you are responsible for securing all necessary permissions to reuse their content and information.

“You will not collect users’ content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders or scrapers) without our permission.

Any data you obtain from us must comply with Section II of our Facebook Platform Policies.”

Adding a Facebook page to your list of marketing tools is a good idea. Just make sure you get off to good start by familiarizing yourself with all the rules, regulations and policies first. The last thing you want to do is alienate the monitors of, arguably, the most powerful social medium on the Web and limit the reach and effectiveness of your social media marketing campaign.

As if applying for a job wasn’t nerve wracking enough, now employers are asking applicants – and sometimes employees – to hand over their Facebook usernames and passwords. Really? This alarming trend, which has caught the attention of two US senators, has made its way to Canada. Some people are so desperate to land jobs or keep the ones they have that they comply with this demand that goes against Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

Under the “Registration and Account Security” section of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, it clearly states that “you will not share your password, (or in the case of developers, your secret key), let anyone else access your account or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account.” Facebook has cautioned employers not to request job applicants’ login information not only because it violates the site’s policy but also because if an employer gets the Facebook login information from a job applicant who is a member of a “protected group” and then doesn’t hire that person, the employer could easily be slapped with a discrimination lawsuit.

It used to be that employers just viewed job seekers’ Facebook pages until the job seekers wised up and started limiting access to them. But times are more desperate now, and employers know it. And clearly, they don’t think background checks are good enough. Still. …

Even though many people make their Facebook pages public, if someone sets his page to “Friends Only,” then a potential employer’s asking him for his Facebook login information really is an invasion of privacy. And some Facebook pages are more personal than others. People express their political views, personal biases and pleasures on their Facebook pages. More important, giving a total stranger access to login information is dangerous. Once a potential employer has access to a job applicant’s login information, she can do anything she wants. Anything.

In the United States, Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut have asked the US Department of Justice and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to start an investigation. They also have plans to create a bill that would cover areas that current laws don’t.

In a public statement, Schumer said, “In an age where more and more of our personal information — and our private social interactions — are online, it is vital that all individuals be allowed to determine for themselves what personal information they want to make public and protect personal information from their would-be employers. This is especially important during the job-seeking process, when all the power is on one side of the fence.”

Tony Bradley in his article for PC World makes an interesting point that business leaders would be wise to consider before demanding the login information from a job applicant.

Says Bradley, “If you expect employees to have the integrity and discipline not to share their personal passwords to the company network, you shouldn’t force them to go against the practice by requiring their Facebook passwords. Sharing the Facebook password is a “gateway drug” that puts the security of your whole network at risk. Once you’ve established that it’s a standard practice for your company, your employees are more likely to fall for subsequent password requests.”

More than once, the request for Facebook login information has been compared to asking someone to hand over the keys to his house. This is not small matter. Some US state legislators are already planning to make such requests illegal. Whether or not Canada follows suit remains to be seen.

Business leaders must constantly come up with new ideas that they want to remain competitive in their industries. That’s just the way things.  Those who find faster, easier, more efficient or more effective ways to satisfy customers’ needs are the ones whose businesses thrive. And when it comes to new ideas, does it really matter in which department they originated … even if that department is IT?

According to Brad Power, IT is as a good a place to get ideas for how to make a business run better as any other. In his article for the Harvard Business Review, Power cites Nationwide Insurance and ING as examples of companies whose IT departments came up with innovative business process ideas that worked.

Inside sources at Nationwide told Power that members of the company’s IT team “started using a process improvement (‘lean’) development framework and rapid (‘agile’) development techniques several years ago to standardize system development approaches.” This apparently led to teams within the organization being more efficient and productive. As a result, Nationwide has begun gradually rolling out this model to other teams within the organization on a monthly basis.

ING’s IT department helped make things run more smoothly because it “knows how to get people to work together as teams.” ING, says Power, “is in the middle of a transition from traditional step-by-step software development approaches to using cross-functional teams to make quick, small changes to systems,” something that process improvement experts David Bogaerts and Jael Schuyer believe can be implemented throughout the organization.

Lisa Helminiak, principal at Azul 7, doesn’t think it’s quite that simple. “While I think it is
critical to involve your technologists in customer service and product innovations, it has to be done in a way that will insure a customer-centric outcome,” she said.

“The examples used in [Powers’] article were focused on adopting an agile development approach and using it more broadly to engage cross-functional teams to work together better. This is one step in getting a company to make smaller incremental changes and to react more immediately to the marketplace, but this alone does not ensure good outcomes.

“I’ve seen cross functional teams, especially run by IT, get way off target because they do not understand their customers. IT in many organizations are notorious for being insulated from customer feedback or insights and are charged with containing costs and keeping enterprise information secure.

“While I think IT input, understanding and insight are critical, it will only work in organizations where senior management expects everyone within the organization to deliver the right products, services and processes that focus on customers’ needs and wants.

“Really focusing on your customers requires ongoing engagement with them through multiple channels. It requires an ethnographic approach to uncovering opportunities to serve them better, and it requires a deep and regular engagement with other members of the organization who do engage regularly with customers such as sales, marketing or customer service.

“Agile processes help make change easier, but they don’t identify what changes need to take place. IT teams have a piece of the puzzle, but they need to have tools to help them keep their companies’ customers at the center of the design and development process.”

Got that?

If innovative ideas from the IT departments can work for large organizations like Nationwide Insurance and ING, then it stands to reason that they could work for small and mid-size businesses, too. There’s no law that says the best ideas for a business have to come from the CEO or the marketing department. As long as the customers’ needs take precedence, any department can be the one that “saves the day.”