While visiting one of my clients today and walking by their computer room, I noticed that their backup tapes were neatly stacked on the desk next to their server. When taking a closer look I also noticed that they had two tape sizes, the larger to backup their main legacy system and the smaller size to backup their windows server. Interestingly enough, there were only four tapes in each stack and the ones labeled Thursday were missing from each stack. Since today is Friday, I knew exactly what they were doing wrong. I walked into the CEO’s office and here is the conversation that took place:

Me: who is in charge of the backup system?
CEO: That’s Bob.

Me: I noticed only four tapes in the computer room and I was wondering were the missing Thursday tape was?
CEO: (proud and boasting): You see Chad, we have implemented this great backup procedure several years ago. When Bob came in this morning, he brought back with him the nightly backup tapes from Wednesday, that he took home with him last night. He then put last night’s server tape backups in his brief case so he can take them off site. This way we always guarantee that we have one off site set of tapes. (At this point the CEO had a big smile on his face probably waiting for me to acknowledge their great backup procedure.)

Me: May I ask you several questions?
CEO: Sure, go a head.

Me: How important is your backup system?
CEO: If disaster strikes, we would be dead in the water without them with possible terrible consequences to our business.

Me: Does Bob ever take a lunch break?
CEO: Sure every day.

Me: Does he always carry his brief case with him when he leaves for lunch?
CEO: Rarely.

Me: So I guess if a major disaster took place when Bob is out to lunch, such as; fire, water or earthquake, wouldn’t you agree that you would be dead in the water when he returns?
CEO: (speechless, no sound)

Me: Or if a major disaster strikes your business when Bob is at home and for some reason the tapes he has at home are damaged. Wouldn’t you agree this terrible scenario is the same?
CEO: (starting to make a sound)

Me: Would you like to know what Bob needs to change?
CEO: Absolutely.

Me: Keep all tapes off site and have Bob bring with him the tapes with the appropriate label for the day. When he gets into the office, have him put these tapes in the server and pull out the previous night server backup tapes and place them in his brief case to take home with him. This way you still have three days backup tapes off site if disaster strikes.
CEO: THANK YOU! We shall implement immediately.

Final and additional notes:

1. There are remote backup services available that will enable you to backup your system to a remote server eliminating the need for tapes.


2. Most reliable services are superior to backing up to your own tapes but are much more expensive.


3. If disaster strikes, recovery of software and data from these remote systems could take significantly more time than from your own tapes.

I know that I keep talking about delivering genuine value through your blog. But how do you make your text come to life? Simple. Incorporate picture images, audio and video in your posts and throughout your blog. I visit too many blogs where the author did not realize this simple rule. Unless the message strongly captures my attention, I find most blogs to be quite boring.

When talking with one of our new web clients today, he said that he really likes the way I utilize pictures and videos on my blog. Another colleague emailed me a copy of his blog to comment on. It was painful. Not a picture in sight, just text upon text.

Think about powerful papers and online publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Business Week. Both, among many others, are loaded with outstanding text content accompanied by pictures, audios and videos.

So add some sizzle to your blog and remember, a picture is worth a thousand words. It will break up the monotony of your blog and will make it by far more interesting and unique.

Now where is that picture I wanted to place here?

I recently purchased this amazing little gadget called Flip Video and I have to tell you that I truly love it. This digital video camera is small, compact, light (fits in my pocket) and from the moment I turn it on it is ready to be used within 3 seconds and it stores up to 60 minutes of videos. Once the videos are taken, I simply flip the switch which reveals a built-in USB interface which then plugs to my laptop. Within a few minutes, I am able to upload the video(s) to my laptop, edit as necessary and view or upload to my blog. See several of my posts (in the past several weeks) with the flip video in action. Although I have my other more serious Canon digital camcorder, I find this gadget easier to carry and be ready to shoot when the moment is right.

When visiting Utah last week and attending my son’s parents conference, several of us parents decided to have dinner together. I was seated next to my wife on one side and one of the parents on the other. He is a retired professor of many years from one of the famous and top universities in this country. I started the conversation asking him about his life, teaching position at the university, his kid at the school and other great questions (at least I think so) in order to engage him. He seemed to enjoy being asked the questions, talk about his life and he was very talkative. Yet it felt really weird. It was not a conversation, it was just me asking a series of questions and feeling like I am interviewing him. Perhaps he felt interrogated but I don’t think so.

After about 45 minutes of hearing him talk, I decided to stop asking questions and see if he may ask me a question or two.

There was silence.

After about 5 minutes he looks at me and says: “Let me ask you a question”
Excited, I was for a moment as I heard my voice say: “SURE, GO AHEAD”
He then proceeds and says: “Since you are one of the new parents at the school here, do you have any questions for me?”
“NO”, I shouted. Turning to my wife and asking her how her day is going.

My wife Laurel who is a Cantor at Temple Emanuel in Cleveland, Ohio, put together an amazing concert back on November 10, 2007. You should have been there as it was an amazing night. It is with tremendous pride and love that I have for her, and with the hope that you too may enjoy this concert, that I would like to share it with you. I uploaded the concert in segments to Youtube (this is the way they allow it.) The segments are organized in chronological order (top to bottom) from beginning to end. Enjoy:

Broadway Baby:

Nothing:

I’m The Greatest Star:

It’s a Hard Knock Life:

Little Girls:

Something Wonderful:

Stepping Out:

Sara Lee:

Seasons of Love:

The Wizard and I:

You There In The Back Row:

Our latest December newsletter for 2007 contains a couple of articles that you may find to be of interest. Blogging in the New Year is an article I recently wrote after attending the Blog World Expo last month in Las Vegas and after getting tremendous amount of questions about leveraging blogs in ones business. I also decided to publish Additional Lessons Leaned From Running My Business article after releasing the first Lessons Learned article and getting many emails requesting I share more such idea.
To also see how successfully some of our clients use their blogs, please visit www.AvivShahar.com and www.ContrarianConsulting.com for such examples.

I would like to wish you a fabulous and safe New Year and may this coming year be an amazing one for you, your family and your business.

Best Regards,

Chad