Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Learn From My Mistakes (Continued)
Sounds like this post touched a nerve with many of you as I have had comments (by the way, thanks for all your comments – keep sending them) ranging from seeking clarification of the specific lessons I learnt, through to asking what strategy I have implemented to try stoping this happening again (this seems to be of such interest that one comment even suggested I charge a fee for this information, hmmm ……). Others also have had similar experiences with the same ISP so what I experienced is certainly not unique (hence all the interest I suspect …).
As an aside - the ISP refused to pay any compensation for ‘loss of business’ as they have their ‘backsides covered’ in their terms and conditions for this type of event. I could challenge this legally but have made a business decision the cost is not worth it.
In this post I will reply to the comments mentioned above. So let’s get started …
First - The specific lesson I learnt
Just to be really clear there is one main lesson I want to pass onto you that I learnt from the event described in my last post:–
It is really important to identify the critical assets and processes your business must have to operate and then put in place strategies that will allow you to continue to do business if ‘Murphy’ comes along and stops them operating.
Granted, this does take a little time but it is all worth it. Since we are all ‘time poor’ my tip here is to focus initially only on the critical things that you must have operating in order to keep your business going (for example in my business that means email, internet access and the data/software I have on my PC).
Second - The strategies I have now implemented
I will focus here on sharing how I have improved my email system, allowing me to cope better in case an ISP ‘pulls the plug’ on my email address again for whatever reason (in my case this also impacted my internet access).
There are many ways you can set up an email system. The new system I have in place now provides me with redundancy in case of failure and also allows me a more reliable way to access my email remotely, no matter where in the world I am. This has provided me with a more robust system, reduced my risk and improved the way I can do business.
- I now use only my business email address managed via my website hosting account (I can always get another arrangement in place here within 24 hrs if they ‘pull the plug’ on me);
- I forward this to a Google Gmail account (this is free, has an excellent ‘spam filter’, and allows me to work remote easily; and
- I then use my local PC email system (outlook) to ‘scrap’ all my emails from Gmail (this allows me to manage and reply to all my emails from one place using different accounts depending on what the subject is).
This might sound a little complicated but it really isn’t. It is surprisingly simple to set up and so far has been working really well. Importantly, I am can now easily change ISPs whenever I like without changing my email address, I am not reliant on any one provider, I can recover easily if any one part of the email system breaks down, I get very little spam and I can work remotely using a reliable service.
So that is what I have implemented in a nutshell.
For those who might be interested in some more of the details, the rest of this post shares the results of my own research into Gmail, thus hopefully saving you some research time if you are considering using this or another similar web based email service.
Gmail
Let’s start with some of the basics.
The most common set up most of you might have is that you first arranged your internet access to/from your home or business using an ISP.
Then an email address was arranged again with an ISP and your emails are now downloaded from that ISP onto your local computer whenever you open and start using your preferred email system on your computer (e.g. Outlook Express, Outlook, Eudora, etc).
While there is nothing wrong with this system, many people might overlook the free web based email services which can provide access to any computer that is connected to the internet from anywhere in the world.
By the way, as an aside many ISPs also provide a web interface for their email systems but I have found these services often do not operate well and are very unreliable. This is very frustrating, especially if you are away from home and need to access your emails (often also while paying for time at an internet café, etc).
Gmail (Google) is a web based email system that is designed to run on all web browsers. Google also has other web based tools such as calendars, notebooks, etc that I find very useful. If your mobile has GPRS capability (this is becoming more common on mobile networks) you can also connect to your Gmail account via your mobile phone and check your emails that way.
So here are the pros and cons for Gmail (you may also wish to check out the other alternatives to Gmail available such as Hotmail (Microsoft) and Yahoo).
Pros
- It is Free
- You have 2.8 GB available storage
- You can access your email from any computer connected to the internet from anywhere in the world
- You can still use your email package (such as outlook, etc) to download and store email (I do this as a backup for my emails and it seems to work very well so far. This also allows me to easily keep within the 2.8GB storage capacity set)
- Gmail allows you to create groups – for example to allow the delivery of email to that group of contacts
- Being Google the system has a great inbuilt search engine/facilities (very useful if you have lot’s of emails)
- It also has a great free spam filter.
Cons
- Maybe the 2.8 GB is not enough storage for you?
- At the time of this post Gmail is a beta program meaning that google does not accept responsibility for uptime & recovery if the system crashes (not likely and as indicated above there are ways to incorporate redundancy into the whole system)
- Backup is your responsibility
- When your ISP connects you to the internet they usually supply the email service and support at no extra charge anyway
There you have it in a nutshell. If you want to share information and collaborate for any reason (e.g. a calendar with your assistant, international project members, clients, etc web 2.0 style) this type of service is well worth considering.
I would be interested in what you think so keep the comments coming in.
As always, wishing you every success with your business.
Kev
info@biztoolz.com.au
http://www.biztoolz.com.au
Labels: marketing on internet
