Forget the food. Forget the lights. Forget the heat.
When disaster strikes, people who run their own businesses from their homes share one top priority that – above all else, even life’s so-called necessities – must be preserved from loss or damage: computers, and the invaluable business information they contain.
Unlike their counterparts housed in commercial office buildings, where a landlord or business owner would take care of disaster preparations, home-based entrepreneurs must make their own plans well in advance to preserve computer data if disaster occurs. Most of the business owners interviewed for this report said they pay little attention, if any, to the usual necessities others worry about, like batteries, candles and generators. It’s computer data that is vital.
“At a home business, probably the most important asset you have as a company is your business information,” noted Pamela O’ Hara, a co-founder and president of BatchBlue Software, which she runs from her home in Barrington.
What O’Hara said she has done for her company computers, and what she recommends other businesses do, is “be sure to keep a central place for all your data and be sure to have it backed up,” preferably in another location. Her company, she said, “stores data on computers all across the country.”
O’Hara said BatchBlue uses mostly Web-based software that includes backup provisions. She advised computer owners to check the details of their software specifications to see if backup functions are included, and to go one step further and check associated Web sites to make sure the data is, in fact, being replicated.
“It is absolutely critical” to preserve data, agreed Abe Dane, of Tizra Inc., a home-based Providence software company. “It is the business.”
Tizra’s data and software are stored in several different facilities in different locations of the country, Dane said. As an added layer of protection, his company has the capability to move its entire infrastructure into virtual servers maintained by Amazon.com, he said.
Localized power outages don’t faze Tizra. “Our own computers might go out for a little while, but it’s no big deal,” Dane said with a chuckle. “We can always go to someone else’s house.”
Dane is the founder, president and chief operating officer of Tizra, a three-year-old company specializing in the online publication of books. Tizra holds the contract for several university presses, including those at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Indiana University.
Clare Eckert, who operates the Flynn Consulting Group from her Narragansett home, has made certain that the “strategic plans and original writing” in her computer system are backed up by routinely copying the data onto disks. She also utilizes three separate computers that share the same information on one network so, if one computer malfunctions, her data remains safe in the other two.
Besides providing for the safety of her computer data, Eckert said she is “well-prepared” for a natural disaster and keeps in her car the various elements she and her family would need if forced to evacuate “because I do disaster work.” Under contract with the federal government, she works in various parts of the country as a liaison with businesses on an as-needed basis after disaster strikes. She recommended the government-sponsored www.recovery.gov as “one of the best and easiest to read” Web sites for individual, family and business preparedness.
Carol A. Dietz, who operates the public relations and advertising agency Media Advisor from her Portsmouth home, said she lives in a condominium at the top of a hill, more than 400 feet from the ocean, so floods are not a problem. The condominium association takes care of routine disaster precautions, such as putting plywood over glass when a hurricane is forecast. She protects her computers with a battery-powered pack that “will beep to warn you that you have only so many minutes left to turn off your computer properly and not lose anything.” Dietz, who handles publicity for the Newport boat shows, said she also stores her computer data offsite as a backup.
Connie McGreavy, who chairs the Rhode Island chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, operates a consulting practice, Conserve By Design, from her Warren home to help businesses and institutions go green. The battery-powered backup unit, like the one Dietz described, “is essential for any company,” McGreavy said.
She also uses a portable device to run backup programs to preserve her data. “It’s more up to you than it is to your computer,” McGreavy said. “It’s a discipline, and not everyone does it.”
Some companies keep two laptops with interchangeable hard drives so data can be saved if, for example, a laptop were dropped in the water, she noted. “Sometimes, it’s not a bad idea to have that spare laptop,” she said. ••
