I remember my first cruise.
We were warned as soon as we boarded: the next morning we would have an evacuation drill.
It’s great to be warned when a catastrophe is going to happen.
We could only hope that there would be no iceberg in the Mediterranean tonight.
And then the steps were explained to us.
Which deck to go to.
How to put on our life jackets.
How to get into the boat in an orderly fashion.
I don’t think they had it so clear in the Titanic movie.
The truth is that it’s the first time, it’s curious.
I don’t know if it will do any good, but it’s curious.
And as we don’t go on cruises as often as we go on planes, people tend to listen to the explanations.
The reality is that we’re confident that we’re never going to need to use that information.
So it will quickly get pushed to the back of our brains.
This morning, I posted a tweet about the need to do recovery drills on your computer system.
It doesn’t matter if you are a company, an entrepreneur or a pensioner.
The point is that we never pay attention to how we safeguard our information.
And the truth is, there are icebergs out there.
Your hard drive can crash.
We can be attacked by a hacker and have all our information locked up.
Our mobile phone can be stolen. Or your laptop. Or your server.
Such misfortunes are not uncommon.
And yet, do we know how to get on with our business and our lives?
The first thing is to do the basic checks:
We have backups activated.
How often?
How many people have lost their children’s photos for the last 3 years because their mobile phone was stolen and they didn’t have time to copy them somewhere else.
Where are the copies made?
It is not enough to have the copy on a disk connected to the same computer.
If a hacker is clever enough to access the computer, he will also be clever enough to access the disk that is connected.
Let alone if he sets fire to the room where they both are.
Do we have access to the programs we need to use our data?
Do we know where to download them? Do we have the licences to access them?
Do we have computers where we can restore the applications and data? Or can we get them quickly?
How long? It depends on how long your business and/or your life can go on without access to that information.
And if we have all this clear, how can we check it?
The proposal is simple: suppose you have lost your computer, your server, your mobile, whatever you are going to try.
Now, without being able to access that equipment, try to recover everything.
Hopefully you will never need to use it.
But it’s quite likely that you’ll discover that you were missing something important to get you back up and running.
And better to know that, the sooner the better.
And, of course, as well as knowing, you need to act and take action.
Just in case.
Just in case an iceberg goes by tonight.