One of the things we have been wrestling with is building a sound disaster recovery plan for our business. If you have never done it, disaster recovery quickly turns into one of those never ending rabbit holes that take a lot of planning to get it right. But all of this time I never really translated disaster recovery into my personal life.

Until...

I lost the hard drive on our main iMac in our home. All of our digital pictures, our entire iTunes library, lots of documents, you get the picture. I have talked about some technology sins that I have committed in the past but not having a good backup of this system had to be my worst. I know better, I know how to build a good backup and recovery plan for a business, have done it several times in the past. But I sure didn't have a good one for home and I will bet that I am not alone.

After rebuilding our iMac, and being really lucky to come across a tool called Disk Warrior that saved my hide, I got to thinking about the close call and wondered why I couldn't apply some of the things that I have learned in business to my workshifting world.

Like I mentioned above, disaster recovery can be as big and as complex as you want to make it, but here are a few key areas to start your own workshifting disaster recovery plan:

1. Get a good idea of where all of your important data resides. For us the killer apps on this machine were our iTunes and iPhoto libraries. For you it might be some important work documents. Find them and document where they are being stored.
   
   
2. Identify your must have applications. These are the ones that you can't do without on a day-to-day basis. Document these must haves and then think about prioritizing them. In the event of a disaster you likely can't bring them all back at once. By having them prioritized it will give you a good concrete list to work from.
   
   
3. Now that you know where your data lives get it off of your machine and preferably out of your home. There are several, cloud based, tools to help you do this. Take a look at Mozy and DropBox to get you started. To survive a real disaster (fire, flood) it does no good to have your backup disks sitting in the drawer under your machine.
   
   
4. Take your key list of applications and start thinking how you can make them more resilient. This one can be a tuffy, but if you are a small business it could be that your Quickbooks invoices are your lifeblood. What should you try to get back first? Hopefully you will already have that answered.
   

These are a few key areas to think about but there are certainly many other areas that may be important for you, depending on the nature of your work, data, and needs.

How about you? Had any personal disaster stories that you want to share?

Photo Credit: Will Scullin

During the recent Ash clouds over Europe and the ensuing workplace disruption, we logged a record number of online meetings and remote computer access sessions.

I'm always fascinated by usage stats during a crisis.  Year after year, be it an act of God or that of man, hundreds of thousands of people suddenly scramble to connect remotely.  This speaks to our general lack of preparedness.  I'm not immune to this either.  I've been procrastinating for months to put together a home emergency kit.  At best, I've gathered enough supplies to last about an hour...not good.  

It's not only the headline worthy events that disrupt our lives.  In most cases, it can be something as simple as a car problem or a broken laptop that will cause workplace disruption.  The difference between me, and many of the people caught in the Ash, is that I'm ready for it.  Bring it on!

Let's play out a scenario and you tell me if you'd be ready.  You're alarm clock didn't go off because the power is out.  You wake up because the light coming in from the windows is hitting your square in the face.  You scramble for your cell phone and check the time.  Simply put, you're late.  Then you realize that no power = no computer, no lights, no breakfast, etc.  In this scenario, what do you need to be productive when everything around you is failing?

1. A fully charged Smartphone with email access and backup battery
2. Two designated workshifting locations (in case one is not available)
3. The nearest hotel with wifi and/or a business center
4. A license of a web based remote access service, and one for web conferencing
5. Protein bars
6. A good sense of humor

Did you notice that "laptop" is not on the list?  Many hotels and co-working spaces will let you use their computers for a fee.  All you need to be armed with is access to a web browser and your passwords (memorize your passwords).  

Lets play out this scenario even further.  Your laptop is busted so you decide to workshift at the business center at the local hotel.  While en-route, you drop and break your Smartphone (it's happened to me).  Believe me, this isn't that far-fetched.  Could you still work?

If you remember your passwords, and have the right web based apps, you're good to go.  If your web conferencing service has integrated audio, even better.  Now you can access your important documents, have meetings and make phone calls, all from a computer.

The last couple of tips are equally important.  Leave a couple of protein bars in your backpack or travel bag.  Being hungry is very distracting and will effect your mood.  Lastly, keep your sense of humor intact.  The first few places you try and workshift from may be a bust, so keeping your humor intact will help keep things in perspective.  

Lets reverse engineer this and put things in order of priority:

1.  Access to the web (hotel, co-working space, friend's house, etc.)
2.  Web based remote access and online meeting services with integrated audio
3.  Sense of humor
4.  Food
5.  Designated workshifting locations
6.  Smartphone

My Smartphone is the first thing I grab in the morning, so I was surprised when I put it last on the list.  In a pinch, you could get by without it and in most cases, you'd be just as productive.

So next time you walk out the door, think about your workplace disruption plan.  Think about what you would need, what your family would need, your employees, etc., and then put it to the test.  Walk out the door with your wallet and keys, and see if you could successfully workshift for a day.  

What is your workplace disruption plan?


Photo Credit: BBC World Service

Today we have a guest post from Sean Ryan.  Sean is an research analyst with IDC focused on mobile enterprise software. 

Ok, now that I have pegged myself for a Led Zeppelin fan with the title of this post, I can get to the second reason I had for choosing this particular title. We all experience those days (probably more often than we'd like) where the deluge of new projects and urgent requests come pouring in all at once on top of an already steady stream of deadlines, emails, chat sessions, and the rest.

Being an effective multi-tasker is a skill unto itself - it is an even more refined skill for those of us working remotely and/or traveling for business. In some ways the technology being used by mobile workers today makes it easier than ever to multi-task and deal with urgent tasks. However, the myriad of applications and devices we use can have the effect of overwhelming us and creating a hurricane of activity that can actually make us less productive.

In a recent NY Times article about using smartphones to get work done while driving, a communications professor at Stanford, Clifford Nass, noted that the brain is "fundamentally built to unitask." So, that being the case, mobile workers need to be even more disciplined about prioritizing tasks, setting short-term goals, delegating responsibility, and following through with tasks since the distractions are greater and the layers of abstraction are greater.

Below are some of my recommendations for coping with the rushes when the floodgates do burst open. I'd also be interested to know your strategies for dealing with the deluge.

• Use the tools at your disposal, don't let them use you. I keep my IM open most of the time for quick communication without having to pull away from what I am doing, but when I don't want to be disturbed, I put that in my status and am usually even more specific with something along the lines of "researching and writing" as an added qualifier. This helps filter out some of the not-so-urgent requests, or diverts them to email where I can deal with it later and won't forget the details. I do the same thing if I am at an event with my BlackBerry, noting that I am at an event and using my mobile device only. Again, the channel is open for urgent requests only (at least in theory).
  
  
• Mitigate the inevitable by triage and offload. Emails, from the vaguely important to the totally useless, can seriously clog up your inbox and bury important emails in a sea of  unopened messages. The same is true for minor tasks, from a quick email response to a five-minute phone call to a calendar entry. I will often take a couple minutes in the evening and a couple minutes in the morning to go through emails on my mobile device or my home computer, delete the ones that are just spam, move others to respective folders for later, and be mentally prepared to address more urgent matters when I get into the office or start my workday from home. For quick tasks, I try to address them right away, to avoid the death-by-a-thousand-cuts when I have a larger urgent matter to address and the smaller, but still important, jobs to be done are still there to distract me and stress me out (which makes for poorer quality work all around).
  
  
• Always have a "plan B" for accessing critical files. Having more than one way to get at critical files while away from the office is always a good idea. This could be a combination of higher- and lower-tech means. For instance, you could use a remote access solution and also keep important files on either a laptop, smartphone, or USB device. Additionally, you could keep the files on a shared corporate drive and have a point person who could email them to you in the event of an urgent request. I'd recommend one method that leverages secure access to corporate networks, and one that has files securely stored on a local device.
  
  
• Prioritize and set realistic goals. Invariably you'll be in the middle of a couple of other things when the "drop everything and deal with this now!" phone call comes in. I find it best to work backwards by making an educated guess about how long the new project will take and how I will weave that deadline in with that of the other projects I've begun. In this process, I also ask myself some important questions: Which deadlines can be extended and which cannot? Where can I delegate or ask for help from colleagues?
  
  
• Take a deep breath and assess the situation before diving in. There are few things worse than panicking and over-reacting to a crisis without all the relevant information. Unless you are a first responder, taking five to 10 minutes to assess the situation, gather more information, and set a game plan is a very good idea. This also helps take the emotion out of the response, thus avoiding sending flamograms to our bosses or locking on to the wrong details and running full speed in the wrong direction.
  
  For mobile workers, this dynamic also applies to your environment. Say you're racing down the highway at 80 mph; it's probably a good idea to wait until you can get to a rest stop, assess the situation, and then respond accordingly.
  
  For remote workers, it is also important to know who you need to turn to for the right information and expertise when the problem is bigger than what you can deal with on your own; also, to know the best methods to reach those individuals who themselves may be remote or on the road.
  

As a workshifter, how do you manage crisis situations?

Photo by: jereandreagan