Massaker.Me

The experience of being a Metro Atlanta Small Business Person of the Year Finalist was an interesting one for me. While I have no illusions that I am one of the 5 best small business people in all of Metro-Atlanta, a feeling that I am sure is shared by the other finalists, we were the top 5 of those that were nominated to the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce for the honor. I can rattle off several other business owners, many unconcerned and/or uncomfortable with such publicity, that could run circles around me – some of which are my clients. With that idea in the back of my head keeping me humble, I was left to think what such an honor really means to me… if anything.

While I certainly appreciate the publicity that such an honor has bestowed (…and the complimentary business class airline tickets from AirTran), it occurred to me that regardless of how important, or unimportant I found this award to be, there are others who probably consider it important, such as other members of the Metro Atlanta Chamber, my staff at Carceron, my family and others.Thinking back to the event, I recall the final seconds before they announced the honor and was so nervous and choked up (a feeling that I definitely had not anticipated having) that I was extremely relieved when Debbi won. If I had won and was forced to get on that stage, it would have been a very “un-manly” moment for me.

More than a week has passed and I have had time to reflect on all of this: my feelings of modesty relative to my being worthy of such an honor; how important I viewed the award relative to others;  the unexpected emotions that I experienced just prior to the announcement. I have found a sort of mental compromise that reflects my modest impression of the honor and the reverence that others hold the award in. Here goes:

I must now live up to the award’s name and truly be amongst the top 5 small business persons in Metro Atlanta as viewed by all of Atlanta – not just the Chamber.

It’s a lofty dream, but achievable I think.

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My article in the Atlanta Business Chronicle

My promotional video created by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and Atlanta Business Video for the event.

Web Sites of the other Metro Atlanta Small Business Person of the Year Finalists:

Debbi Shapiro, Henderson Shapiro, (#1 Small Business Person of the Year)

Shelly Justice, Convention Models + Talent Agency (finalist)

Susan Bixler, Bixler Consulting (finalist)

Shannan Russo, Kinetix HR (finalist)

Social Media is supposed to have brought about this new era of transparency. But has it?

My business partner (Jeffrey) and I got into a disagreement regarding this the other day and I thought “Let’s see what the rest of our small world of FaceBook friends and blog readers think”.

Jeffrey, had found a forum post on a product review board on the Dell web site which slammed some new tiny computer that they had recently put out. He emailed me the link saying that transparency was not good in this case. Having read about Dell Hell in Jeff Jarvis’ What Would Google Do?, I was inclined to immediately disagree because Mr. Jarvis made a very good argument to the contrary – that publicly calling Dell out had resulted in him getting what he wanted and that his small set of the articles spread very quickly over the web, becoming a PR nightmare for Dell. Dell finally reacted and learned their lesson and made many other customer service related corrections as a result of this.

However, I have given it some more thought and I have to say I’m not totally convinced that 100% transparency (much less 75% or even 50%) is good for every business, especially small business. Dell is a very large company, many people had never even heard of the Dell Hell incident – I had not until reading his book. Despite the bad PR, Dell remained relatively unblemished. I’m not sure that I could say the same if it were to happen to my small business. They could lose 10s of millions of dollars, perhaps 100s of millions, and remain relatively unscathed. For small businesses that operate in a smaller market those results might be catastrophic.

So ponder on this:

• Would you publish a publicly viewable forum where anyone could write what they wanted about your company and anyone could read what had been written?
  • How would you handle negative commentary?
• How would you react to web site that are erected for the sole purpose of discrediting your company by having users share their negative experiences (e.g. www.dellhell.net)
• Is the concept of transparency more relevant/practical/necessary for big businesses and government than small businesses?
• Does this even matter for service-based businesses?

By the way, what do you think about the transparent canoe? Cool huh?

#1  PREVENT DISASTER

Earthquake

1. This is the hardest disaster to plan for and the most expensive. To prevent it, don’t work in an earthquake prone area. Odds are you won’t have the budget to “harden” your office like many data centers in earthquake prone regions.
2. Make sure that off site /online backups are in another state, several states from your home state.
3. If possible, run as much of the business as possible through cloud based services and applications that servers in safe regions of the country. This can mitigate a substantial amount of risk to the IT infrastructure and operational up time.

Fire

1. Have fire extinguishers checked and charged annually as needed.
2. Make sure that your have proper fire suppression systems in your server room. (Water is obviously not ideal, as are most common fire extinguishers)
3. If you carry a lot of inventory, consult a professional on the best plan of action

Flood

1. Make sure that no computers sit directly on the floor. At least 1’ high is recommended.
2. Server rooms should not have any overhead water pipes
3. Make sure that your office is on upper floors and/or on high ground (One of our former clients had a Vespa shop in Atlanta that was located in a shopping center that was at the bottom of a fairly steep hill and it had a river on it’s back side. When hurricane Ivan came through, the store was submerged in 5’ of water, submerging their entire network and inventory).

Tornado

1. Avoid locating sever rooms near the exterior wall of a building. Put them as close to the center as possible in whatever room as the most reinforced infrastructure (and no water pipes over head, see Flood above)

Physical Theft

1. Consult with a security company regarding ingress/egress control options such as card or biometric (thumb prints, hand scans, etc.) entry
2. Install digital video cameras. Be sure to secure the recording unit in a secret location and back it up off site (online backup is fine)

Data Theft

1. Consult with your managed IT service provider on how to safe guard your data using file permissions, encryption (especially for laptops) and auditing.
2. Disable users’ ability to write to external media such as burnable CDs, DVDs, and Flash Drives.
3. Implement 2-factor authentication (e.g. logging in with a password and thumb print)

Insurance

1. Review your commercial policy with your agent no less than once per year.
2. Make sure that you are protected from all reasonable scenarios and that your limits are adjusted as your revenue/profit increases.