Copywriter with IT issues!

I know this isn’t my normal type of post, but I was recently a copywriter with IT issues, and I thought it was worthwhile talking about IT and how a failure can affect your ability to conduct business.

I did a LinkedIn post about it last month, and a few people commented that it served as a warning about what can happen. So, I thought I would write a blog about it and highlight how you can make sure you are prepared, just in case it should happen to you!

What happened?

I had been working all day, and I came back later to check my PC had shutdown successfully, only to be greeted by the blue screen of doom! This was followed by a never ending cycle of diagnosing and unable to fix the problem. What?

The PC had been working normally all day and there was no prior warning that anything was wrong, but now it just said “No!”

I went around in circles for hours. I Googled how to fix it and tried absolutely everything suggested, but to no avail.

My hard drive had given up the ghost. Five years of copywriting, editing, and other client work – all inaccessible.

I was a copywriter with IT issues.

Panicking copywriter with IT issues!

Panic doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt for a short while. However, when I calmed down and thought about it logically, I knew everything was backed up to not one, but two Cloud services – Microsoft and one other, which I won’t name on here (because it failed), suffice it to say it is a big high street name!

I looked up some local IT businesses with good reviews and chose one to call to help me out of this jam.

At this point, I should point out that I was extremely lucky. Although my PC was irretrievably broken, I was lucky that:

I had backed all my work up to the Microsoft Cloud
I found a local IT business who could take my PC away and return it, fixed, with a new hard drive installed and in fact, better than it was before – all within 24 hours (amazing service!)
It wasn’t a critical time for work, so I didn’t let any clients down as a result of what is known in the trade as a ‘catastrophic system failure’ – I kid you not! LOL

IT issues and how to avoid them!

So why the post, you may ask? Well, I thought that in sharing my experience of IT issues with you, it might spur you on to take a look at how you do things, and help you to understand how your business would be affected if your hard drive or system suddenly died. Believe me, prevention is better than panic!

What I learned from the experience (in no particular order):

Don’t automatically assume that just because you are paying for backup, it is actually working. I had been paying for a backup service for five years and it hadn’t backed anything up since March 2020! If you are paying for a backup service, check it! You need to be confident that you won’t lose any files should the worst happen. If it isn’t doing what it should, make sure you have the right contact details of who to complain to, so you can rectify the problem easily.
Run a physical backup as well as one to the Cloud. My IT guy was very helpful in setting this up for me. I already had a hard drive, so I just plug it into my PC every weekend and click a button. Job done!
Check out IT companies in your area, so you can call someone you trust in the event of a’ catastrophic system failure’.
As a freelancer, I don’t have staff, but it did make me think. If you have staff, do they know what to do if their computer says no? System failures tend to happen at the most inconvenient times! You could be in a meeting, on holiday or uncontactable. Staff need to know who to call in the event of any emergency, including an IT system failure or hacking incident.
Make sure that employees know about the dangers of phishing emails and what to do if they receive a suspicious communication/attachment.
Are your sensitive documents password protected? If your system failure is down to hackers, they won’t be able to access password-protected data, safeguarding company and client information.
Depending on the industry, you may have to meet certain standards about the storing and control of sensitive data, above and beyond what is required by GDPR. Do your research and find out what you should do to:
a). Protect sensitive files or data
b). Know who to contact to report a system failure or breach
c). Implement a procedure for notifying clients whose information may have been lost or stolen
Institute best practice around deleting and archiving old information. Put a system in place for automatic archiving and make sure you go through files (and emails!) regularly, so you are not overloading your system with information you don’t need.

Spring is fast approaching, so as well as cleaning up the office, getting rid of old physical files and outdated furniture, why not spring clean your IT? You will be amazed at all the old stuff stored on your devices that you don’t really need. They will run much quicker when you delete unnecessary information!

Don’t be like me – put systems in place

Having experienced IT issues myself, I have come up with a few prompts to get you thinking about your IT systems, and to give you confidence that you can be up and running quickly in the event of a failure:

Do you know what files you are backing up? Does it include everything you need to run your business?
If something happened, whether accidental or malicious, would you be able to restore that critical data?
Where is your backup stored? Do you have both a physical and Cloud backup?
Do you have a process for running the backup? For example, most Cloud backups are ongoing, but you need to choose a time either daily or weekly to run the physical backup
Do you check that your backup is running when it should, and backing up what it should? Don’t presume that it is running because you have paid for it. Check it out!
Do you have a process in place for data recovery??
If you have staff, do they know what to do in the event of an IT failure?