I’ll occasionally review our old articles when preparing the monthly newsletter, and I came across this one that I thought was still relevant and interesting. I hope you’ll think so, too…
Recently, a friend forwarded me one of those Internet “Top 10 Things That
OK, got me. If there’s things about to disappear from the earth before I do, guess I’d like to hear what someone thinks those will be. As I read through the list, it struck me that in many respects, the items on that list were already disappearing, or had already disappeared, for many of us here today, in the present.
Top on the list were the post office and the check. If the post office delivers mostly bills and ads to us, and we shop mostly on-line and pay mostly by on-line debit or credit… what’s the future of either the post office or the check? Very rarely do I write a physical check anymore and mail it, for business or personally. How about you?
The email went on to list a number of other changes that I mentally grouped into “physical things”. Books, music, the newspaper…all delivered or acquired physically “today” but disappearing “in the future”. That future seems pretty close though when I consider the last time I bought a physical CD, and can’t remember when that was. My music is all stored on a disk drive and played back through a computer or digital player now.
That’s not necessarily an improvement, but it is reality. When you look at all the local bookstores that are mostly gone, and all the bricks and mortar chains that are gone or going, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that books will be delivered mostly electronically, too. Indeed, if you look at Amazon’s sales, that future has already arrived, with e-books displacing the disappearing paperback present.
What does that mean for us personally and in business? First, to buy and sell all those bits and bytes, everyone is going to need better security than they have now and a lot more digital storage. All the recent, well-publicized data breaches and vulnerabilities demonstrate that even large organizations aren’t as well-protected as they need to be.
Second, to be protected from loss, that storage will need to be backed up somewhere, preferably not in the same building as the “original” copy (if “original” has any meaning anymore). Maybe that original copy is itself “in the cloud” and you access it through the Internet when you need it.
Finally, that off-site “cloud” storage needs to be secure, reliable and affordable. Data that you can’t get to – and/or data that someone else can get to without your knowledge and consent – both are big problems in the incredible disappearing present.
Fortunately, we’re already helping people with secure Internet connections and secure storage for their “digital property”… maybe we can help you, too.
