2012 Year in Review from Talascend IT

Happy New Year!

In this New Year, I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who read and engaged with Talascend IT and me personally in 2012; be it on the blog, LinkedIn and other social media, via email, and more. I’d also like to thank those of you who have felt compelled to share the stories with others.

The beginning of the year is customarily a time for celebration of what the future holds. It’s also a time for reflection on the past year.  Keeping that in mind, I wanted to share the Top 10 posts of 2012 from Talascend IT (just in case you missed one): 

 

10.   Real relationships, not online connections, build true professional networks

Nov 27, 2012 – LinkedIn is a great networking tool. There is a difference between the number of connections you have and the number real relationships you have online. I explore the idea further in this post, which climbed quickly into the top ten.

9.      Friday Bonus Blog: Forward this blog to 10 of your friends and Microsoft will pay you 1 million dollars (and other respect destroying communications)

May 18, 2012 – Even though spawned out of the spirit of competition between a colleague and myself; the message in this post regarding email ‘dos and don’ts’ was apparently pretty important to our readers.

   

8.      The Myth About Contingent Employee Engagement

Dec 10, 2012 – Contingent workers often get a bad rap. Two conflicting studies on the subject really got me thinking about whether or not there are that many differences between contingent workers and full time employees. Apparently I am not alone, as this story ended up being one of the top posts of 2012 in only three weeks.

7.      Back it up. Back it up. The Cloud isn't as safe as 'they' say it is.

Sep 4, 2012 – I think if I wrote ‘back it up’ one more time in this post, the ‘back it up police’ would have come to arrest me. An interesting look into a subject that affects anyone with anything stored online; from pictures saved to social media to data saved on the cloud.

6.      Words Matter: The importance of semantics in business.

Nov 5, 2012 – Simple phrases can make or break a conversation. They can mean the difference between getting buy in from others and ‘losing them’ in a business setting. This post combines some of the most powerful phrases my peers and I came up with in a recent online discussion.

5.      Some Thoughts Are Better Left Untweeted: Is Social Media Eroding Self-Control?

Mar 12, 2012 – The title says it all. Do you do and say things online you wouldn’t in person? Is the increasingly common ‘take it or leave it’ attitude towards others a result of social media use? The answers to these question and more garnered this post a seat in the Top Five of 2012.

4.      Three ways to get what you really want from an interviewee.

May 14, 2012 – An article from Forbes had a very profound message about how to get the most out of candidates while interviewing. I expanded on the idea more and received a lot of great feedback as a result.  

3.      I'm sorry I missed that: Is technology affecting the way we communicate?

Oct 22, 2012 – A post I saw on LinkedIn regarding etiquette in interpersonal and professional situations really struck a chord with me. This slap on the wrist to myself is an eye-opening look into the dangers of being distracted by instant communication that today’s technology provides us; and what it can ‘say’ to others while you’re talking with them.

2.      Another Dagger in the Heart of Job Boards?: BranchOut announces $25-million in additional backing for combat with LinkedIn

Apr 23, 2012 – The topic surrounding the decline of job boards definitely sparked the most interest and comments from our readers. Some praised the data and relevancy of major job boards. Some feel I am right in my opinion that they will become less relevant and viable as we move into the future. This blog was only a few readers away from being #1 in our countdown.

       

1.      The ’Beginning of The End for Job Boards’ Kicks into High Gear…Monster Announces It’s 'For Sale.'

Mar 26, 2012 – This follow up to an earlier prediction regarding job boards’ relevancy in this day and age of social networking caused a lot of discussion; both online and offline. It was the hottest topic in 2012.

Thank you again for all of your kind words, comments, and interesting points of view regarding the posts in 2012.  Look for more articles, thoughts, and bold predictions in 2013, and all of us at Talascend IT will look forward to hearing from you.

Happy New Year! –

JK

Josh Kaplan writes on various subjects including management, information technology breakthroughs, healthcare IT recruitment and innovations, big data, IT staffing and recruitment, and technical news and trends.

Back it up. Back it up. The Cloud isn't as safe as 'they' say it is.

Are you prepared for the loss of your cloud data?

I recently ran across a blog by Matt Winer regarding his experience with cloud computing that I felt was really important to share. His story is a warning to all who use cloud servers to store their data and brings about some key questions. 

What happens when a cloud server goes down; what happens when your whole online world (pictures, blogs, etc.)  is lost ? What happens when the cloud expels all it energy and, the cloud is exhausted? 

It is human nature to expect everything will be 'OK' when you post to the cloud, but it is not human nature to back up your work further. Winer gave users the ability to download and back up their data. Very few of them took advantage of this functionality. Relying solely on presumption that the cloud will always be there is a bad idea. 

Luckily in Winer's case, he was able to get everybody their data after a massive system failure. For the rest of us; without someone to monitor the chaos; what will become of us and our data when the next cloud goes down?

Now, I am an IT guy so this shouldn't come as a surprise: I figure if you backup on the cloud and on your hard drive you should be pretty safe. 

Am I wrong?

I don't think you have to proactively act on this information immediately (but it might not be a bad idea to get the process started). I don't think for a second that no one has thought of such issues or that there aren't already good systems in place. However, in the end, many of us are relying on a 'constant' that is proving to be less than constant. With no one to monitor it or make sure it is up and running 24 hours a day, is the cloud truly safe?

Of course every company that stores your data and life's work on a server has backup right? You know it's always good practice to backup your data, but you don't.

Don't be fooled. Once, a matter of semantics changed my life for two weeks: I said I wanted to cancel an upgrade order on my current server contract. I had found a faster server from another provider with better software for less money. A human at my host decided to 'cancel' (delete) all of my accounts and all of my backup servers. The end result was two weeks of frantic repopulating of a new site from bits and pieces I had saved in various folders on my hard drive and some cached pages that Google had not re-indexed yet. I learned my lesson.   

Back it up my friends. 

What you assume is going on behind the scenes is not always the case. 

If you rely on the cloud, you are relying on someone else to protect your treasured 'stuff.'  This is why we buy gap insurance on cars, why we buy umbrella insurance, and it’s why you should backup your 'stuff' in the cloud. Back it up or be prepared for the consequences.

Back up your data yourself because you never know what could happen on the other end of the cloud. I say this as an IT staffing professional: Back it up and be safe; because you never know who or what is going to fail next.

On your PC or on an external hard drive; it doesn't matter where you back up your cloud data. You put a great deal of thought, time, and energy into creating your data. Isn't it something worth preserving?