BlackBerry Blackout!

Late Tuesday night BlackBerry handheld personal communication devices all across North America lost email access and left 8 million lawyers, business people, small business owners and other professionals without access to their most precious communication tool, their BlackBerry instant eMail Communicator!

Service was gradually restored and seems to be all back online as of Noon Wednesday but what was meerly a glitch in the system should be a wakeup call to many BlackBerry users that one single communication tool isn't enough.

While I'm not suggesting we should all have 3 different cell phones a laptop and a walkie talkie in our pockets at all times, that's a little extreme, it is important to be prepared for any one communications or business tool to "disappear".

Perhaps now is a great time to stop and take inventory of the technology you rely on and ask yourself what your plan B is should one or more of those pieces of technology fail you.

Of course it's also a good time to ask yourself what information is on these same devices that exists ONLY on these devices and, if you lost your cell phone / laptop / daytimer where would you turn to retrieve that important data?

While a cause has not yet been found for the BlackBerry failure it does seem like all is back to normal, we'll call this one a close call and perhaps take a few minutes to do a mental inventory of the tools we rely on and plan for the worst. If you're brief mental inventory leaves you feeling a little nervous about your business reliance on untrusted technology feel free to give me a call, I can help you plan for the best while keeping your business technology prepared for the worst.

RIM says most N.A. BlackBerry service restored