I’m excited to be speaking at the PMI (Project Management Institute) Mass Bay – Professional Development Day 2012 this Saturday! Fellow PMI members I look forward to seeing you there and exploring how Social Media can empower your project efforts.

Social Media For Project Managers – 05/05/12
PMI (Project Management Institute) Mass Bay – Professional Development Day 2012
Time & Location – See website below for details – Conference Center at Bentley Waltham MA
Does social media currently have a place in your projects? Does the dizzying array of options such as Facebook, LinkedIN, Twitter, blogging, Wikis make your head spin? In this workshop we will elucidate the opportunities that social media provides to project managers. Join us to learn how you and your projects can profit from these latest industry trends and technologies.

Visit the PMI Mass Bay – Professional Development Day 2012 website for more information.

We at Evolutionary IT believe that positive contributions to our communities and world are just good citizenship.  For the second year, we are proud to announce our involvement in the 2012 Boston AIDS 5K Run. This will be our second year of involvement and we are happy to give back and hope you will do. Please sponsor our running team and help us fundraise to help those suffering with HIV. We hope to see you all on race day!

I am excited to announce that I will be speaking at the Cambridge Science Festival in April 2012.  Please join us for the free and fun exploration of the cloud computing basics for the end user and small business. I hope you check out all the wonderful events in this years Cambridge Science Festival 2012!


Cloud Computing: A Plain English Intro to the Cloud – 04/26/12
Cambridge Science Festival
Location & Time: – Cambridge Public Library Lecture Hall, 449 Broadway - 6:30PM-9:00PM
Cost: Free
Presentation Overview:
What is the cloud & what can it do for you? You may have asked this very question with the dizzying array of products that relay on cloud technologies like Google docs, iCloud, Amazon cloud services and even online backup – but wonder no more. Join us for a fun whimsical overview of cloud technologies and what promise and quandaries they hold for you. You will leave far less nebulous about the promise and benefits of these technologies.

Visit the Cambridge Science Festival website for more information.

Update: Thanks to all who attended.  Attendees and others can now download the presentation from our archive.

In this the 2nd part of my 3 part discussion on disaster recovery for the dental practice, I will discuss a few more of the misunderstandings that many dentists and dental practice managers hold regarding disaster recovery.

All Server Hardware & Software is Equal
Like investing in stocks or equities not all technology yields the same return. Some technology investments like cheap poorly engineered server, just like a penny stock – only offer a negative return. This is compounded in when dealing with the situations of disaster recovery. For example, a cheap desktop computer running as a “server” that has no hardware redundancy. Further, it may be running a version of the operating system that doesn’t allow for engineering redundancy and fault tolerance. This will consistently cost you more in the case of a disaster. Investing in the highest quality server hardware that fits your budget is always an intelligent decision.

A few software technologies are shining examples of intelligent technology investment in disaster recovery. These technologies make recovering servers, your data, and your dental practice far easier than they once were. Technologies such as virtualization, backup applications, data replication and the cloud allow easy backup and restoration of our server infrastructures with much less headache and time of previous technologies. These technologies also make it easier to restore your systems and drastically improve recovery times. Additionally, in the case of larger offices with much data storage technologies have the option of replicating or copying data to multiple locations for safekeeping for further redundancy.

Planning with a Trusted Provider is Important
Prudent technology decisions are characterized by planning. This is certainly true in disaster recovery. Well conceived technology (hardware/software) make a difference in your ability to recover. Right sizing your technology decision involves working with a qualified IT provider. One who will give you the options and price points and work with you to match those with your budgetary and disaster recovery goals. Don’t go it alone in disaster recovery.

Are you ready for a disaster? Would you be able to bring your dental practice back following a local or regional disaster? Most dental practices (and small businesses in general) are woefully unprepared as the following statistics highlight:

• Gartner estimates that only 35 percent of SMBs have any comprehensive disaster recovery plan.
• Touche Ross estimates, the survival rate for organizations without a disaster recovery plan is < 10%
• Evolutionary IT surveyed over 50 (non customer) offices and found a mere 20% had any disaster recovery plan as of 2011.

In this the first part of my 3 part discussion on disaster recovery for the dental practice I will discuss a few misunderstandings that many dentists and dental practice managers hold regarding disaster recovery.

Local Backup Is Enough

The assumption that local backup will keep you safe is incorrect. Local backup only helps you if have a local system problem or hardware problem. If any other type of local disaster such as storm, fire, smoke damage your machine you will lose your external storage, backup drive, etc. It is imperative to have some form of off site backup (replication, virtualization, or cloud solution) as well as onsite backup.

Recovering From A Disaster Doesn’t Require a Plan

Creating a plan in the case of disaster helps mitigate your risks, improve recovery times and lessen the possibility of data loss. It allows you the piece of mind in knowing you thought out the steps to returning to normal business operations. Without taking the time to do this you have know idea what you need to accomplish recovery, how long it will take and or the process details. A written plan will give you all the required detailed and make everything known quantities. A plan is a dynamic evolving process as your environment changes.

Disaster Recovery Doesn’t Need Testing

Most practices with an unseasoned “IT Guy” have backups set up automatically that run on a scheduled unmanaged/unmonitored basis. They don’t monitor backups, don’t test the validity of these backups and or test restoring the data. Without planning and testing you can’t validate your results. Most “IT guys” haven’t done a full recovery test and therefore won’t be able to bring you practice back online in a timely or cost efficient manner. It is imperative that you work with a provider that not only has a plan but updates, maintains and tests it on a consistent basis.

We must have a plan or we should plan to fail. Disaster recovery is an ongoing effort of both technology and process. What steps do you plan to take to be prepared?

From our family to yours we wish you a very happy New Years! 2011 was an extremely successful year for us and we would like to share that success with you. Everyone (new and existing customers) in the month of January 2012 will receive a 5% discount on any single purchase of hardware or services. Simply reference the coupon code HNY2012 and receive your 5% off.

Evolutionary IT is a reseller partner of Dell, Netgear, Kaspersky, iBackup, Canonical (Ubuntu) so this discounts apply to our hardware offerings as well any of our service offerings. Please do forward and share this offer with your friends and family. Do tweet, forward and pass it on.

Happy New Year to all!

Social Networking allows us so many positives but brings with it key risks we must address in the modern enterprise. Social media can be a great place to connect with new customers, expand our brand presence and even drive sales. At the same time it makes for a veritable playground for social engineering or the latest web based malware. We face risks and rewards and need to balance them by practicing smart social media security. While comprehensive enterprise security technologies from the network to the desktop are a piece of the puzzle they are no security panacea. Uneducated end users can be a threat that circumvents all those efforts in one click, a cleverly disguised download or seemingly innocent email. End users don’t have to be the weakest link. In an interview I had earlier this month I with Jane McPherson on Patrolling the Channel of SearchSecurityChannel.com I spoke to this very issue. I’d like to personally thank Jane for the chance to share our knowledge. Take a listen and let us know what you think. Are you planning for social media security training?

Download the Podcast
Download the Patrolling the Channel Podcast

Download Local Podcast Archived Version