An event occurred last week that made a lot of IT people some money and added to their desire to obtain 15 minutes of minutes of fame – the Conflicker debacle. Between the media and IT professionals, both desperate to survive in a slow economy, (witness lots of publications going online only, regular columnists moving down the ladder to freelance and small IT shops going under in droves) hyping their wares using Fear, Uncertainly and Doubt they managed to scare a lot of small businesses into spending money. But then what happened? Conflicker was a non-starter and those businesses now feel duped. They got played and they know it. Now they distrust the media and IT professionals even more than they did before. How is this good for business? It’s not.
Businesses shouldn’t make IT investment decisions out of fear. To thrive they need to invest in IT because it will further their business objectives. IT should make businesses money not cost them. Business should not have to fear the next Internet disease; they should rest assured that they have made the right decision in hiring a professional IT firm that understands their business and manages the network to avoid the mad scramble. If as an IT firm if your clients don’t view you as a trusted professional, then you are doomed to fail. If as a small business you don’t view your selection of an IT firm as a trusted advisor, then it’s time for a change.
Running a secure network that enhances and enables your business to be better than the competition is possible. It’s not costly because it pays for itself. The technology isn’t scary because you have trust in your IT person. Join us for a roundtable discussion between Dana Epp of Scorpion Software, Susan Bradley of TSH&B, Ben Yarbrough of Calyptix and Amy Babinchak of Harbor Computer Services and Third Tier on April 16th.
Register here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/733132802
So who wrote this blog and what do they do for a living anyway?
We’re Third Tier. We provide advanced Third Tier support for IT Professionals.
Get Support 
Blog 
Twitter 
Facebook 
LinkedIN
I have to completely agree with your take on FUD, Amy.
While the Conficker debacle could have gone either way, it turned out to pretty much be a non-event.
Most of my customers were protected in three ways. Firstly, most are using SonicWALL firewalls with Gateway Anti-Virus which protected against Conficker. Secondly, their Microsoft patches are managed and up to date. Thirdly, they all use a trusted Anti-Virus solution that protected servers and workstations.
As a result, I did not receive any calls from customers with problems on April 1st. I did get a couple of calls from customers in the preceding days wanting to know if they were vulnerable. It was great to be able to tell them that I had been, and will continue to be, proactive in protecting one of their most valuable assets…their network and computer systems.
I should be using the recent Conficker threat and the fact that my customers were proactively protected as a marketing point.
I hope my customers see me as a trusted advisor…if not, they should be using someone else.