About 20 years ago, before I started my IT and Web Design business, I was working with a video production company briefly on a documentary. One of the things that I wanted to do that I still see people trying to do today is that they buy the best computer that they can and then they load as much of their software as they can onto that computer because they want that computer to be able to do everything. Then when there’s a problem with the computer, it’s the end of the world for them. I was doing that back in 2001. I did that for many years mostly through the the nineties and early 2000’s.
What I learned one day I went to work for a gentlemen who did video production was really awesome. This guy had won several Emmys and was teaching me how to do video editing. It was a really cool opportunity. I came in as an intern (I had two jobs at the time) because I wanted to learn video editing. But the funny thing is, I learned something greater. I learned some great video editing techniques, but what I really learned from him that was most interesting to me, is that he had dedicated computers for specific tasks and he didn’t have the problems that most of the people I knew had.
I had this interesting problem where I would load in some Sony software and some Avid software and then my email would stop working. The first thing that I noticed when I came into this guy’s office is that he had a dedicated computer for his email and if he needed to send an attachment, he’d bring a thumb drive over, plug it into that computer and send the attachment.
That computer that handled his email wasn’t connected to anything else.
The byproduct of that is really interesting… he has never had any email problems. He’s never had to deal with ransomware or viruses or those things because his computers have been protected through isolation.
Still, over the years, I’ve seen customers who’ve had problems because they didn’t designate specific roles to specific pieces of hardware. And I want to tie that back to setting goals.
I’ve also seen that government does this. I’ve seen this on a few jobs that they hired me for, that they would have equipment needed to accomplish a specific goal and they’d have a redundant system. It’s a dedicated system just like what the video editor had me working with.
What I want to convey is that when you buy computers, don’t buy the best computer because you’re going to put everything in it, instead get the right tool for the job.
One of the things that’s improved my experience with computer systems in general over the last 10 years has been being able to just switch to another computer if something goes wrong on the one that I’m working on.
I still see a lot of small business owners who are getting stuck there. They miss a deadline or they can’t get something into production because their their computer that they’re working on has a problem. It slows them down a week and it really impacts their business and ability to function.