Is your business ready for wild weather?

FEMA Photo library-Liz Roll

Note: This post was originally published in 2012 and has been updated with current information.

The last two weeks Mother Nature has unleashed her fury on the southern U.S. and eastern Mexico with three hurricanes and a major earthquake. As of this posting, two more hurricanes have the potential to strike the Eastern seaboard. Millions have lost homes and businesses. Between hurricanes Harvey and Irma everyone seemed to know at least one person, if not more, directly affected by the storms. Our prayers continue to be uplifted.

When this particular post was written in 2012 the Mid Atlantic was preparing for another storm as we patiently watched the track of hurricane Sandy. While Sandy made more of an impact farther north, the Mid-Atlantic region had experienced some past wild weather. There were three blizzards in one winter, two back to back. In 2011, there were back to back tropical storms. In 2012, we experienced a derecho storm. A derecho type of storm and the name itself being new to the area. Going back to 2003 we all remember the massive flooding associated with Isabel. All of these weather events caused power outages, some for several days or a week plus. 

Getting back to business

In 2012, as now, you see businesses staying open as long as possible to service their communities. After the storm they open as quickly as possible to resume operations. Sometimes a business is lost. In addition to ensuring that their family and homes are safe, small business owners must also protect their businesses, which in many cases are their livelihoods.

We become so accustomed to having electricity we forget all that is electric dependent, e.g.-gas pumps, ATMs, cash registers and credit card machines to list a few. We also become complacent as to how dependent our businesses are to electricity.

Power outages are reported in number of customers without power, not business loss. So there is not one source to determine how small businesses suffer. There are few businesses that can operate without power. Depending on your product you may be able to conduct some business with cash transactions. In the current economic climate any business loss is crucial. Add to that the possibility of losing inventory due to damage or loss of refrigeration and small businesses can really be hurt.

Preparation for business restoration

No different than a home, business owners should prepare for storms and power outages. The logistics of preparing your business for a storm and the loss of power after the storm can be complicated. Having a written plan of action can make the task easier. Take the lessons learned from past outages and make a simple outline. The adage of “being prepared” is true and can significantly reduce either your loss or time your business is down.

Depending on your location and the type of storm you may need to prepare your facility for flooding. This may include boarding windows, sandbagging, moving inventory and equipment. Your business has many unique facets that have to be examined when developing your plan. Here are a few operational items that should be considered.

• Purchase generators or ensure generators are in place and operational.
• Be prepared for cash transactions.
• What type of telephone system do you use? Newer systems do not work without power or have limited hours battery backup.
• What type of security do you have? As with the telephone system, security systems often have only limited hours backup. 
• Backup computer business files. Sudden and/or prolonged power outages can result in data loss. When complete, store the files offsite. 
• Review insurance policies and coverage’s annually with your provider. Update as necessary.
• Make sure insurance and business documents are easy to locate and safe from harm.
• In the winter, prepare for safe ways to provide heat to your business.  

The biggest mistake business owners can make is not heeding warnings and being caught off guard. We can all learn from the recent storms and past winters heavy snows. Having a recovery plan of action to protect your business assets may be the some of the cheapest insurance available.

Cleaning Up Your Online Presence

Ever been asked at checkout for your phone number? You haven’t been in the store for a long time, if ever by your recollection, but the clerk wants to know if you’re in the system. You provide a phone number and surprise surprise you are in there! Phone number, name, and address. It’s probably not a retail conspiracy to create a super database of shared data. What it does reveal is how our lives and personal data are intertwined within the world of information.

When information was written on paper there was less of it and it was more fragile. Tear it up, burn it, poof it’s gone. Carbon paper, mimeographs, and copy machines (Younger readers will have to look those up) changed that. Documents were being copied and filed in triplicate. Computers, of course, made it all easier but it wasn’t until the ol’ World Wide Web came along that hiding in plain sight became difficult.

In the old days it was easy to disappear. You simply moved to another town. Started using a new name and slowly built your new persona. As technology progressed information began being stored on computers. Those computers could be accessed for information stored about you, but only for the specific information the entity had stored. Once computers became connected one entity could access another’s information. Then they began sharing information between each other and saving the data locally. The more digitally involved you are the bigger your online presence. As young people enter adulthood they have little to no digital footprint in the context of financial databases. What they do have is a social footprint, more on that later.

Google yourself

Have you ever searched your name? If not, give it a try. You might be surprised what pops up or how many of you are out there. The more you are in the public eye the more information that is going to be out there and, thus, the harder to clean up your online presence. A regular Joe should have limited occurrences as the result of a search. But even regular Joe’s can have an online presence depending on their interaction with social sites and images associated to their name. And that is what you need to be controlled.

Information for sale

Think about the seed system of a watermelon. You can take out a portion from the middle, but there are going to be all those strands extending throughout the melon. That is how it is in the digital world. Things truly do live forever on the Internet. You can have a record expunged from a database, but any reference to or sharing of that record in other databases is going to give it new life. Data has become a big commodity. Everything is for sale on the Internet. Data is being collected on every interaction you have on the Internet. The data collected by brick and mortar businesses is sought after. Once government databases went online (real estate, court information, etc) information brokers snatched up this data. All of this information is bought and sold and resold. The original purveyor of the data may have deleted it but the new entity has it saved and published it their own way.

Everyone that has data is looking for revenue sources, especially governments. Data mining companies buy data from phone companies (landline and wireless) and the government (real property and court records). The information is legitimately offered for sale on the Internet through pay sites or resold. Ever get those mailings and wonder how Joe Realtor knows how long you’ve lived in your house and what you can sell it for?

Your Job image

Younger people may not be in databases for real estate or financial institutions but they are using social media and sharing the media. Even someone with little life experience will pop up in a simple Google search, most likely under images. This is what haunts the 20-somethings when they start their job searches. Over the last few years’ different surveys have revealed that 40% of college admission offices and 40% of HR professionals research social media regarding applicants. Staying aware of your online presence is especially import when trying for a job.

Cleaning up online presence

You’re first step should be stop the flow of information. Review and change your social media privacy settings. Remove information from online shopping and other accounts that are old or unnecessary.

Whether it’s the garage, the basement, or the Internet before starting any clean up job you have to assess the situation. Start by searching your name and then different variations with your name, town, occupation, and any other identifier that you feel has a strong attachment to your name. Would suggest using Google as it is the most powerful, but using other search engines wouldn’t hurt. You’ll probably get different results.

Make note of the sites in which you pop up and what they are referencing. Find the source of the material you want removed and contact the source directly. Many will want sound reasoning why the post/picture should be removed. May want to read the companies privacy statements before you make the call to know where you stand and/or how to make the request.

Even though the source removes the post once it has been shared it lives on in other sites. You’ll have to track the posts digital trail and contact those companies as well. The tedious part is finding every link that’s associated with your name and going through the process each time. As with any situation where you are fighting an issue Document Document Document. Keep copious notes of your efforts in case you need to prove your attempts later or make subsequent requests.

After all that you are still going to be able to “find yourself” on government public access sites like real property and courts. People search sites and phone number search sites sell the information you are trying to keep private. Matters of public record like newspaper articles in which you’ve been mentioned are going to pop up.

To get your name removed from marketing lists there are organizations that can help. Similar to the national do not call registry, these services allow consumers to opt of marketing offers. You would be adding your name to another database, which may be counterproductive to what you’re trying to accomplish, but it does keep marketers from contacting you. Maybe. Who knows if it really works?

One such service is run by the Direct Marketing Association and allows consumers to have their names and addresses removed from direct marketing mailing lists. There is a fee-$2 for 10 years if you register online. The site can be found at www.dmachoice.org. The second removes the consumer from credit card and insurance offers. The service is provided in a joint venture between Experian, Equifax, Innovis, and Transunion. The site can be found at www.optoutprescreen.com.

You won’t be able to eradicate everything. If you’re serious about removing yourself from the Internet you’ll have to have as much as possible redacted. The rest will have to get buried in the voluminous amount of data filling the Internet. The less that is out there the more specific the search will have to be to find you. Not gone but harder to find.

Your personal information may be in myriad retail databases but at least you can try to keep what others read about you to a minimum. You can’t just completely disappear but can clean up your online presence so that you’re not easily searched.

See our blog archive for more posts about online presence.

Should social media rants get you fired? March 2017

Social media checks July 2016

Convicted? Never convicted October 2014