"Stop worrying about backups, security, and patching..."

"We are looking for for someone who understands our environment and how we use data to help our customers with their marketing... We business owners assume that the security and backups and phones are all just taken care of..."

The above statements are a tough pill to swallow for some folks in my industry. On the one hand, the whole reason why I am in this business is to help entrepreneurs and business owners push their businesses forward and to get technological problems out of the way. On the other hand, the security breaches, crypto-virus outbreaks, and phishing scams continue to compel me to keep talking to them about the basics of securing their businesses from the same risks we have faced for years.

My educational background is not in technology; I originally studied to be a teacher. I fell into IT because I love understanding complex systems and figuring out solutions to them. It is interesting how frequently teaching and troubleshooting go hand in hand, especially when working with gifted, but less-experienced technical people. One of the concepts I always try to teach is that, in IT, most of what you do is to reduce risk. Day in and day out, we spend a lot of time preventing disasters and data loss. Most disasters are caused by highly preventable problems; it is just a matter of picking the solution and executing it consistently and to a high standard of quality. Sometimes, you get to help a business save money, by re-engineering an existing service or re-negotiating a contract. Once in a great while, you get the chance to help a visionary business owner do something that hasn't been done before; you get to create something that has not been done before. I have had that opportunity 7 or 8 times in the last few years, and I am proud of the contributions that I have made to those businesses. I am equally proud of the hundreds of entrepreneurs that I have helped to sleep better at night be helping them protect themselves from disasters that could stop their businesses in their tracks.

One of the reasons we started Lighthouse IT was because we had a group of gifted professionals who wanted to build a company that could take on both the boring-but-necessary risk reduction processes, while also having the experience and vision to help solve the big problems that don't have easy, clear-cut solutions. There is not a much more powerful combination than having a team that can execute well on the basics consistently, while also being able to solve the big problems when they come up. That combination is the reason why I can smile when I see comments like the quotes above. Does that sound like your team?