Category: Communication

A Communications Bulletin

By Walter Boomsma, MSG Communications Director

While most of us were sleeping, something happened to the websites I manage Tuesday morning at approximately 1:30. In short, they became inaccessible. I discovered it at 5:00 am and went to work on the problem, ultimately contacting the company that hosts the sites, including this one. I could probably bore you to tears with a step-by-step explanation. Suffice it to explain that after an hour plus, I was assured that everything would be fixed within 24 hours and, hopefully, sooner. (While they didn’t acknowledge it, the problem was created by something that happened with or at the hosting company.)

Then I received a text message from a thoughtful Granger letting me know about the problem. (She checks the site first thing every morning! Wow! I’m impressed.) This started me thinking about what to do next.

A few days ago, I left the house to do a few quick errands. I was several miles away when I realized I hadn’t picked up my cell phone on the way out. I confess that my first instinct was to call home so Janice would know I didn’t have my phone. I gave myself a slap on the forehead and a “duh” for that idea.

Probably because of that experience–and the fact that even I could not access the site–I didn’t long consider posting a message on the site explaining it wasn’t available. But it did occur to me that I could contact our website subscribers with an announcement and explanation. Yay! After doing that, I (we all, really) were at the mercy of the “team” at the responsible company. Fidgeting wasn’t going to be helpful, so I got back to my schedule for the day.

A bit to my surprise, the escalation team solved the problem fairly quickly and had the sites online at approximately 9:30 am. We were “down” for approximately eight hours–at least half of that in the middle of the night here in Maine.

First, sorry for the inconvenience if you were affected. “Uptime” is a key indicator in the website business, and we take it seriously.

Second, one thing this experience demonstrates is the value of subscribing to the website. When you subscribe, we’ll send you a weekly email (usually Sunday Morning) summarizing what’s been posted. But, more importantly, we can contact you by email on those rare occasions when something unusual or important happens. We don’t share subscribers’ email addresses or any personal information with anyone without your permission. And, of course, you can “unsubscribe” at any time! This truly is a “no risk”offer! Why not give it a try!

If you have any questions about the recent outage or subscribing, send an me email. My goal is to answer email within 24-48 hours.