Converting the Heathen March 13, 2003 Dave Kamioner, Director of Marketing When I first came to this industry from the world of politics, which wasn’t that long ago, I was at a general loss on how to explain what I did now to my heathen non-IT former colleagues. I eventually hit on the ‘garage’ metaphor. If a web site is a car, then shared hosting is the garage, managed services makes sure the car runs and a dedicated server is your own garage. Call it ‘Kamioner’s Maxim’. Simplistic? Yes. Even infantile? Uh huh. But, as I went on ad nauseam in my last missive to you kids, required policy in dealing with the heathen. Why so? Because I’ve come to find that most folks out there think that who hosts their site doesn’t matter very much. They figure if it’s up most of the time, and they define that “most of the time’ very loosely. They get their questions answered (a typical one being: “How do I put that little mark over the ‘e’? It isn’t on the keyboard.”), there isn’t much difference between companies like DNI, Rackspace and JoeBob’s Web Site Hosting and Live Bait. But, as we all know, there is a slight difference between DNI and JoeBob’s. At JoeBob’s, a worm is a good thing. How to overcome this apathy? Fact and evidence. It doesn’t take a news junkie to realize that a web site does you no good at all if it isn’t up and running properly due to an attack or bad maintenance. That is important to know for firms who use their sites as online brochures, but goes doubly for e-commerce types. Granted, there is an element of fear inducement here, but, dealing with legitimate security concerns is not exactly paranoia. Another is ROI. Some non-IT types can be pretty testy about the moola they’ve invested in a product which they believe is developed by and maintained by pierced eared baseball cap wearing backwards mid-twenties slackers. No problem. Enter the grownups in this field to sooth them and allay their fears with non-IT real person verbiage and a knowledge that nothing matters unless it positively affects their bottom line. Ne C’est Pas?