My normal morning routine when turning on my computer at work is open work email program, open calendar, open gmail, and launch Twitter.com. On the morning of August 06, 2009, Twitter would only respond with a network error. I immediately thought our IT Data Security group banned it, so I turned on the morning talk radio and heard that Twitter is defending against a DDOS attack. It was well after lunch before I could log on.
During that time suffering from Twitter withdraw symptoms, I had not realized how embedded Twitter had become in my daily routine. I follow colleges and other professionals in my industry and they became sort of a ‘comfort zone’ for me knowing I had a network of folks I could reach out to if in a pinch. Not to mention simply following their daily activities and what they’re working on was…well, like regular co-workers.
This was truly a disaster! Just like any disaster plan, I put into place an “Emergency Action Plan” for the next time Twitter goes down. And it will go down – all popular sites get hacked eventually.
Emergency Action Plan – Twitter Unavailable
- Listen to Pandora.
- Use Facebook instead (provided it’s not hacked either).
- Catch up on your RSS feeds.
- Catch up on reading your favorite blogs.
- Actually get some work done.
- Socialize with someone – in person.
- Surf eBay.
- Do something kinesthetic – build a Twitter bird out of Legos.
- Do something that actually requires physical activity.
- Make a to-do list of all the chores you’ve let slide because of Twitter.
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