Shared Wisdom: Learning from Technology Mistakes

 

 

We all make mistakes, especially when dealing with a subject as vast and complex as technology. Whether you're a trained IT professional or your organization's accidental techie, you've likely made at least one decision you later regretted.

Maybe you purchased a pricey customized content management system, only to discover that hiring a contractor to implement a free, open-source solution would have better suited your organization's needs and budget. Or perhaps your nonprofit accepted a dozen donated computers — no questions asked — and then spent several frustrating weeks trying to figure out why they wouldn't boot.

While mistakes occur at every organization, the good news is that they can be valuable learning experiences. Understanding what technologies or decisions didn't work for your organization or other nonprofits can help you make better choices, prevent immediate catastrophes, and avoid problems down the road.

We asked a handful of nonprofit technology professionals to share their biggest slipups, how they fixed them, and what they learned from the experience. Hopefully, their stories will prevent your nonprofit from making similar mistakes, saving you money and time you can put to better use.

Mistake: Assuming that prior technology decisions were the correct ones.

My organization is based in Louisiana, where thunderstorms cause power outages a few times a year. About six months after I started working here, a storm passed and the electricity was out for about two hours over the weekend, cutting the power to our mail server.

When I came back to the office on Monday and tried boot up the server, Microsoft Exchange was completely fried — it wouldn't work at all. It turned out that the person who'd done the IT work before I was hired hadn't installed a sufficient backup system. A backup system should feature serial cable that plugs into the server. You install a little program, and when the power goes down, the software sends a signal to the server and shuts it down before the battery dies. But since our battery backup did not have this auto-shutdown feature, the server just crashed when the battery ran out.

The biggest problem resulting from the crash was the corruption of the Exchange database. It took a tech-support call to Microsoft to sort it out, in addition to about two days of labor. Moreover, there were a lot of additional, lingering little problems. I eventually had to come in over Memorial Day weekend to reformat the server, reinstall Microsoft Exchange, and restore all our data from a backup tape. We replaced the existing backup system with a new one we found on sale at Office Depot for about $200 — the cost of a Microsoft support call.

The moral of this story is to make sure that your organization's battery backup has an auto-shutdown feature, but the larger takeaway is, don't assume that the technology decisions made before you were hired were good ones.

— Chris Broussard
Director of Information Technology and Systems, Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations

Mistake: Selecting a Web host without conducting extensive research.

Our organization chose a small, local Web host because other nonprofits in our building had good experiences with them, they were less expensive than our previous host, and we liked the idea of putting money back into a local company. The fact that they were nearby in case of a tech disaster wasn't a bad perk either.

But after years of working with large national hosts that ran a tight ship, I ran into countless frustrations with this company. The proprietary back-end system was buggy and required 10 clicks to access anything useful. We spent hours and hours making calls to tech support while trying to set up a subdomain, which they were ultimately unable to do. It was very difficult to perform basic tasks — like deleting an expired email account — without help from customer service. While the tech-support staff meant well, they couldn't tell me anything about basic server settings. It was an ongoing frustration and a waste of valuable time.

What I've taken from this is that big, successful Web hosts get that way by providing excellent service. Small and local firms will grow if they can keep up, but I'm not so sure I'd host with one again. I'm also spending much more time searching for customer reviews and asking lots of questions before jumping into any new Web-hosting contracts.

— Sue Novotny
Communications Officer, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society

Mistake: Leasing hardware.

Two YMCAs I work with each bought technology with a lease. In my understanding of nonprofit tax law, there isn't an advantage to leasing over buying — meaning you end up paying a monthly fee to own nothing.

In one instance involving a leased a server, we had great difficulty closing the agreement and getting the equipment packed and ready to return in order to avoid lease-end buyout fees. The entailing phone tag and multiple emails caused us as much grief as being pushed to replace a server on the timetable dictated by the lease's expiration date.

Another lease problem I encountered concerned a photocopier; the person who set up the contract was no longer with the organization, and when the lease expired, no one knew to ask for a buyout option. As a result, the organization kept paying fees for an extra 18 months when the lease converted to a month-to-month agreement.

I'd suggest exploring other finance options rather than leasing. If your agency has the money to buy equipment outright, do it and reduce your monthly operating costs. If funds are unavailable, consider a simple loan to purchase the equipment. A loan will have a set end date, you will actually own the equipment, and you can make decisions based on your organization's needs rather than on the lessor's timetable.

— Dave Welp
Information Technical Director, Scott County Family YMCA

Mistake: Not keeping virus definitions updated.

Most of the computers at our agency use Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition. It's a wonderful product and very lightweight in terms of the system resources it requires. But if the virus definitions are two years out of date, the software is useless.

When I became the IT Manager, antiviral software was installed on about 60 percent of my organization's computers. While they were all configured to receive virus definitions from the server, the server itself wasn't scheduled to get virus definitions from the software manufacturer, because whoever had set it up had forgotten that small — yet important — detail.

About a month after I arrived, some of the computers in our main site started acting strangely — especially when printing to our two networked printers. The odd behavior prompted me to check the status of the virus definition files, and that's when I discovered that the Bugbear virus was floating around the network. It only got in because none of the computers were getting virus definition updates from the server.

I fixed the server and thus protected the uninfected computers, but those which were already infected needed to be repaired manually using Symantec's W32.Bugbear@mm Removal Tool.

The lesson? Keep your antivirus software updated at all costs! The expense of repairing infected systems and the downtime they incur is much, much higher than the amount of money you will spend staying updated. Since I configured Symantec to update its virus definitions in December 2002, we've been virus free.

— Jason Morrill
IT Manager, Child and Family Agency of Southeastern Connecticut  

Mistake: Choosing a custom Web-design solution that can't be easily altered.

We ran into problems when trying to redesign our Web site and implement a content management system. I did not know HTML and was intimidated by the whole process. We explored many options and found a local designer who would work for next to nothing. Unfortunately, in this case, we learned that you sometimes get what you pay for.

The initial site design turned out great. Keeping the events calendar and news articles was a work in progress, but our Web designer was willing to experiment. When it came time to do a site overhaul, though, the problems really started. The designer was going though serious personal troubles at the time, and things went from bad to worse.

Needless to say, parts of our site are outdated and broken, and we haven't been able to find the money or talent to fix it. I am pretty sharp when it comes to technical stuff but I am no layout expert. 

I'd advise other organizations to hire someone who can give you what you need with off- the-shelf programs. Stay away from custom programming when you can. If I had to do it all over again, I would have asked the designer to build the site using a program like Microsoft FrontPage. 

Editor's note: FrontPage is available to qualifying nonprofits through TechSoup Stock for a $7 administrative fee.

— Kevin Facheux
Technology Supervisor, Affiliated Blind of Louisiana

Lessons Learned

While these mistakes each help underscore a valuable lesson, they also illustrate a larger point: Techies at other nonprofits can be an excellent resource when you're faced with a problem or need advice on an important decision. So don't be afraid to reach out to other organizations to find out what they've learned about technology; the more that knowledge spreads, the better off the entire nonprofit sector will be.

TechSoup's ongoing Shared Wisdom series will highlight technology mistakes nonprofit professionals have made and what they learned from them. Keep sharing your stories in TechSoup's Community or drop us a line if you've got wisdom to share with other nonprofits.

Editor's note:This article was compiled by TechSoup Staff Writer Brian Satterfield.