Dennis Kennedy

A short, but violent, storm swept through St. Louis on Sunday afternoon. Our electricity went out with the first gust of wind. Power returned late last night. The electric company returned this morning for more repairs in our neighborhood and the power was out again for a few hours today.

As we rely more and more on technology, this state of affairs can be a real drag, especially if you work out of a home office (or any office that happens to be an area without electricity).

I was talking with a writer today who had interviewed me for quotes for an article for on extranets and we joked about writing an article on the trials and tribulations of the tech-reliant in a time without electricity.

I did some thinking about whether there were some lessons I could learn about disaster recovery planning. There are some, of course.

The tricky part in all in this episode was that the power could have returned at any time, and it usually is not out for as long as it was this time.

For example, I did the trip to a local restaurant with WiFi access yesterday and then was surprised that the electricity was still out (as was my battery on my Tablet PC by then).

I did not try some of my more creative options - heading over to my father-in-law's to check in on him and use his electrical outlets, for example.

The irritating thing in this episode is that we were right on the dividing line - our neighbors across the street all had power the whole time.

By the way, I'm not sure how Abe Lincoln and others were able to read by candlelight.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Learn more about electronic discovery at Dennis Kennedy's Electronic Discovery Resources page.

This post brought to you by LexThink!(R) - The Legal Unconference. Ask us about private LexThink retreats and conferences for your firm, business or organization. Coming soon - LexThink Lounge - April 19, 2006.

Technorati tags: legal technology disaster recovery planning