If you're a construction professional, and you're using Outlook for email, this article is for you, big time.
I admit it. I was an Outlook user ("was" being the operative word).
Then it happened. 
I won the "bad sector on hard drive" lottery, and my Outlook email file was gone forever, along with a few critical files on my hard drive. Essentially my hard drive packed it in, and I lost all my personal email.
Bummer. I was ticked. Like the girl in the photo (BTW, she's not related to me, and she doesn't work for BuildIT).
For you non techies, a hard drive is that part of your computer that stores your files, the stuff you create with applications like Word, Excel... important documents, contracts, photos, templates that you've spent hours creating. Over time, the magnetic surface of a hard drive can deteriorate, wreaking havoc for those like me who use computers as a tool only, and aren't at home "under the hood" doing surgery on our own PC's.
The computer fix-it guys told me it happens all the time. People come in to their store desperate to retrieve their files off a broken computer. People in tears, like the lady who lost all her wedding photos, a problem some us that grew up with a 35mm camera and bulky photo albums never had to deal with. They said it's best to just get a new hard drive and start all over again.
For those who are fortunate to have some or all of their data retrievable, that process can take hours... and it comes at a cost. Depending on the severity, data recovery can be in the $1000's for some individuals/companies.
Now for the good news - since I work for BuildIT, I have my own BuildIT account, with email and file storage. All my email, contacts, and files that I had uploaded over the years to the system were safe, accessible, ready and waiting for me. This whole event just further reinforced my opinion of web based systems - they are, as Gretzky said, "where the puck is going". They're the smart choice for construction professionals who want to sleep easier at night, not having to worry about doing data backups or hard drives crashing.
Just imagine if you are one of the lucky ones who is on board with BuildIT. You're computer crashes, falls off the hood of your truck, or worse yet, gets stolen. What do you do? Just jump on to another computer, log on to BuildIT and you're back in biz... literally, within minutes.
Now, what's that worth to you? I'd say that's worth the price of admission right there. So if you're checking out construction software, and they're offering you a "download" or a box with some disks in it, well, I hope you have a good back up plan in place. Otherwise, take door number 2 and give BuildIT a shot at solving your problems.
Want to learn more about the advantages of web based systems for construction? Click here.
Or give me a call, and I'll share some more tales from the front lines, and what you can do to avoid the pain.
Scott Hutchinson
scott@builditsystems.com
1 866 585 5050 ext 1