The Server That Wasn't Meant to Exist

Yesterday I read a piece of news that brought back an important - and painful - episode from my career. A story about trust, technology... and the kind of problems that can't always be solved. About 16 years ago, I was contacted by an old friend. He was worried about a situation involving some mutual acquaintances. To keep it short: an entrepreneur - administrator and owner of several companies - had died suddenly. He was the kind of man who centralized everything, and his wife and children found themselves struggling to manage things. One of the sons decided to cash out and leave the family business (focusing on his own career), while the others chose to stay involved in day-to-day operations. The wife, elderly and retired for years, ended up at the helm, but she was clearly out of her depth. The main issue was the complete lack of information flow: no digital systems of any kind were in place. Employees had their own PCs (sometimes even personal laptops), and there was zero c ... Read full article.