As I was getting ready to post a survey of choices to learn your areas of interest for this Story Stars blog, something happened with my friend and client, Beth (a pretend name to protect her privacy), which was too important to be ignored. There is “patient” and then there is “gambling”. You be the judge….
Last week, Beth began her digital journey with the goal of organizing and finally enjoying the images she has accumulated through the years. She decided to complete a very quick project as a birthday surprise for her sons, and I made myself available to help her with her 1st project. We set a date for her to come over. To prepare for the appointment since she just had one hour, her plan was to:
1) choose the images (we pre-scanned photos which weren’t previously digitized)
2) write the text
3) pre-select the digitized kit
When she arrived, she had completed all of her tasks except she didn’t have exactly the images she wanted to use. She told me her husband, who is the IT specialist/trouble-shooter at his company, lent the external hard drive, which contained her accumulated digital images, to a friend at work. But, she said, she was not going to “make a big deal out of it” and would use the images she did have, thus not letting it abort her project goals. I held my breath as I asked her, “Is that the only place those images are?”. When she answered “yes”, I knew she didn’t really understand how big the “lending of the external hard drive” was. While she was being patient, loving and understanding of her husband’s actions, thinking it was just the inconvenience of not having the exact photos she wanted, she had no clue at the level of risk her images might be. Yet, it wasn’t the time to bring it up as what had been done, was indeed done. We pushed on with the items she had, easily completing and ordering her project before she had to leave. I made a mental note to be sure to share my concerns with her the next time I saw her, hoping it wouldn’t be too late.
Does this scenario hit all too close to home for you? Your situation might different, yet, do you know where your images are, how they are being backed up or the health of your computer which is housing them? For some important “don’ts” and “do’s”, check out the next post to come.
Photo Credit: Inju