Confessions of an “Awfulizer”

I came across the term “awfulizer” while reading a blog post from Daphne Gray-Grant. According to Daphne, an “awfulizer” is someone who imagines the worst possible thing that could happen. But an “awfulizer” is not someone who is paranoid to the point of inaction, instead they “awfulize” to comprehend the scope of the situation so they can take action.

In Daphne’s case, she was “awfulizing” about losing all of her computer files and how terrible that would be for her. How terrible would that be for you? It probably depends on how much of your digital life resides on your laptop or desktop. Take a minute to do mental inventory of your Mac or PC; family photos, wedding videos, music, financial records, genealogy files, legal correspondence, scrapbooking folders, etc. Your computer is probably full of cherished memories, irreplaceable documents, and gigabytes of other data. Yes, losing all that would be awful.

So what did Daphne Cary-Grant do? Well, first she got a local backup drive for her Mac. This is always a good starting point, but as an “awfulizer” she wasn’t done—what would happen if her stuff was stolen or her local backup failed or she was traveling and her hard drive crashed? Then what? That’s where online backup came in. She added Backblaze to her portfolio and now she has one less thing to “awfulize” about. Glad we could help.

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About Andy Klein

Andy Klein is the Principal Cloud Storage Storyteller at Backblaze. He has over 25 years of experience in technology marketing and during that time, he has shared his expertise in cloud storage and computer security at events, symposiums, and panels at RSA, SNIA SDC, MIT, the Federal Trade Commission, and hundreds more. He currently writes and rants about drive stats, Storage Pods, cloud storage, and more.