In my working career I worked in the Web Hosting business. Nowadays it seems everyone has something hosted, usually cloud based. I was in the vanguard of the industry which of course, did not come into being till the Internet arrived in the late 1990s. Cloud at that time just didn’t exist. My job was to convince companies to outsource their data to our Data Centres and use us as a third party where we would keep it safe and up to date technically.

This was a very complicated and technical sale. Like all pioneers we encountered huge obstacles and resistance to start with. Initially, you had to sell the idea to very sceptical companies. Till that time companies had their own in-house data centres and Data Managers and IT Directors. These geeks were respected and feared by the other company directors. Mainly because they didn’t understand the technology, they just knew they needed it and it was always draining revenues. In the days before Cloud the hosting industry began building huge data centres throughout the world. The first ones were in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, London, Berlin, Paris, Tokyo. The reasoning was simple the technology had originated in Silicon Valley in California however the target markets were really in the early days seen as NY and London the homes of the large finance industries. These operations were embracing the new technologies. It now may seem strange however it was only in 1991 that there was any public internet. There was very little fibre in the ground and broadband was a pop group to most of the public.

Our strategy to fill our hugely expensive data centres was a bold and very expensive plan. What scared company directors most about data management was the technology itself. Their data managers and IT Directors would confuse them with technical speak and demand larger and larger budgets. 99 times out of 100 they always prevailed with their requests.

‘Technology is changing if we don’t buy this new super-duper server, database, security, our data will be compromised and our competitors will win out.’ This type of argument invariably won the day. It also built internal resentment, especially from the Financial Directors. Other directors too felt irked by having to have every one of their initiatives cleared by IT before approval.

Our method was to first approach the FDs in the corporations to show them how both in short and long term his company could make massive savings. They could future proof their business and curtail costs as technology advanced. The reality was we were selling scale. There were several other snippets used to ‘hook’ the money man. He, in turn, couldn’t wait to impress his CEO and fellow directors that he had the very clippers to snip the IT guys wings. We knew that a direct approach to the IT Director would invariably mean he would reject you out of hand. After all take the data out of his data room and his empire, his influence and position were gone overnight. He just became a mere mortal. Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas unless they are members of the Labour Party in Scotland!

Once we were in a position to make our pitch with the FD and CEO on our side it made our job that much easier. The two words that usually always won the business were ‘what if..’ I could write a book on this, never mind a blogpost. Suffice to say we offered a safe, secure environment and removed a huge cash drain from lots of companies. Outsourcing is now the preferred option for the really smart operators. Only twenty years ago it was a hard, hard sell.

What if your building was to go on fire and burnt to the ground?                             What if there was a terrorist attack like the 1996 Canary Wharf bombing?           What if the gas board dig up the road outside your building and cut through the cable?                                                                                                                           What if your capital budget is all used up and you urgently need new kit?

We had dozens of these types of questions and solutions to them all. The biggest worry was always about losing control, losing the data. We worked hardest on that and again gave a rational and reassuring response. One part of the solution depending on the level of security and value the client placed on his data security. We were selling today’s reality 20 years ago. We would paint a picture. ‘You own an airline you want to sell tickets. One day most of your customers will prefer to buy their own ticket from their own personal pc or mobile phone.’ You wouldn’t believe how many used to mock us for suggesting such heresy.  ‘Since 1872 when Thomas Cook was founded, people have always used a travel agent and that will never end.’ People will never read their newspaper off a screen! I wish I had a fiver for every time I heard those responses. Once the scene was set, we then deployed what if.. Like a safety video on the airplane we would say the magic words followed by, the servers go down how long could your business survive? Most replied they couldn’t have any downtime, impossible no, no, no. Except for the most vital businesses that changed, when we laid out the cost of 100% uptime. The most vital part of any business or organisation is resilience, contingency, disaster recovery.

What if in the event of a total failure? Then it was our job to talk about mirrored sites in two different locations. It is known as ‘Disaster Recovery.’ This is a very expensive option, however if you are a currency or derivative trader for example a second of downtime can literally cost you £millions, if not £Billions. Suddenly a £XXXX monthly insurance cost is not so expensive after all.

When Westminster decided to outsource some democracy to Edinburgh they were very careful in how they deployed this ‘gift.’ They built in all sorts of disaster recovery and resilience. The biggest protection, a voting system that made it virtually impossible for any single Party to govern on their own. They had three benign compliant branch offices that would always keep the union intact and the dreaded SNP permanently locked out of government. However, just in case of what if, they built several other layers of protection. A Scotland Act that would severely limit Holyrood powers, so it could never threaten Westminster supremacy. A Scotland Office that would have London’s man in Jockistan always in charge, he would keep an eye on things and slap down the natives if they ever stepped out of line. More safeguards with a corrupt media and Broadcasters. Placemen and women in UK Government quangos. The UK Civil Service would always choose the personnel that worked with Scottish Cabinet Secretaries and First Ministers. In data recovery terms this is a lot of built in security. However, as I remember from my days in data management, nothing is ever 100% secure.

The Holyrood experiment has had many ‘union failures’ yet every time the built- in protections have saved the day. The SNP victories in 2007 and 2011. The Independence Referendum of 2014. The biggest failure was the overnight implosion by BLIS. Fortunately, for the union their disaster recovery plan gives them the Tories and Liberals as back up. The sneaky voting system assures them of this unless what if… of course.

We as Yessers need to look to our Disaster Recovery options too. What if… The SNP focus on other matters rather than Independence? What if SNP refuse to even discuss Plan B or C. What if a chunk of voters loses faith or loses hope and just stays at home? What if, SNP voters believe the poll lead is so great they don’t need to go and vote? What if Nicola decides to stand down, what if…?

The fact has been till now we have had no back up plan. All our hopes, dreams and plans are invested in a single entity, The SNP. The Unionists have three options and as we have seen since 2015 the Tories have hoovered up the Unionist vote from the failed Labour Party. We are solely dependent on SNP winning every election forevermore. What if? Just as back in the early days of Internet and Web Hosting we are confronted with doom mongers. A new Indy List Party has arrived on the scene to give us built in resilience, yet the biggest objectors to this insurance policy are some on our own side. The glass half empty brigade are having the time of their lives. One blogger in particular who for years has been demanding that the SNP and Movement needs to stop playing by Westminster rules and do things differently has gone full circle. No, no, we must keep voting SNP 1 2 he cries we need to keep doing the exact same things I said for years weren’t working. He is not the only one, others are using the Unionist trope of ‘don’t split the vote.’ This has been shown so many times to be a nonsense.The Unionist Parties all happily stand on the List and win the majority of the seats every time. The SNP is actually harmed by their constituency success. We need a back up insurance a List Party gives us that. Some have said that you cannot in a year move that quickly. Have they forgotten that the SNP went from 6 to 56 MPs in one election? Have they forgotten that Brexit Party went from inception in November to winning the EU election the following June? Almost overnight Podemos in Spain took 21% of the Spanish seats. SYRIZA in Greece went from a new party to the governing party in one giant leap. However, in Scotland it is not just Unionists that like to say ‘no you cannae, no you won’t, 1that won’t work for Scotland!

We need to be pioneers the YES Movement needs a contingency. Will it be 100% perfect? Not a chance but it will be 100% better than now where we have no plan and no second option. The Union has 4 Parties, we need at least two.  In a few years we will wonder why it took us so long to work the D’Hondt system to our advantage. We will be happy that we chose more than one road to Independence. The only question will be What if we hadn’t done that?