Enterprises Kick In to Help During Disasters

Hi Mitch Wagner,

In my video I discussed how enterprises could help during disasters, not just with charging stations but also by providing free WiFi. If WiFi is available, Chromebooks will work. Sure, a handful of Internet sites went down because of Sandy, but "the Internet" was alive and well.

Also, there are hundreds of Web apps with offline features. Check out my ThinkerNET blog this coming Monday about the newest, cheapest... Chromebook!

Moreover, during disasters, the Internet's most important value isn't the ability to work on, say, a standalone Excel spreadsheet or Word document. As I noted, during Sandy people wanted -- needed -- the Internet for finding the condition of their friends and relatives, searching for gas stations and grocery stores, looking for a place to stay, etc.

Granted, to keep kids occupied, preloaded games, music and videos are useful. And once the necessities are taken care of, it's important to work. But there are relatively few businesses that can't accomplish many tasks via the Internet, which is where Chromebooks and other computers/tablets come in.

Would Chromebooks really be good for this kind of thing given that the Internet is going to be inherently unreliable during a disaster? Would companies be better off with devices that do not require Internet connections to function?