In case you hadn’t heard there was a bit of a “goof”, “snafu”, or more accurately a cluster f*** at the web hosting company NaviSite that affected over half of the 165,000 web sites they hosted.  (Click here for the CNET article.)

They refer to it as a goof, but what it looks like is incompetence — who in their right mind thought moving all of those servers at once was a good idea? – compounded by a lack of communication skills.  Perhaps that’s what you should expect from a company that actually has a person with the title “Chief Marketing Officer”.  Sounds more like “Our Best Spin Guy When it Hits the Fan”.  That’s a little big for the business guy.  How about “Chief O’ BS”?  But, I digress.

What it really shows is not how big of mistake people can make, but rather how important communication is.  Especially in the IT industry.  Look, no one’s perfect and we’re all going to screw up eventually.  But, you need to own up to it, and keep everyone that’s affected in the loop.  I know, as I have been there.  Everybody wants to know when their computer system, web site, car, house remodel, etc. is fixed when they’re your client expecting you to provide some kind of service.  The phone lights up every few minutes with a request for a status update and your cell phone, pager, and CrackBerry are all doing the same thing.  Your first reaction usually is, “If you would stop interrupting me, I’d have this fixed already.”

A better reaction is to call them first.  Even if the best response you can come up with is, “We’re working on it, but I don’t know exactly when it’s going to be fixed.”  Then, give them a time that you will call them with an update.  That actually frees you up to work on the problem rather than answering the phone.

NaviSite’s lack of communication followed by sending out the PR guy to try to spin it was definitely the wrong answer.  I would bet they will be hosting a number well shy of 165,000 sites in the near future and paying some damages to any company that ends up going bankrupt after this.  Yep, NaviSite definitely did not have the right answer.