Once upon a time (probably many once upon a times, actually, but we’ll just work with one for now), a company decided to roll out their new software on a Monday morning. They took down the old system on Friday and the tech guys (and girls) worked all weekend setting things up and making the transition. It was a big switch – not only did it affect the company headquarters, but also several satellite offices and untold numbers of mobile workers who relied on the information the system provided to do their jobs.

Doing without the old program for two and a half days (60 hours, to be exact) was doable. Information that was needed for the weekend was sent out early so everyone could continue and mission critical tasks would not be lost.

To be honest, I don’t know where the mistake actually lay – whether the new program hadn’t been tested properly for the immense load that would be placed on it Monday morning upon release, whether the program wasn’t supported well enough with the computers it needed to run, or if it was just a crap program put together by amateurs. Regardless, the worst problem didn’t happen on Monday, when things went down.

It was imperative that we had access to the information. Instead of shutting down the new program (after we crashed it – no, stomped it into the ground and raked it over with some stilleto heels) and bringing up the old one, they tortured us for almost two weeks. We lost business. We lost trust. Basically, it sucked.

Now I’m hearing really good things about Twitter (I love Twitter) and retweeting. They are planning to officially support retweeting, so no longer will you have to copy and paste and retype user names – it will all be done by the click of a mouse. But the best part is their implementation plan. They are giving app developers time to integrate the new API before they release, thus creating tons of happy users of 3rd party clients.

Sure, not everything will work immediately, but there will absolutely be at the very least a chance to make things work, and good app developers will let their clients know about the potential problems before there are actual problems.

This is a good plan. Good plans can save you, and your clients, and your employees, a lot of pain and suffering. And it can save you from lots of disgruntled clients and employees. Really, it doesn’t get much better than this.