How RainStorm Weathers a SnowStorm

Neither snow nor rain nor sleet…

As the storm blustered across the eastern US last Tuesday, January 27th, the RainStorm team gathered for their regular 9:15 a.m. Tuesday staff meeting. The agenda was posted, the weekly goals had been set, and everyone greeted each other with cheer. The meeting ran like any other and was followed by a regular day for RainStorm: clients were served, designs were crafted, code was written, proposals were shared, office phones were answered, and work was done as usual. There was even video of the sideways snow posted to our social media accounts!

What was so different about this particular Tuesday?  Brian Rahill, CEO and founder, was the only person in the office.

Leo Edmiston-Cyr, RainStorm’s operations manager, was exuberant, “Normally on Tuesdays we have our weekly staff meeting in the office but instead, this Tuesday, we had a big nor’easter — 18″ of snow for Orono, Maine, and our staff couldn’t make it into the office.  However, with the tools we’ve put in place, all of our daily work at RainStorm went on as usual; even the most communication-intensive part of the whole week: our regular ‘all hands on deck’ staff meeting.”

For Cyr, the meeting marked the culmination of our efforts over the last year to improve communication throughout our company, as every team member connected simultaneously from off-site locations for the first time in RainStorm’s fifteen years.

“While most of our work happens in house, we’ve sought to enable staff who are meeting with clients, at conferences, at home with sick kids, etc., to have the same access to all of their in-office ‘tools’.  Standard items such as email, instant messaging, documents, and calendars are available, but our employees also have access to their phone extension, and the ability to schedule and run video, audio, and screen sharing conference calls, regardless of where we are working.”

Thanks to these powerful cloud-based technologies, RainStorm kept its human assets safely at home while seamlessly providing its client base with the legendary service for which we are known.

It might not have been something that Brian Rahill imagined when he started RainStorm in 1999, but it truly represents the kind of innovation we value at RainStorm – high technology that takes care of human needs in a simple, elegant way.

You can rest assured that, regardless of your location or ours, RainStorm offers the same commitment to personal, long-term support that has always guided the company – in any weather.