November 12th, 2015 by Mary Kay Hyde-Bohn
The climate cycle continues in North America – it’s Winter in the mountains to the west of my office windows. Let’s review some of the scenarios that we might encounter for the next 5 to 6 months.
First on the list is the nuisance called Daylight Savings time: we need to change every device that displays time. The manual devices are fairly easy to remember and adjust; the electronic devices are going to be discovered for days after the change, then you either punch a teeny tiny button or unfold a paper clip to depress a hidden button multiple times and then repeat as you’ve over-corrected (sigh). It’s 2 weeks since change and I’m still finding devices to correct ?
Next is preparing your vehicle: do you need to change tires or pack chains in your truck? Check to see if chains are required on any of the roads you travel and then you’ll have them if needed. How about your personal winter kit?
Red Cross, FEMA, state governments (Colorado for example) and even TV channels offer these checklists.
Third (or first) on your list are all the holidays coming up and what is your organizational vacation strategy or plan?
Next on the list is Calories to be consumed during the holidays:
Last on the list is ‘time for reflection’:
August 15th, 2015 by Mary Kay Hyde-Bohn
I am a bit of a trivia obsessed person; it comes with being in Business Continuity or Project Management (sigh). One of those trivia sources is ‘new words or phrases’ – hopefully these new words or phrases can describe a whole concept and save me time and breath.
The new phrase of the week is “Cyber Hygiene”. OK, the first thought was that it was elementary school and the Physical Ed or Health Ed teacher was going to deliver ‘the talk on personal hygiene’ – gender segregation of course…. Got a smile on your face?
Upon reflection and over the last couple days, this phrase has started to creep into the corners of my daily tasks. As I do both BCPW work and my volunteering duties, I started realizing how much I touch ‘cyber-space’ and that I have NOT done as much as I should to keep my areas clean (aka Hygiene). I have some daily or weekly habits, but not as disciplined on the other actions…. Must improve!
So let’s start listing all the areas that need to be cleaned up as these are your business tools, just like a good carpenter would keep tools sharp, clean and ready; we need to keep our tools ready to work! You should add more items to each of these lists as you find more way to keep your devices ‘sharp’.
Don’t try to do these all at once, you’ll get frustrated with your discoveries and discouraged! Take one device a day to get the base-line cleaning done, and then set your maintenance schedule.
Mobile/Smart phones: your battery will last longer if your device does not have to be constantly saving, sending and searching.
Local Printer: this one is scary, as printers have internal memory buffers or queues – especially if they do double-sided printing, scanning, faxing, etc.
Personal PC or Mac (desktop or laptop)
Local Router
Reminder: Don’t try to do these all at once, you’ll get frustrated with your discoveries and discouraged! Take one device a day to get the base-line cleaning done, and then set your maintenance schedule.
August 15th, 2015 by Mary Kay Hyde-Bohn
Example of not wanting to have the conversation about Continuity or Disaster planning.
These 3 Buddha’s are sitting back, covering their eyes, mouth and ears. Just like an otherwise savvy business person … who does not want to have the critical conversation about Continuity or Disaster planning.
The last two months have been a flurry of webinars with similar themes – you have to communicate during a Crisis to your employees, your customers, vendors, suppliers and local/regional community! The right words and the right media for individual audiences or public/strangers will fill the void with inaccurate misinformation – in other words, info-trash that will ruin your business or your reputation!
The after-event internal reviews have consistently brought up communication omissions or shortfalls to all audiences. The clean-up work due to misinformation or false information may take months to correct.
To summarize the main points of the discussions/webinars (not in any order):
DO’s
Do Not’s
The organizations that hosted these webinars have materials on their web sites for further reference:
FIRESTORM WEBINARS: http://www.firestorm.com/learn/form-download-brief-six-stages-of-crisis-for-communication-planning.html
Agility Recovery: http://www2.agilityrecovery.com/assets/slides/Agility-Social_Media.pdf
Everbridge; http://www.everbridge.com/control-communication-throughout-the-lifecycle-of-a-crisis/