Good day! Every time I hear, see, or say that greeting it reminds me of my mother and her fondness for the late Paul Harvey. The radio legend gave a long, dramatic pause before his signature signoff. Just when you thought you couldn’t wait anymore, you’d hear “… good day!” This column is a round-up,… Continue reading What happened to strategic thinking?

Looking back at how many disasters have occurred within the past few years, it can feel like catastrophe is never too far away. Between weather-related incidents such as Hurricanes Sandy and Isaac and terrorist attacks, it seems as though we increasingly have to expect the unexpected. It is important for any business to be prepared… Continue reading Using Project Management Applications in DR Planning

Bruce Rashke is the chief services officer and associated general counsel for Great Lakes Educational Loan Services, Inc. Rashke manages Great Lakes corporate insurance coverages, vendor, and customer contract negotiations. He also has executive oversight of its facilities, purchasing, print, and mailing departments. Rashke, who has worked for Great Lakes since 1998, resides on the… Continue reading An Interview with Bruce Rashke of Great Lakes Educational Loan Services, Inc.

Various newspapers and electronic media in New Zealand and all over the world reported the disaster of The Rena on Oct 5, 2011. The ship with a speed of about 17 knots (20 mph), ran aground on the Astrolabe reef, about 17 kms away from Tauranga coast in New Zealand. The ship was carrying 1,368… Continue reading New Zealand Shipping Disaster: Identifying Possible Causes and Evaluating Various Recovery Operations

If your experience of engaging senior and executive management feels like a constant struggle to sustain momentum or defend investment, then you should take 15 minutes to look at the C-Suite Engagement Toolkit from the Business Continuity Institute (BCI). In 2011, the BCI published its report on members’ experience of board-level engagement, and some of… Continue reading The BCI: Getting Executive Support

Since 9/11, public schools have changed immensely in reforming procedures and initiating crisis plans that include concern for terrorist events. The 2007 Virginia Tech shooting further propelled school administrators and personnel to focus on active shooter scenarios. College campuses continue to have inconsistent success rates for emergency notification systems. Institutions of learning, in their inherent… Continue reading Gaps in School District Terrorism Preparedness

Patrick Maynard of Ventura County in California had a problem. As the head of the Office of Emergency Services at Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, Maynard is responsible for the day-to-day administration of the county’s preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery programs. A primary component of these programs is the delivery of emergency notifications to the county’s… Continue reading Ventura County Keeping Citizens Safe During Times of Crisis

As an industry analyst in the data protection space and as the founder and manager of a LinkedIn Cloud Backup group, I frequently engage with end users. The questions I am often asked are around the best practices for the protection of corporate data and data retention. This articles details the answers to some of… Continue reading Data Protection, Data Retention Best Practices

Teamwork is critical to any sports team in any team sport. However, team work off the field beyond your immediate circle with multiple parties seems to be an exercise in futility. When large events using multiple groups kick into high gear, even the simplest of tasks becomes a major piece of work. The ordering of… Continue reading Kansas City Planners Band Together in Exercise

While much has been written about the cost of downtime, IT and business professionals find little useful guidance on how to compute the value of their data, or more correctly, to determine the financial impact of data loss. And yet data loss remains a significant risk to organizations. A better understanding of data value and… Continue reading The Value Of Data