DOE Earmarks $430M To Improve U.S. Hydropower Grid Resilience
Continuity Insights Staff
Professional Development
BCI Good Practice Guidelines Training Course to Be Offered
The BCI Good Practice Guidelines Training Course (CBCI) offers a solid description of the methods, techniques and approaches used by business continuity (BC) professionals worldwide to develop, implement, and maintain an effective Business Continuity Management (BCM) program. The three-day-plus course will be offered immediately following the Continuity Insights 2017 New York Conference. The dates and times are Tuesday, October 24, 2017, 3:45 p.m. to 5:45 p.m.; Wednesday and Thursday, October 25 and 26, 2017, 8:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.; and Friday, October 27, 2017, 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. The course takes you through the complete BCM Lifecycle step-by-step, and provides practical insights into all aspects pertaining to the development, implementation and management of a BCM program within an organization through the instructor’s use of case studies and real-life examples. Learn more and register.
Continuity Insights 2017 New York Conference Set for Monday
The sixth annual Continuity Insights New York Conference will kick off Monday, October 23. The two-day event will take place at the TKP Conference Center in New York City. The event will feature presentations by business continuity and resilience professionals from a wide range of industries. The conference includes sessions on emerging issues, training, and professional development, technology enablement, and other topics. Continuity Insights New York will also feature two keynote presenters. Gil Meyer, a crisis management expert who inspires creative change in how organizations approach crisis management and the author of “Corporate Smokejumper: Crisis Management Tools, Tales and Techniques,” a groundbreaking book that provides an inside look at the gut-wrenching challenges that can befall any organization in today’s fast-paced and complex world, will keynote day one. If you always wondered what it is like to be inside the conference room where executives wrestle with complex dilemmas, here are tales from behind the closed doors. Meyer will share the inside perspective of a veteran practitioner who throughout his career developed creative new ways for addressing the gut wrenching challenges that come with leading the response to high-stakes crises. The conference will continue on Tuesday, October 24 with a second keynote presentation by David Lindstedt, the founder of Readiness Analytics. His address, “Everything You’re Doing is Wrong? (Helpful Hints from the Adaptive BC Manifesto),” will discuss the emergence of a new, exciting, “Lean” alternative to traditional preparedness planning practices; starting with the drivers behind the need for a sea change and ... Read more
Will You Be Ready When Disaster Strikes?
Businesses are under siege from an increasing number of natural and man-made disruptive events. One crisis can destroy your business and impact the lives of all involved. The recently published book, The Ultimate Business Continuity Success Guide, demonstrates how cutting-edge preparation techniques and tools can make your business unbreakable while increasing revenue and reducing your expenses. In The Ultimate Business Continuity Success Guide: How to Build Real-World Resilience and Unleash Exciting New Value Streams, author Marty Fox, CNCP, goes beyond ‘what to do’ and explains ‘how to do it’. He details proven tips, techniques, and tools – 1,001 in total – dispensing information that practitioners can use to build and strengthen resilience and discover hidden growth opportunities. Fox includes easy-to-follow case studies and examples, serving as a roadmap for learning how to protect your business in an increasingly dangerous world; avoiding the common pitfalls that can destroy your business; becoming aware of critical threats and opportunities in real-time; building a resilience program that works while you sleep; and achieving the peace-of-mind a resilient business provides. More information is available at www.UltimateBusinessContinuity.com.
Principles of Managing Through Extraordinary Change
We are all accustomed to operating in an environment of change; e.g. organizational, regulatory, changes in executive appetite, budgetary, and evolving standards. But, how would you cope with change that is coming so quickly from within your organization? There is no time to reset resiliency strategy or your program resources. No time to even keep track of where existing departments have moved. How would you and your team refocus yourselves and the tools you use to operate under such conditions? Join David Hosier of Macy’s Inc. and Virtual Corporation’s Scott Ream at the Continuity Insights 2017 New York Conference as they present the “5 Principles of Managing Through Extraordinary Change” as practiced at Macy’s rapidly evolving Business Resiliency Program. Participants will take away from this session, fresh ideas to enhance their skills as well as their business resiliency programs. Macy’s Business Resilience program oversees business continuity, crisis management, and crisis communications across the enterprise. They closely working with their internal IT and Macys.com disaster recovery teams. Macy’s, Inc. is one of the nation’s premier retailers with fiscal 2016 sales reaching $25.778 billion and approximately 140,000 employees. The company operates more than 700 department stores in 45 states, as well as DC, Guam, and Puerto Rico under the nameplates Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s. Learn more and register for the Continuity Insights 2017 New York Conference.
CI New York Conference “Millennial Spotlight” Session – Leveraging the Me Culture to Your Advantage
Let’s shed some light on the Millennial stereotype. This highly educated and technically competent generation is our future and should be capitalized upon. In this 2017 Continuity Insights New York Conference session, Victoria Healy, a Marketing Business Analyst with BC in the Cloud, will discuss how to motivate and integrate millennials into business continuity while busting stereotypes about the “Me Generation.” As a member of her company’s marketing team, Healy is an expert in all things Millennial. She’s eager to share her thoughts and impressions on motivational tactics and strategies for seamlessly integrating this current and future wave of business continuity professionals into the BC community and into your organization and team. Learn more and view the official Continuity Insights New York Conference agenda.
What Will Your New BC Program Look Like One Year Later?
How much can you expect to create, develop, and mature in your first year managing a new business continuity program? Sometimes the questions are more important than the answers. What is reasonable to promise? What do you prioritize? And how do you gain support? Follow one BC professional’s journey of the first year at a new organization. Ron Kamps, Business Resilience Manager with Mutual of Enumclaw, and a faculty member for the 2017 Continuity Insights Management Conference, journaled his activities – what worked, what did not, and what he learned – over the course of his first year with company as he developed a new business continuity program. He outlined his approach to developing the program, his fast-start plan, fast, how he gained support, how he held people accountable, how he managed the program with no resources, and what kept him awake at night. His case study included examples of the various program components, definitions, activities, hierarchy, reporting, tools, task lists, and tips he used, all of which is applicable for those who are planning to start something new, recently started something new, or are looking to jumpstart or mature an existing program or program component. DOWNLOAD: “Developing a New Business Continuity Program: What My Program Looked Like One Year After I Started a New Job”
The Next Generation of Crisis Management + Business Continuity
How will Gen X and Millennials change the BC landscape? As the power base within companies continues to change include more of these professionals, crisis management and business continuity programs will need to adapt. Our industry must find ways to communicate and implement our programs in better ways. In her presentation from the 2017 Continuity Insights Management Conference, Grace Burley of Strategic Crisis Advisors explored how to best use metrics and the power of a great story to communicate with Gen X and Millennials to get their buy-in and develop plans and tools to support them. Her presentation from the conference is now available for the business continuity community.
FEMA Region II Shelter-in-Place Workshop Scheduled for CI New York Conference
Shelter-in-place workshops are intended to provide participants with the ability to exchange best practices and evaluate potential solutions to challenges associated with major disasters requiring shelter-in-place. The FEMA Region II Shelter-in-Place Workshop is a facilitated discussion that focuses on identifying challenges you may encounter with sheltering people in place for an extended period of time. Through presentations and group discussions, you will look at the immediate actions necessary to secure your facility and people inside, and then the long-term challenges unique to your facility or business that may occur if you are required to hold people inside for up to 72 hours. David Fortino, Regional Continuity Manager, FEMA Region II, will conduct the workshop utilizing the scenario of an Improvised Nuclear Device as the “worst of the worst” case scenario in order to bring to light many challenges you may face on other natural and manmade disasters. The three main objectives associated with the exercise: Discuss the appropriate actions to take in order to ensure employees and the general public are protected for an extended period of time during a shelter-in-place event, including those employees with access and functional needs; Identify opportunities to strengthen employee resilience to ensure the organization can adapt to, withstand, and quickly recover from a major disaster; and Discuss potential challenges and identify recommended solutions to ensure effective communication with all employees and the general public, including those with access and functional needs and those not present at the time of the disaster, were discussed in ... Read more
2018 CI Management Conference Keynote Announced
Continuity Insights has announced that Gerard Braud, an international crisis communications expert, coach, trainer, and author, will keynote the 2018 Continuity Insights Management Conference, scheduled for April 23-25, at the Hilton Miami Downtown, Miami, Florida. Discover why the facts often don’t matter as Braud presents, “Don’t Talk to the Media Until… Being an Effective Spokesperson in Today’s Digital Age.” Learn why you get taken out of context. Explore what really gets left on the cutting room. Rethink everything you think you know about the media and media training. Braud will give you the secrets you need to tell an honest and compelling story every time you talk with the media. With more than three decades of experience as a spokesman and member of the media, Braud has worked with organizations on five continents. Known as the guy to call when “it hits the fan,” he is widely regarded as an expert in crisis communications and media issues. WATCH: Gerard Braud: When “It” Hits the Fan Braud has been active in the field of communications since 1979. For 15 years, he worked in print, radio, and television as a front line journalist, on the scene of every type of disaster imaginable. His affiliate reports have been seen around the world on NBC, CBS, CNN and the BBC. Since 1994 he has specialized in helping organizations communicate more effectively through media training, crisis communications plans, and employee-manager training. RELATED: Save The Date – 2018 Continuity Insights Management Conference – April 23-25, 2018, ... Read more
