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We're all going to die. According to the
media, anyway, when bird flu strikes.
When the inevitable and for-certain
pandemic we're all being scared shitless
about does surface, there's no way in the
world I'm going to partake of public
transport and go to work - I'll be at
home, where I've
safely spent the past
five years on my own. My wife,
unfortunately isn't in the sort of job that
she can do at home, unlike myself.
What this idea is about is a formalised
recognised strategic list that businesses
should maintain, with interchangeable
interoperable structure.
The list basically details who has the
resources to work on what, at home.
Here, where I'm temping, there's plenty
of people with no computer at home
(what on earth do they do?). There's
plenty more with only minimal
installation, and almost nobody with the
required situation to actually do the day
job (apart from the boring ones that only
need "Word" or "Excel", but that's not
really a proper job, is it).
The Survivor List would be a way that a
company could sustain operations once
half its workforce are rotting bloated
corpses in the gutter, while the other half
merrily put the kettle on before getting
on with another bout of layout and
design work.
The interchangeability and interaction of
this dynamic document across
businesses means that businesses can
outsource/sub-let their employees/
temps to other businesses on a need
basis, to ensure the ongoing well-being
of their staff, and the utmost JIT
efficiency of their ephemeral workforce -
very much a co-operative attitude, rather
than competitive, in an economy that's
only weeks away from the new biblical
catastrophe the papers and the telly
grinningly proffer.
Gartner analysts briefing excerpts
http://www.techweb....e/security/55800192
"Many of their recommendations were similar to those given during 2003's SARS outbreak, including re-assessing business continuity plans, establishing policies for employees working from home (as well as providing them with the means to do so, such as VPN access), and coordinating crisis management plans with workers."
Ian, is this overlap accidental, or are you reacting to the Gartner document? [jutta, Oct 19 2005]
[link]
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And those that work on a chicken farm :( |
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Man, I hate management gobbledigook. Don't make me read this. |
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Any company worth its salt should already have contingency plans in place to deal with disaster situations, including key people and back-ups, and who will work where in the event of site outages. And yes, the format of the plans should be standardized across the corporation, if only to make sure all points are covered. And some industries (the financial one, for example), have standards and/or preparedness requirements. |
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However, you certainly can't apply JIT paradigms to disaster recovery - heck, you need up-front redundancy, the exact opposite of JIT. What you propose is a small part of a much larger solution, and not much use on its own. |
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Business A = Business B in every respect, their demographics are comparable, their forward contracts are equivalent, and their locations share utilities and environmental constraints. |
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Both Business A and Business B require employees to retire to the out-of-doors to smoke. For fresh air, employees at Business A go to an adjacent covered patio, near a dog park with pigeon and duck habitat. For fresh air, employees at Business B go to an adjacent covered and screened patio that is on the service side of the building, surrounded by parking lots, noisy air handlers, and security golf cart patrols. |
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Although Business A gets rave satisfaction reviews from its workforce and trade reporters give stellar reviews of its relationship atmospherics, the last laugh goes to "hard core, cold, and industrial" Business B when its demise rate is 1% that of its more textural competitor. |
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DrCurry, - but we can't have up-front redundancy - we're all going to die, don't you read the papers? |
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(oh wait, maybe it's a UK tabloid thing - maybe we'll be alright after all) |
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I don't for one minute imagine that bird flu will have *that* much of an impact, but this is not such a bad idea and may well secretly exist in some form already. After 9/11 I was amazed to find out that the bank I was contracting at had a "spare" trading floor in the middle of the city, just in case they needed it. This idea would provide a cheaper (though less effective) form of disaster scenario fallback for those companies who can't afford to keep backup offices sitting empty in the middle of city centres. It's also an argument for teleworking as many employees as you can in the first place. |
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If you're all going to die, you either haven't hired enough people, or you've foolishly concentrated them all in one place (the UK?). |
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To put things in perspective, the 1918 pandemic had a death rate of only 2.5% in the US - i.e., 97.5% of the population survived (although I imagine a fair few were sick for a while). Two more recent pandemics had lower death rates. |
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Most of us will survive Avian flu, when it evolves enough to become a pandemic. That won't stop it being a world-wide disaster and disrupting our lives, of course. |
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jutta, - accidental. Are you accusing me of
being smart on purpose? |
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Clever, [IT]. I doubt that most businesses are that organised, but you never know how the public will react, when the crunch finally comes. |
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The remaining public will feel a social-wide guilt. This is because the news media is currently bombarding us with the message "are we doing enough about it?". Of course we're not - we're individuals - what are we supposed to do? The message is obviously aimed at decision makers and those in power, but the media broadcast it in exactly the same tense to everyone, as though each individual is somehow responsible for some sort of preparatory measures, and those measures aren't being taken on an individual basis (whatever those might be imagined to be). That's right - kill us with guilt. |
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No one can screw it up like me. Does that mean I'm irreplaceable? |
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