Quote of the Week

“True life is lived when tiny changes occur.” – Leo Tolstoy

Fun With Language

When word derivatives aren’t always correct:

“Teacher: What is an evangelist?
Student: Someone who plays the evangelo.” – Readers Digest @work column

Quote of the Week

“Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.” – Erica Jong

Fun with words

The trouble with homonyms:

“Sam shows up at a revival meeting, seeking help. ‘I need you to pray for my hearing,’ he tells the preacher.

The preacher puts his fingers on Sam’s ears and prays and prays. When he’s done, he asks, ‘How’s your hearing now?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Sam. ‘I don’t go to court till next Tuesday.’ ” James Hoskin in Readers Digest Laugh section

Quote of the week

“I merely took the energy it to pout, and wrote some blues.” –Duke Ellington

When the Lights Go Out (Or the Roof Falls In)

10 Tips on writing a business continuity/disaster recover plan that will keep your business alive 

We just passed the second anniversary of the biggest disaster of the century, Hurricane Sandy. Some businesses, and individuals still haven’t recovered.

Disasters…yes, what usually comes to mind are hurricanes, blackouts, and massive computer hacker attacks. True, they can clobber your business by demolishing your building or destroying your data. However, smaller disasters can wreck just as much havoc. You can lose not only time and money but also your customers! Many businesses suffered no physical damage to their offices after hurricane Sandy but due to lack of electricity, had only 2 options: go elsewhere or shut down.

Disasters that bring your business to a halt usually cannot be avoided. However, they can be planned for, and instructions for continuation and recovery written down. As a writer it always irks me how “word of mouth” is the operative term when disaster strikes. It is the writing down the instructions that is as important as the planning.

You don’t need an overly complex plan just a detailed, clearly written document. It should include information on what will keep your business running: primary business functions, information systems, corporate support functions, voice and data communications, names and phone numbers of employees and vendors. Here are 10 tips for creating your plan:

1. Take the time to think about likely scenarios. Ones that you have experienced or are very likely to occur require more detailed plans than those that have a less likely chance to happen.
2. Talk to those who are vital to your plan’s execution and the running of your business. You have two types of individuals to consider: those who will help you execute the plan, and those who carry out your various daily business functions.
3. Talk to your outside support people, especially your vendors. They can play an important part in providing you with the necessary supplies to continue operations when you do not have access to your own.
4. After you have collected all the important information, write down the steps you would need to take to execute your plan, but keep it simple (outline format is a good start).
5. Flesh in the plan by adding details. Depending on the size and complexity of your business, you might need one general plan and individual ones for each of your departments such as Sales, or Information Technology.
6. Have everyone involved read the draft and give input. Make sure your plan accurately reflects how your business will run during the disruption, after you vacate (if need be) and when you return. Be sure you have a section dealing with contacting your customers along with storing and having access to any computer databases and phone numbers.
7. Format your documents so they are easy to follow. Stay away from cryptic terms and industry jargon. Someone not familiar with such terms might have to carry out the plan! Be sure you have multiple copies (both paper and electronic) stored not only at your business location but elsewhere off site.
8. Do a “dry run”. Call everyone involved together and talk through the scenarios.
9. For those situations most likely to occur consider doing an actual run through. Large corporations do this to insure that the plan, as written, really works.
10. Consider hiring a professional business writer to craft your plan. Professional writers are skilled at taking information and structuring it so that it is easy to follow and execute.

If ever required, your business continuity/disaster recovery plan will enable you to respond in a systematic and organized fashion. It will guide your organization, step-by-step, from responding to the actual event all the way through to returning to normal. Take the time to write a plan now so that you don’t get caught in the dark when the lights go out.

Quote of the Week

“…we need to be willing to let our intuition guide us, and then be willing to follow that guidance directly and fearlessly.” – Shakti Gawain