Business Continuity Plan Testing and Training

April 26, 2017 - How often do you exercise your business continuity plan? Have you ever done so? Most experts recommend testing and exercising (if you read Item #5 you'll see what the difference is) at least once per year for the entire plan. If you're not doing that, here's a question for you: What will you do if any part of the plan doesn't work as conceived? Will your people have the ability and confidence to go with the flow and work their way past the broken parts? The only way to know is to try out the plan and see what happens. You'll find help in this issue.

You can read the transcript or listen to the podcast on training for the unexpected. (Item #1)   Can management rely on a business continuity program if employees are unaware of their response and recovery strategies? (Item #2)   Even the best plans fall apart without proper implementation so success in plan execution increases exponentially with testing. (Item #3)

Business continuity drills are the key to detect, address, and strengthen that weakest link. (Item #4)   What are the different benefits of testing vs exercising your plan? (Item #5)   Business continuity plans need to be exercised to strengthen their weaknesses, to improve their overall health, and to improve their sense of wellbeing. (Item #6)


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Getting Management Buy-In

April 19, 2017 - The buy-in and support of executive leadership are critical to the success of every effort. Whether you're just establishing a business continuity or disaster recovery plan or changing or adding to it, you know that you have to convince top management to support it. How do you do that? This week's articles discuss the many aspects of getting management buy-in.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the nature of the business continuity plan development process and regulatory requirements demand a more integrated participation level by management. (Item #1)    how do you sell the plan and get the management buy-in that is so critical to business continuity? (Item #2)    Try these five steps for building executive buy-in of your organizational resilience management program. (Item #3)

When you're seeking management approval, there are four potential benefits of business continuity programs you should consider. (Item #4)    Getting the C-suite's attention is difficult---to say nothing of support and buy-in. (Item #5)    There is little point attempting to be crisis-ready when the core individuals responsible for managing a crisis will not know what to do. (Item #6)


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Social Media and Business Continuity

April 12, 2017 - Social media has been around quite a while now, and its use continues to grow. How does your company handle social media? Is it an important part of your business continuity plan? Do you encourage employees to use it or worry about the risks? Since it's not going away anytime soon, the time is definitely here to determine where social media fits into your BC strategy and how you're going to use it to best advantage. And don't forget that there are benefits AND risks of using social media in your business.

What's the secret to future-proofing your social-media strategy? (Item #1)   Small businesses should grab these five social media trends to consign old practices to the dustbin, embrace battle ready methods to win customers. (Item #2)   Social media can be a powerful tool in a business continuity management program arsenal. (Item #3)

Understanding how to monitor social media communications and interactions will enable you to both assess the risk and reap greater rewards through richer engagement. (Item #4)   Use technology to manage social media processes and embed corporate governance into the data management process to avoid the risks of social media. (Item #5)   Should employers be looking into their employees' social media habits/posts at work? (Item #6)


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Communication in the Digital Post-Truth Era

April 5, 2017 - The Oxford Dictionaries recently named "post-truth" as their international word of the year. What does this mean for communication, crisis communication and reputation in this post-truth era? How has crisis communication changed and, interestingly, how has it not? While there are challenges, most experts agree that the basic principles of communicating in a crisis are still important. Read on and see what you think... have you changed the way you're handling crisis communication today?

The real challenge for communicators are the longer-term, structural trends around the democratization of publishing and real-time hyper-connectivity. (Item #1)   The term "fake news" has been made popular in the past six months, but it's always been around; how do you protect yourself? (Item #2)   When it comes to communicating in a crisis, hope is not a strategy. (Item #3)

It is tempting in a communications crisis for a firm to shut up shop and proffer little or no comment, or worse still, to attempt to misinform the public in order to save face. (Item #4)   Crisis communication is changing, but its principles remain the same. (Item #5)   What's different about navigating crisis communications in today's environment. (Item #6)


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