With the rapid spread of Swine Flu A(H1N1) making the headlines today, businesses must make preparations in the event quarantine orders are issued making it against the law or impractical to leave your own home or work from your business location. The 1918 Spanish flu A(H1N1) spread so quickly that in a few short months that there was no spot on Earth safe from the ravaging effects. In the U.S. some 675,000 people died from the Spanish flu alone. That is like wiping out city of San Francisco. On average nearly 5% of the Earth’s population died as a result of Spanish flu. Many more were sickened but recovered. While the percentage of deaths may seem small, when you account for over 7 billion souls alive today that would equate to 140 million deaths.
As the severity of the flu rises the government along with public health officials will take steps to slow down the spread of the disease. This usually involves limiting or closing public places such as schools, shopping centers, and businesses to all but essential personnel. In Mexico where this particular strain of Swine flu may have originated from schools are closed, and restaurants are limited to take out. As the disease progresses businesses will be closed or severely limited in their operations, and travel may be restricted.
If you hear on the news, or read on the Internet that a “Incident Command Center” has been opened in your community and it is usually staffed by either FEMA or a health care organization - that is your cue as a business owner or manager to review your Continuity of Operation Plans (CooP) and make sure the information is complete and accessible.
I recently interviewed several IT managers with the responsibility of managing their infrastructure in the event of a disaster. Nearly all of them had a CooP but the information was not available on line in a way that can be accessed by employees from the outside. Further, key contact information, role call rosters, and chain-of-command supervision roles lacked depth so in the event key decision makers became incapacitated the chain-of-command, would hamper the ability to make key decisions with the operation of a company or business.
Whether in a pandemic or a natural disaster communications is key to disseminating information to employees who will not be able to make it into their place of business. We take for granted that telephone, Internet, and wireless services will be around when we need them most. Keep in mind that the employees of these services will also be affected in the same manner as you. Without the employees of your local communications service providers available to keep things running eventually temporary outages will take place.
If your business uses BlackBerry as your main communications tool there is are solutions available that makes the dissemination of information possible even if the user is out of coverage or off line. There are two companies that have a solution specific to making CooP and contact rosters available on BlackBerry and allow the information to be pushed down to employee devices. They are:
· OnSet Technology (METAmessage) http://www.onsettechnology.com/
· Wallace Wireless (WIC Responder and WIC Messenger) http://www.wallacewireless.com/
OnSet Technology’s METAmessage product is actually part of a suite of products that are designed to enhance the management and control of the BlackBerry environment. The Emergency Communications portion of the METAmessage software is able to operate even if the email servers fail. METAmessage leverages the PIN messaging portion of the BlackBerry.
Wallace Wireless WIC Responder and WIC Messenger are truly well designed applications. The WIC Messenger keeps contact lists as well as corporate address books up to date at all times. Wallace Wireless added a mobile layer that aggregates information from numerous sources such as Exchange, CRM databases, etc and packages the information together without having to create whole new repositories for information to reside. Wallace Wireless can use multiple means of communications such as PIN, email, SMS.
It’s crucial to understand that voice and data are not same in an emergency. Voice networks can become clogged very rapidly in an emergency. Having lived in Southern California I have experienced how telephone circuits become busy when the ground shakes briefly. Imagine a more serious emergency and an over worked telephone system. There is far more capacity on a mobile telephone network than the old land line network. To make matters worse SMS messaging follows voice so SMS paging may suffer delays in delivery especially when every kid with a cell phone is bored and texting their friend without end. Attempting to call from a mobile to a landline can become a huge challenge during an emergency.
Data networks such as EVDO, or HSPA usually operate separately on different bands from mobile voice (1x) or (GSM). There is far more capacity to support PIN based messaging across the data network. Hence on high speed data networks small message packets can get through as well as updates to the CooP, and contact lists on continual bases. Even if the user has no coverage the information needed will still be on the BlackBerry.
Both METAmessage and WIC Responder have been widely deployed in a number of major Fortune ranked companies and within government and since both charge by license seats it is easy to scale if your business is not so large. If your business does not use BlackBerry the WIC products will not work at all for you. METAmessage will work with other smartphone platforms on a limited bases but messaging over the data network will not be there. Take some time and look into these two products to see which is right for you.
As the severity of the flu rises the government along with public health officials will take steps to slow down the spread of the disease. This usually involves limiting or closing public places such as schools, shopping centers, and businesses to all but essential personnel. In Mexico where this particular strain of Swine flu may have originated from schools are closed, and restaurants are limited to take out. As the disease progresses businesses will be closed or severely limited in their operations, and travel may be restricted.
If you hear on the news, or read on the Internet that a “Incident Command Center” has been opened in your community and it is usually staffed by either FEMA or a health care organization - that is your cue as a business owner or manager to review your Continuity of Operation Plans (CooP) and make sure the information is complete and accessible.
I recently interviewed several IT managers with the responsibility of managing their infrastructure in the event of a disaster. Nearly all of them had a CooP but the information was not available on line in a way that can be accessed by employees from the outside. Further, key contact information, role call rosters, and chain-of-command supervision roles lacked depth so in the event key decision makers became incapacitated the chain-of-command, would hamper the ability to make key decisions with the operation of a company or business.
Whether in a pandemic or a natural disaster communications is key to disseminating information to employees who will not be able to make it into their place of business. We take for granted that telephone, Internet, and wireless services will be around when we need them most. Keep in mind that the employees of these services will also be affected in the same manner as you. Without the employees of your local communications service providers available to keep things running eventually temporary outages will take place.
If your business uses BlackBerry as your main communications tool there is are solutions available that makes the dissemination of information possible even if the user is out of coverage or off line. There are two companies that have a solution specific to making CooP and contact rosters available on BlackBerry and allow the information to be pushed down to employee devices. They are:
· OnSet Technology (METAmessage) http://www.onsettechnology.com/
· Wallace Wireless (WIC Responder and WIC Messenger) http://www.wallacewireless.com/
OnSet Technology’s METAmessage product is actually part of a suite of products that are designed to enhance the management and control of the BlackBerry environment. The Emergency Communications portion of the METAmessage software is able to operate even if the email servers fail. METAmessage leverages the PIN messaging portion of the BlackBerry.
Wallace Wireless WIC Responder and WIC Messenger are truly well designed applications. The WIC Messenger keeps contact lists as well as corporate address books up to date at all times. Wallace Wireless added a mobile layer that aggregates information from numerous sources such as Exchange, CRM databases, etc and packages the information together without having to create whole new repositories for information to reside. Wallace Wireless can use multiple means of communications such as PIN, email, SMS.
It’s crucial to understand that voice and data are not same in an emergency. Voice networks can become clogged very rapidly in an emergency. Having lived in Southern California I have experienced how telephone circuits become busy when the ground shakes briefly. Imagine a more serious emergency and an over worked telephone system. There is far more capacity on a mobile telephone network than the old land line network. To make matters worse SMS messaging follows voice so SMS paging may suffer delays in delivery especially when every kid with a cell phone is bored and texting their friend without end. Attempting to call from a mobile to a landline can become a huge challenge during an emergency.
Data networks such as EVDO, or HSPA usually operate separately on different bands from mobile voice (1x) or (GSM). There is far more capacity to support PIN based messaging across the data network. Hence on high speed data networks small message packets can get through as well as updates to the CooP, and contact lists on continual bases. Even if the user has no coverage the information needed will still be on the BlackBerry.
Both METAmessage and WIC Responder have been widely deployed in a number of major Fortune ranked companies and within government and since both charge by license seats it is easy to scale if your business is not so large. If your business does not use BlackBerry the WIC products will not work at all for you. METAmessage will work with other smartphone platforms on a limited bases but messaging over the data network will not be there. Take some time and look into these two products to see which is right for you.
