Photo courtesy of DHS

PS-Prep strategy planning groups, along with all business continuity and risk management members of teams in organizations of all sizes should be interested in listening to Janet Napolitano, Department of Homeland Security Secretary (DHS), as she delivers the second annual State of America’s Homeland Security address, on Monday, January 30 2012 at 1:00 PM EST.

Increasing our nation’s security and resilience remains a goal achieved through strong connections between DHS and our nation’s private sector.

Click here to watch Janet Napolitano’s presentation LIVE on Monday, January 30 2012 at 1:00 PM EST.

Photo courtesy of blog.abn.org.au

Many of the readers of this website belong to emergency management and business continuity planning teams.  And, hopefully, those disaster preparedness focused teams are testing their emergency, continuity and disaster recovery plans regularly.

But if not, or if those risk management centered groups are looking for some useful information to assist the testing of those BC/DR plans, then, an article written by Jim Satterfield is a valuable resource to turn to when you need content and reasons to convince your fellow BC/DR team members – or even upper management — that funding and support is justified to test your plans.

As Satterfield says, “Everyone has a role in a crisis. Some are strategic, some are tactical. How decisions are made in a crisis is critical to the outcome. Because of this, the following holds true:

1. Practicing emergency response helps assure that the response can proceed predictably during a crisis or disaster;
2. Participation in exercises familiarizes everyone with the vulnerabilities, impacts, plans, mitigation strategies, incident management and crisis communications;
3. Testing allows problems or weaknesses to be identified and used to stimulate necessary and appropriate changes; and
4. Errors committed and experience gained during testing will provide valuable insights and lessons learned that can be factored into the planning/updating process.”

The full posting by Satterfield is in two parts, so be sure to read the entire posting, and, if applicable, pass this info on to those associates in your organization or even those disaster recovery and first responder teams in your community’s Emergency and Crisis Management Response areas.  And if your organization is in the private sector, please get this info to in-house team members of the PS-Prep strategy planning leaders.

Click here to read Part 1 and Click here  to read Part 2 of Satterfield’s postings.

Photo courtesy facebook.com

While information security and privacy rights protection teams within organizations continue to monitor the potential privacy risks that Facebook may be presenting to their employees, a new announcement was made today indicating that Facebook is now adding over 60+ new applications within their auto-share technology.

Click here to read a Facebook company blog covering this news as released by Facebook’s director of platform Cal Sjogreen.

As you will read, Facebook users can now immediately begin adding these new apps to their timelines.

As Sjogreen states, “…the apps are all set up to use the “frictionless sharing” function on the social network, meaning that users only have to give an app permission to share information once. After that, the app updates automatically to a user’s profile, letting their friends know instantly what they may be eating, studying or listening to at any given moment.”

While it may be too early to accurately assess any additional risks these apps may present to existing business continuity plans, it may be a good idea to inform information security specialists, risk managers and HR privacy managers of this event.

PS-Prep strategy planning teams in the private sector, in local community disaster preparedness groups and even risk mitigation discussions among family and friends may warrant a close watching of this recent announcement.

Photo courtesy of sundimmers.com

Organizational business continuity planning teams, along with disaster recovery and first responder teams in local communities within the central United States, will be busy on February 7, 2012.

In the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee, on Feb 7, 2012, at 10:15 am CST, more than one million people will participate in the 2012 Great Central U.S. ShakeOut.

As you may remember, in April of last year, over three (3) million people in eleven states practiced a similar “Drop, Cover, and Hold On” preparation drill called simply the Central U.S. Shakeout.

In addtion, please notice that at 10:15 a.m. on April 17, 2012, thousands of Utah residents will “Drop, Cover, and Hold On” in The Great Utah ShakeOut, the largest earthquake drill in Utah history!

All of these future, and, many other past earthquake drills held throughout the United States are necessary exercises to raise awareness and preparedness levels among U.S. citizens regarding the risks and dangers caused by earthquakes.

Click here for more details and information regarding who is registered to participate, how to participate, and how to obtain ShakeOut Resources such as Quake Scenarios for your in house or local community drills.

If you are a resident within any of the nine (9) states participating in this drill, please pass this information about the Great Central U.S. Shakeout to those disaster preparedness, emergency and crisis management training teams in your organization, and/or your local affected community.

Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) has been awarded BS 25999-2:2007 certification status.  BIAL is Asia-Pacific’s first airport to be certified with BS 25999-2:2007, and, is the world’s second airport to be certified in Business Continuity Management Systems (BCMS). This award was certified by British Standard Institution (BSI).  

Speaking on this occasion, Managing Director of BSI Group, Venkataram Arabolu said, “Being the first International airport in Asia-Pacific and second anywhere in the world to have attained Business Continuity Management system certification speaks about the leadership intent of providing best in class services to the not just the passengers but also ensure the attention to supporting the country through uninterrupted operations of the Airport.”

BIAL embarked on the BCMS certification process in January 2011. Risk assessments, impact analyses, and recovery planning of every process spread across the organization were just part of the issues and controls reviewed and audited by BSI.

The BCMS of the airport also went through internal auditing and third party audits to ensure that the BCMS is adhering to international standard requirements.

Commenting on the award receipt, Managing Director of BIAL Sanjay Reddy, said, “This certification shows commitment towards safeguarding the interests of our partners, customers and users. In working towards these certifications, BIAL has scrutinized and tested every aspect of the company’s operation and developed an integrated approach that can help resume operation after unforeseen event or disaster.”

As part of any country’s critical infrastructure to consider when addressing business continuity planning activities, perhaps expectations of reading about more airports around the world pursuing business continuity goals and objectives are in order.

If any of our readers are aware of such activities, or would simply prefer to share comments on BIAL’s achievement, please submit them so that they can be shared with the readership of this website.

If applicable, this information should also be shared with other business continuity, resiliency, or risk management planning teams in your organization.

Click here  to read the original IBN Live press release on this story.

Photo courtesy of iconglobe.net

From recent comments and requests, it appears that many business continuity planning teams will be struggling to achieve a better understanding of risk management and what role risk plays in setting their own organization’s strategies to be better prepared and ready for any business interruption event that might occur in 2012.

Our staff has accumulated the following articles as potential reading library resource materials:

“Catching the Wind:  How to Understand Risk Perception”  an article written by Rick Jones

“How to Develop a Risk Management Plan” as posted on the wikiHOW website

“How Risky Is It, Really? Why Our Fears Don’t Always Match the Facts.” A book written by David Ropeik, with a book review by Mayer Nudell, CSC

“How to Measure Risk Perception” an article written by Rick Jones

“Risk” as posted on the Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia

“Breaking Down Risk” an article written by Rick Jones

Please add other content materials that you may have found valuable in assisting the risk management objectives within your own organization’s business continuity or organizational resiliency planning team.  Thank you.

“Introduction to Community Emergency Response Teams”, IS-317, is an independent study course, offered by CERT, that serves as an introduction to CERT for those wanting to complete training or as a refresher for current team members. It has six modules with topics that include an Introduction to CERT, Fire Safety, Hazardous Material and Terrorist Incidents, Disaster Medical Operations, and Search and Rescue. It takes between six and eight hours to complete the course. Those who successfully finish it will receive a certificate of completion.

This training will certainly help you become a stronger member in your workplace, community and family as we all need to improve our readiness levels in 2012.

IS-317 can be taken by anyone interested in CERT. However, to become a CERT volunteer, one must complete the classroom training offered by a local government agency such as the emergency management agency, fire or police department.

Click here to learn more about the local education and training opportunities available to you.

If applicable, please pass this information along to those business continuity, risk management, PS-Prep strategy planning and disaster preparedness team members at work – this information could be used as an additional resource of learning materials to complement those organizational readiness and BC/DR Plan manuals at work.

Photo courtesy of Dan Schmidt (NFA Photographer)

FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute  (EMI) is commemorating 60 years of emergency training in 2011.

EMI traces its heritage back to 1951 as the former Civil Defense Staff College that was created to develop and conduct emergency training at all levels of government in response to the Cold War.  This tremendous task of conducting national civil defense training was later transferred to Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1954.

In 1980, the Staff College moved to its current location in Emmitsburg, Maryland, and, was renamed the “Emergency Management Institute.” The new name reflected a change in its training mission to that of a broader responsibility — EMI trains and educates emergency personnel to effectively and efficiently respond to disasters regardless if it is natural or manmade in origin.

Many of our reader’s business continuity and risk management plans will often have a reference or dependency on utilizing the resources of the EMI.

If applicable, please pass this information along to those disaster recovery and disaster preparedness – possibly even PS-Prep strategy planning — team members in your organization or your community.

Click here  for more information about this anniversary as well as what other capabilities or emergency preparedness or management resources may be available and useful to those BC/DR teams.

Photo courtesy of listentech.com

As many of our readers know, ISO 27001 and ISO 20000-1 are hot topics in the information and IT spaces these days.  Regarding management systems integration issues — the same can be said for PS-Prep, ISO 14001, ISO 9001 and ISO 13485.

If you or your organization are located on the West Coast of the U.S., you need to be aware of a complimentary offering by NQA — one of the premier management systems registrars – being held in Bellevue, WA on January 23, 2012 – or – in San Jose, CA on January 25, 2012.

These free conferences are full day sessions where each location will include the following topics:

Morning Session:

AS 9100: 2009 (Rev C) Lessons Learned

Information and IT Management Systems: Minimizing Risks and Gaining an Edge through a Standardized Process Management Approach

ISO 9001 Internal Audits: A Risk Based Approach

An Organization’s View of Implementing and Maintaining an ISO 13485 (Medical Devices Industry) Management System

Afternoon Session:

ISO 9001 Internal Audits: A Based Approach

PS-Prep / Business Continuity

Counterfeit Parts Prevention

ISO 14001 Reviews: Lessons Learned & Integrating Management Systems

Click here  to register for these events or to receive more details and information about it.

If applicable, please pass this information along to those risk management, internal audit, disaster preparedness team members in your organization.

photo courtesy of gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com

Now approaching nearly a year ago, our staff advised our readers about the Business Continuity Institute’s (BCI) glossary of business continuity related terms.  That 2011 version has been updated, re-written and re-published by the BCI and is now available for download in pdf format.

Lyndon Bird, FBCI, a technical editor for the BCI, has managed the delivery of this updated version of this 2012 “Business Continuity Management Terms” document.

Definitions given in this newly released update of that glossary now include terms from the BCI’s GPG2010 and the BS 25999 standard, along with some additional comments in some cases ‘to improve clarity and understanding’ from the version update release in January 2011.

Click here  to view and download a pdf version of this Business Continuity Management Terms dictionary.

If applicable, please pass this information along to those business continuity, organizational resilience and PS-Prep strategy planning team members in your organization.  This content may also be a valuable resource for your community’s local disaster preparedness teams to review and include in their ongoing preparedness training level exercises.