Preparing for the Unexpected

Workplace Violence is something that many organizations must deal with. Even if the risk is not great, organizations must still account and prepare for the risk, which if not dealt with, can cause major trauma for the impacted organization. We talk with Dr. Marc Siegel, author of 'Preventing and Managing Violence in Organizations' about how we can identify the risk of workplace violence and what we can do to protect, and include, impacted stakeholders. Marc will also provide us some guidance on how to involve stakeholders during the planning phase using real-life examples and how a workplace violence initiative can be incorporated into existing BCM or DR programs.

No Business Continuity Management (BCM) professional can know everything about business operations, as there's just so much to know. However, a BCM professional can learn allot about an organizations operations by speaking with a Business Analyst (BA), whether they be Business or Technical in focus. We speak with experienced BA expert Bill Baxter who will speak to us about the roll of the BA and what we can learn from them to help us understand business - and technical - operations. When building our continuity plans we need the input of skilled and knowledgeable resources to make our plans strong, viable and usable, and the Business Analyst is one of the key roles to help get the right plans in place.

Water pollution and Service Delivery issues have long plagued South Africa for multiple reasons. We'll talk to Dr. Roman Tandlich of Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa who will outline his studies in Disaster Risk Reduction and Public Health Implications; a paper presented at the TIEMS Conference in Manila, Philippines (Nov 2018). We'll learn some of the challenges encountered by South Africa with its water supply and how the government, planners and its people are steppinig up to address the situation; from increasing public awareness to government policy changes. Roman will also talk to us about how his research, which encompasses multiple countries, can be leveraged to help less fortunate areas benefit from the successes of areas that have dealt with water and sanitation issues.

Terrorism isn't just about the guns, firefights and explosions we see on the news channels. An often overlooked terrorism threat is Agricultural Terrorism (agro-terrorism). We'll speak with Emergency Management subject matter expert and registered nurse, Dee Grimm who will speak to us about the threat of Agro-Terrorism. We'll learn about the various kinds of agents that can be used in agro-terrorism and how these agents can be used to impact society. We'll hear about the challenges faced by growers and other agricultural agencies when trying to mitigate against impacts posed by agro-terrorist threats. Dee will also provide us some tips on how we can prevent agro-terrorism from becoming 'real' by detailing some of the mitigation protocols currently in place to deal with such a terrorist act.

Along with Organizational Resiliency, Community Resiliency is a hot topic in today's Business Continuity / Disaster Planning world. For this episode we talk to Professor Geoff A. Wilson from the University Of Plymouth, UK. Prof. Wilson is also the author of 'Community Resilience and Environmental Transitions', which will be our focus for this show. Prof Wilson will talk to us to better understand Community Resilience and what disturbances - both natural and anthrogenic in nature, impact our communities and how we identify resilience communities from non-resilient communities. We'll also learn what factors can help us create resilient communities and what factors can cause a resilient community to become less resilient.

Social Media can help us in many ways but it can also cause us harm if we don't pay close attention to what information is being presented by the various social media platforms.

This week, we talk with Lt. Glen Mills who is a specialist in monitoring social media for situational awareness and is a Lieutenant with the Burlington, Massachusetts police department.

Drawing upon extensive experience and using some real-life examples, Lt. Mills gives us tips and insights into how we can better prepare ourselves for the deluge of information conveyed through various social media sites and identifying what information is real and what may not.

These tips will help all organizations, communities and individuals better prepare for - and respond to - potential situations that can cause us harm and prevent us from being taken in by those who would do us harm.

Managing Business Continuity - Disaster Recovery programs can be a challenge, especially if a BC-DR practitioner doesn't have the right skills to juggle various program components and priorities.

We will talk with BC-DR industry experts and project management professionals Ralph Kliem and Gregg Ritchie - the authors of 'Business Continuity Planning: A Project Management Approach'.

Ralph and Gregg will provide allot of insight on how to manage and maintain our BC-DR programs to ensure Senior Management support, buy-in and their continued support.

We'll also talk about how we can improve our programs as we slowly build the required plans and processes, ensuring along the way we're adhering to governance protocols and the benefits that governance guidelines offer.

If you're having issues with you BC-DR program or just want to improve your programs status, listen in to hear tips and tricks on how to get your program back on track.

Terrorism comes in many forms; it's not just the guns and firefights we see on the news channels. One form is Biological Terrorism and we'll speak with Emergency Management subject matter expert and registered nurse, Dee Grimm who will speak to us about what BIO-Terrorism is. We'll learn about the various kinds of biological agents and their effects upon us and the treatments for those that have been exposed. Dee will also discuss how the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) categorises a biological threat and how various enforcement agencies need to work together when faced with biological terrorism. We'll hear about a real-life example where Dee dealt with the challenges of leadership and command during a biological terrorism event.

The Continuity & Resilience Today (CRT) conference was held May 29-30, 2019 in Toronto. It was the second CRT conference and was full of skilled experts and knowledgeable speakers. This show provides a quick overview and summary of some of the sessions held over the 2 days and some of the key points that were discussed and presented to attendees.

Technology is present in every aspect of our daily and business lives; this includes being an important factor in Emergency Management. We speak with the author Dr. John C Pine about his book Technology and Emergency Management. We'll discuss how technology is changing Emergency Management and how it can be leveraged to better aid our Emergency Planning, Response, Recovery and Mitigation capabilities. Dr. Pine will also tell us about some of the existing technologies being utilized, as well as some of the operational challenges when utilizing technology in Emergency Management.