I am in New Orleans this week for the Continuity Insights Management Conference, my first visit to a CI conference.
I have been to New Orleans several times, but this is my visit visit since Katrina, so the Sunday afternoon “Road to Recovery” bus tour was an interesting start to the conference. Even after 10 years, or perhaps because of the passing of time, there are still a number of abandoned, derelict buildings.
The Katrina link continued on Monday morning with an excellent keynote presentation from Admiral Thad Allen. Allen directed the Federal response to the Katrina and more recently was the National Incident Commander for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Some great insights offered in his presentation included;
- We need to correctly frame the problem
- When he arrived in New Orleans after Katrina (7 days after impact) he came to understand they had framed the problem incorrectly
- It wasn’t hurricane response – that had come and gone a week earlier.
- This problem was more akin to a the impact of a “weapon of mass effect”
- Complexity is a major challenge in everything we do today
- Complexity operates to “aggravate risk” – and more so when risks have been realised.
- I was very glad he mentioned this as complexity is part of my presentation using Agile for BC.
- Social Media will be a “sociological change equivalent to the impact of climate change”
- The event “does not create the pre-conditions”, but these pre-conditions can lead to surprise vulnerabilities and as such they can aggravate the impact of the event.
These ideas are applicable to those working within the enterprise BC/DR space as much as those responding to wide-area catastrophes. Complexity means that we will continue to be surprised by impacts and effects – as we can no longer be certain of the connection between cause and effect.
I was very (pleasantly) surprised by the level of interaction in the sessions during the day. Questions were numerous and not restricted to the end of the session. If we are actually here for dialog and learning as adults then more conferences (and presenters) need to understand and embrace this style.
Yes it can be a distraction to the presenter and the flow of their presentation – I saw that first-hand in my session – but if we really understand the material we are talking about then we should be able to adapt. I think the session was made better because of the interaction and improvisation.
Isn’t that the business we are in, responding to the unexpected and quickly returning to some form of equilibrium?
Or are we in the business of running a compliance system for others to master “read and react”?
Looking forward to Day 2 and more interesting exchanges.
Leave a Reply