Have you thought about what the world might look like in 5 years time?
That is what we, as a discipline, have been talking about for several months;
What will Business Continuity look like in 2020?
It is only 5 years away, can the world change too much in 5 years?
It can be hard to try and see into the future. What if we look back at the situation 5 years ago as an example of the quantum of change?
2010.
“A magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.”
The quote comes from Steve Jobs, and he was launching the first iPad in January 2010. Thats right, 5 years ago you didn’t have an iPad (or most likely any other tablet device) – how did we survive?
Think about how the boom in mobile computing and the growth of tablet devices has influenced your risk/BC practice in the past 5 years. The next 5 could hold a similar shift in technology that enables new practices. Are you keeping an eye on the growth in wearable devices and what that might mean?
The past 5 years have also seen many less magical moments. Devastating earthquakes rocked Haiti, Chile, and New Zealand. The Haiti disaster marked another change as social media started to play a larger part in the response. Since then the use of crisis mapping and crowd sourced “situational awareness” has grown and presents a range of opportunities and challenges going forward – especially in the legacy world of BC where social media is still not widely used nor well understood!
The last 5 years have taught us that we still refuse to recognise some risks, and that those “Black Swans” have not learned to read our risk registers. The beauty of the Black Swan concept is that we always rationalise our vulnerability after the event – so we don’t really have to learn.
We witnessed something many did not realise was possible – the massive grounding of international airlines due to a volcanic eruption in Iceland. Plus other events that are readily foreseeable, but at times our pride and wilful blindness told us we could withstand the impacts. The Deepwater Horizon Oil spill was in 2010. Fukushima (Japan) in 2011 and Hurricane Sandy (USA) in 2012 forced us to confront and rethink what it means to be resilient.
In 2010 we had no ISO 22301, but we did get AS/NZS 5050 released that year. We also had the newly released ISO31000.
It seems a lot can change in 5 years. Can we expect the rate of change to be the same over the next 5 years?
2007
What if we add just another 3 years – go back 8 years. The pace of change is such that maybe we would have to consider what things were like back in 2007 in order to guess what could change by 2020.
For starters we saw BS 25999 launch. That probably didn’t have as big an impact on the world as a small piece of technology did.
In January 2007 Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone. Sometimes hard to imagine what life was like without a smart phone – and an “always on” internet device in your pocket. Perhaps there is an App for that!
Chances are you are working with many people who have no experience of working in the pre-2007 world.
My previous post was about the 20 in their 20’s publication – many of these emerging leaders may have still been in school back then. What will the generation coming into the workforce over the next 5 years think of our practices?
We need meaningful dialog between generations to get us the best perspective on the future.
Do yourself a favour and take a little time to watch Jobs 2007 keynote and think about what was seen as new and magical in 2007 – just 8 years ago.
Then think about how your world could change in the next 5 years?
Question is do you have the skills, knowledge and effective practices to deliver value to an organisation in 2020?
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