In This Issue
                                   New disaster service in Asia
                                   Rehearse, Exercise, Test

                                   Is BCM a dead-end?
                                   Outsource your BCP Work in Asia

LWG Consulting has opened an office in Singapore to provide "post-disaster technical solutions" in Asia. They evaluate damaged equipment ('can this be saved?'), recover lost data, conduct technical forensic investigations ('why did it blow up?'), enhance and analyze video for forensic investigations ('who dunnit?'), and provide expert testimony ('this is what really happened, Your Honor'). LWG Consulting's Asia representative is Mr. Bruce Swales, long-time Asia representative  with restoration experts Belfor. Reach him at bswales@lwgconsulting.com or at +65 6220-8621 in Singapore.

Are you looking for help managing an exercise for a site in Asia or Oceania? Save a trip; we're already here. We cover 29 countries from Afghanistan to Vietnam. We can:

     1) write a scenario relevant to your company's location
     2) write scripts for role players
     3) create a Master Event List
     4) brief the participants
     5) observe the exercise
     6) submit a report and recommendations for your Board

Were you doing influenza exercises back in 2005? We were. Click the video to see what one participant had to say.

Photos of exercise in:
- Hong Kong (insurance company, 2006)
- Thailand (electronics assembler, 2007)
- Singapore (consumer products, 2007)
- Malaysia (insurance company 200Z)

I started reading the New York Times' Freakonomics column and listening to its podcast. The first Freakonomics podcast asked what race car drivers and American football players have in common. Answer: they take risks by choice, not chance. People in poor (underdeveloped) countries are at risk from events and factors over which they may have no control. People in rich (developed) countries can afford to take unnecessary risks (driving fast cars, playing dangerous sports) because they can afford to mitigate the risks (wear expensive helmets, for examples). In that way, says Freakonomics author Stephen Dubner, risk is becoming 'a luxury good'. Read the full story at the Freakonomics blog

The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency and the joint DHS-HUD Long-Term Disaster Recovery Working Group invite comments on their National Disaster Recovery Framework Draft (59 pages, 834K). But hurry: the deadline is February 26, 2010. Download the NDRF draft here.

The NDRF provides a model for governments to coordinate recovery and rebuilding after disasters. It is based on eight "core principles," (page 12) two of which are new to me in a government standard.

The first, "individual & family empowerment" means giving victims of disasters opportunities and tools to participate in their own recoveries, and treating them with compassion. In other words, 'Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.' So this U.S. government document explicitly states that community recovery can only be successful if families and individuals also recover from their personal losses. You see that kind of verbiage in NGO mission statements, but never before in a government disaster policy document.  We are making progress.

The other novel principle is "unity of effort," which is that "shared priorities are built upon community consensus," and that "stakeholders coordinate and direct recovery resources to achieve recovery priorities." Wait, is that "Kumbaya" I hear in the background?

In the Incident Command System (ICS), you see plenty of emphasis on unity of command (only one boss) and unified command (only one org chart for all responders), but I've never seen a government policy document expressly state that all parties – victims, responders, volunteers, relief agencies – should pull together in a direction that is set by the affected community, not by responders.

That phrase, 'unity of effort', is just wonderful. And from FEMA?Change we can believe in,
indeed.

I also saw this in the draft: "local governments have primary responsibility for disaster recovery in their community [sic]." That reminded me of Congressman "Tip" O'Neill, U.S. House of Representatives majority leader in the 1980's, who famously said that "all politics is local." Disasters, too, in my opinion.

What’s the future career path for today’s business continuity professional? I’ve been trudging  down that path for 14 years in Asia, and I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. All I see is more tunnel.

Your average BCM professional isn’t asked to contribute to strategic business decisions at the executive level or in the board room, at least not here in Asia. She is not involved in product development. She doesn’t generate any revenue.  She doesn’t manage lots of people.  She doesn’t sell anything to customers, or even talk to them. She spends her time and the company’s money planning for possibilities that everyone agrees probably won’t happen. She’s a cost center, not a profit center. She’s part of the income statement, not part of the Vision Statement. Her closest friends are…internal auditors.

That simply cannot be a strategy for career longevity.  If the choices are ‘up or out’, well… you know where the door is. Read the rest of the story at ZDNet Asia's BCP Confidential.