It is the beginning of March and so far this year we have seen flooding in Queensland, Brazil and India, social unrest in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and Libya and an earthquake in New Zealand.
Isaac Asimov was quoted as saying: "It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be". Whilst Greek philosopher Heraclitus, in 500BC, was attributed with saying "The only constant is change"
In our world of Business Continuity this remains as true today as it was 2500 years ago. We plan for things that we think will happen, we plan for things that we think may happen and we even plan for things that we hope will never happen, sometimes everyone is caught out, as with the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull Volcano in Iceland last year. Hopefully if the Bárdarbunga volcano in Iceland follows suite this year we will be better prepared.
Each time we plan for a different scenario we are giving ourselves the best possible opportunity of successfully dealing with a situation should it arise. At the centre of everything we plan for is the safety and welfare of our people, but we also have a requirement to keep our organisations running, so (and here's the plug part), what can Scottish Continuity do that assist you in that.
We have revised our membership structure this year to include Charities, Local Authorities and other Public Sector memberships. We will be running special interest sub-Groups, general interest meetings and discussions at regular intervals throughout the year as well as our Annual Resilience Conference (jointly with the Business Continuity Institute), all of which are free to members. We are your organisation, so if there is something you would like us to do, or something you would like to be involved in let us know and we will do what we can, but in the meantime, keep planning!
NB Last month I took over the role of Chairperson to Scottish Continuity, so it is very much in my interest to make this an interesting and informative year as it can be and help ensure that we are all as prepared as we can be.