David Letterman Weighs in on Avian Flu

As more people start to understand the importance and urgency of a potential avian flu pandemic, it's little suprise that the whole notion of what to do should emergency strike is being tackled on several fronts. Here's David Letterman's take on the subject.

A Global Alliance for Survival

Next month, I'm off to Las Vegas to attend a conference on business continuity, security and emergency management planning. The event, CPM 2006 West, is organized by CPM Group, whose website at www.ContingencyPlanning.com is on our list of important business continuity planning links in the sidebar on the right of this weblog.

Subscribers to the CPM-Global Assurance newsletter got a special introduction to the upcoming conference that includes discussions by some of the presenters, including an article of mine on the importance of pandemic planning. "Learning from the Past: How SARS can create a valuable planning proxy for avian influenza" is an introduction to my presentation on Workplace Continuity, a subject we focus on and discuss often on the Gill Blog. But there's nothing like getting together face-to-face with experts from other disciplines and catching up with many of the interesting folks I've met through this weblog and at other industry functions.

So, it's off to Las Vegas next month for some fun work and serious play. Make a note in your calendar to attend CPM 2006 WEST and form a Global Alliance for Survival. Come together with your peers to interact in an educational forum and take away the knowledge to save your organization. Gain a new network of support from the industry experts, thought-leaders and professionals who attend. Please give me a call, or drop me a note in an email, if you'd like to meetup at the conference in Vegas.

Journal of Facilities Management

Journal of Facilities Management is a strategic level journal for Heads of Facilities and Corporate Real Estate. The journal features a combination of theoretical and practical articles, complemented by a wide range of case studies and regular features, identifying key implications for senior practitioners in Facilities Management.

"Workplace continuity: how risk and technology will affect facilities strategy," an article of mine published in the latest issue of the Journal of Facilities Management, has just been made available online from the publisher, if anyone who is not already a subscriber to the journal is looking for nicely printed copies. Here's the gist of it.

Abstract: Purpose – To provide a summary of factors contributing toward the movement toward decentralized workplaces; this will largely be driven by the need to principles of business continuity, as well as the increasing ubiquity of broadband.

Design/methodology/approach – This takes a chronological approach to the development of a few previously separate organizational movements (i.e. business continuity, telework, advances in remote technology, facility strategy) and demonstrates how recent events have caused a collision of these factors. The result of this has been to energize the movement to alternative workplace models.

Findings – The paper demonstrates how the concepts presented move from a theoretical construct to a practical one based on factors including reduced implementation costs, a greater need to protect human and physical capital, the need for organizations to remain competitive, as well as the need to address work and lifestyle balance needs of employees.

Research limitations/implications – Enterprise-wide applications of business continuity are still relatively new, and the penetration levels of broadband are not quite at the point where change will occur immediately.

Practical implications – Real estate professionals can effectively redefine their responsibilities and enhance their strategic profiles within the organizations they represent by understanding and integrating basic principles of workplace continuity.

Originality/value – This provides a blueprint for planners considering fundamental changes in workplace configuration.

The publishing policy here at the Gill Blog has always been to give away our ideas for free, leveraging the efficiency of the Internet. Please help yourself to our previously published work here, and feel free to come back as often as your like for more.

Managing Mobile Technology

How much is too much? This is the theme of this recently published article that highlights some of the downsides associated with being too plugged in to the gadgets that create the anywhere, anytime office. Just how many options do we have today? Consider the following:

Consider how many devices and technologies are used to stay in touch: wireless e-mail devices; Wi-Fi laptops loaded with e-mail, office suite, time entry and various practice applications; cell phones; hands-free headsets; a lot of cables (laptop power brick, modem, Ethernet, universal serial bus, FireWire, audio, iPod charger, cell phone charger and personal digital assistant charger); home, office and cell phone voice mail accounts; professional and personal e-mail accounts; office, PC and Internet faxes; text messaging; instant messaging; replicated e-mail account on your laptop’s hard drive for offline reading; Virtual Private Networks, Citrix or other remote access software; camera phones, digital cameras and portable scanners; and a prepaid Starbucks card (for a liberal dose of Wi-Fi and caffeine).

Inevitably, we will move toward a more mobile office, but as this happens, it is important to manage the transition. This piece provides an excellent roadmap.