How Are BCP Managers Compensated?

Ever wondered how much Business Continuity professionals ought to be compensated? Or how about if there is any real difference between a certified or "non certified" BC professional?

I've managed to secure a draft compensation report. However, do note it's only limited to Canada practitioners. Here's the download link:
http://www.weebly.com/uploads/3/7/5/2/3752086/compenstion_benchmarking-canada-2011-final-complimentary_summary.pdf

Stay tuned for more regional draft reports coming up!

How To Ensure Safety of Tourists

I recently came back from a short trip in Japan and given my hopeless capability in speaking the Japanese language, it became a convenient habit of me to approach anyone and converse in English hoping that the locals could understand what I was trying to say and respond in kind.

As someone who often looks out for common building features and observing cultures of other countries pertaining to disaster and emergency response, I would often find similar facilities (granted they follow their own Codes of Practices) as in Singapore.

However, I noted one thing that was definitely useful to tourists should a national emergency take place and folks like us would (at that point of time) be interested to know where we should go to ensure our own safety. In the pictures attached (taken while in Shinjuku), is a typical street map indicating an open safe refuge (or what most of us would call, a designated assembly area).

I doubt every country would have such commonly available info right on the streets.

Aviation Foam Tenders in Action!

Well,I was going through my PC and came across a footage my pals recorded back when I was still in the ARFF units :)

Typically, its a process we call "pump and roll". One that involves any of the deployed foam tenders to discharge its foam compund onto the intended "fire target" while rolling around and closer to the aircraft.

Do note that not all foam tenders can perform such a maneouver and it will depend very much on your vehicle model.

So, enjoy the clip!

Pandemic Planning Resources

It's been quite some time since the H1N1 pandemic has been the talk of the town in the emergency planning arena as well as in everyone's surrounding community.

At the current moment, we do know that countries such as China will be mass producing (or have already started) vaccines that may possibly minimise and hopefully eliminate the H1N1 strain of virus to some targetted groups of its population. Of course other major pharmacuetical companies are also still in perhaps the final testing phase.

While we await for a "cure" to fully crystallize, it is still important for emergency planners, business continuity specialists, as well as all relevant and responsible parties be aware of key resources that will enable them to better prepare and plan for a greater scale of outbreak in the near future.

As such, I've found the following link to be relatively comprehensive and useful for almost everyone to reference with, pertaining to pandemic planning:

Click Here for Pandemic Planning Resource

Always be prepared!

Jakarta New Bombings: Is Your Organisation Ready?

Despite past bombing events at Jakarta or in the Indonesian region, terrorists (as it seems to be for now) have once again struck a successful blow to the tourism industry at The Ritz Carlton, JW Marriots. All this taking place even with the current ramped up security and anti-terrorism measures by the country and the security agencies.

As this blog is being posted, I am being swamped with live radio and television broadcast reports provided by various terrorism experts on what actually happened in Indonesia today, and how all this tragic events could have happened once more.

Definitely very sad.

But what can we learn at the individual or even at the organisational level?

Regardless of where one lives in today, your country's security agency would have by now been ever more prepared for the eventuality of a terrorist strike. It's obvious from all these recent events that no country is spared.

This means that organisations residing in these coubtries would already have in place a certain form of business coninuity plan or currently embarking on a business continuity management journey. For some organisations, this would also be known as emergenecy planning or preparedness. Relevant plans should by now be put in place including the necessary infrastructure required to support such recovery operations.

As an indvidual, you should be familiar with the plans in place in your organisation, such as the faithful practising of annual fire evacuation drills and so on. Of course, there are other equally important procedures one should be familiar as well, to ensure your best chance of survival, as well as recovery to your organisation's business operations.

So, are you prepared?

National Level Exercise: Ex North Star VII

Singapore is currently working on a 3 day duration national level emergency management exercise, codenamed "Exercise North Star VII", which will see the involvement as well as actual deployment of various Home Front agencies (think Police and the Singapore Civil Defence Force).

Held annually to test the Home Front agencies' capabilities as well as response level, this series of exercise also aims to educate as well as seek the involvement of various strata of the common population. Such joint exercises will thus allow all involved agencies and government entities to better understand their own capabilities as well as seek improvement in their delivery standards in the event of a real crises.

So, what's this year's scenario based on? From what I roughly gather (thanks to my busy shift schedule) it will generally involve a "rouge" terrorist body moving across the island.

Judging by the level of planning involved, there's no denial that the responding agencies are definitely taking this whole nation-wide exercise seriously. How do I know? Well, while returning home from my night shift this morning, I was already caught in a 1 hour jam along a major expressway (for Singapore's traffic standard, that's rather long, considering our nation's geographical size). Look at the picture above, and you'll see (look carefully) a convoy of police patrol cars on the left lane, which I took from my Samsung PDA phone (not bad picture quality for a 2 mega-pixel unit, right?).

Stay tuned for more updates.

HAZMAT Response: ARFF Capabilities

Are you in an Airport Rescue and Fire Fighting (ie, ARFF) unit?

Is your unit's primary mission solely to respond to aviation incident and disasters?

To what extent does your ARFF unit respond and gets itself involved when it comes to "unique" situations?

These are some of the questions you'll need to ask yourself if you're a real ARFF responder. Seriously.

I recall my early days in my ARFF involvement, when I was briefed on our unit's roles, response and capabilities. Throughout the training, I was often drilled to respond soley (and mainly) to aircraft incidents, and a lesser aspect with regards to structural fire scenarios. Had it not been for my earlier training with the local city civil defence where structural fire-fighting and special incidents' response was part of my bread and butter, I'd probably be shivering right now, thinking of what flies on board those passenger and military aircraft on a daily basis.

Having basic knowledge of hazardous materials' response (HAZMAT) versus full experience and response know-how does make a BIG difference to life and death not just to your clients, but also to your fellow fire-fighters.

Having HAZMAT suits and owning the latest detection and monitoring device is just one part of the response and mitigation formula. Having adequate knowledge as well as practical training and full competency forms the greater part of this common sense equation.

Because of this sole reason, I'm therefore a serious advocate when it comes to drills relating to HAZMAT response. Not just doing the basics, but right up to foreseeable multiple HAZMAT scenarios.

What about your organisations'?

What is your response capability to HAZMAT incidents?