Publisher’s Note:

As publisher of the annual Disaster Resource GUIDE and weekly Continuity e-GUIDE, I am thrilled to announce the appointment of Ralph Selle as President of our parent company, Emergency Lifeline Corporation.  Emergency Lifeline, which recently celebrated its 20th year, publishes the GUIDEs and is a worldwide distributor of emergency preparedness supplies and equipment. Ralph brings with him more than 25 years of experience in the disaster recovery and business continuity industry. He was most recently an executive with Iron Mountain, the world’s largest information and document archival company. Ralph offers here his insights on trends to watch for in 2006.

                                                                         —Kathy Rainey, Publisher

What My Crystal Ball Says About Business Continuity

As we begin the New Year, I confess to being one of those people who are prone to make personal resolutions, set personal goals and yes, even try and predict the future. In addition to the usual personal goals – lose weight, exercise more, watch less TV, read more, save more, etc., I also attempt to try and understand what is going on in the industry in which I have been a part for the past 25 years. The key questions that I always ask are: What are the major dynamics underway that will impact future DR/BC planning; what events are most likely to impact Corporate America and influence its preparedness and survival strategies and what will the impact be, if any, on each of us as individuals. Well, here is my best guess at answering a couple of those questions.

Increasing Impact of Recently Passed Corporate Governance Legislation.

We are all aware of the “misdeeds” of the past several years of a few corporations and the resulting passage of a plethora of new legislation which collectively, is asking that Corporate America manage and keep it’s records more carefully. The largest white-collar group hired last year was Auditors; Corporate America is struggling under the threat of fines and penalties to comply with a host of new mandates relating to “managing, reporting and keeping” records. Sarbanes-Oxley, new HIPAA regulations, changes in SEC and federal and state banking regulations are all requiring a new focus on both the accuracy of financial reporting as well as the way that information is kept over long periods of time. One new requirement in particular is going to impact “archived” information; that is, if a Corporation is going to keep and archive information, it must remain in “readable” format. This year and beyond, companies are going to be constantly migrating data and information from older formats to new formats at the cost of great time and expense as they struggle to comply with new standards of corporate governance. Expertise in these areas will be needed as companies strive to seek business continuity.

Continued Complexity of Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity Planning.

Three decades ago, the primary focus of Disaster Recovery Planning was the attempt to restore mainframe computer processing. This concern gave birth to the alternate “hot site” model. Then came the PC revolution, distributed computing, the enormous growth of networks and today’s new “information” channel, the Internet. Each of these represent increasing complexity for DR/BC planners as they try to maintain Corporate America’s continued reliance and continued need for information and information processing. DR/BC Plans, once created, used to be updated only periodically and today they must be viewed, amended and modified continuously.  One of the latest “buzzwords” in the industry is ILM, Information Lifecycle Management, which is an attempt to look at information “hierarchically.” Most information, when generated, is important, valuable and needed. As it ages and becomes replaced by newer, updated information, much of it becomes less so. Much of it then can be erased or deleted; some of it must be retained for a while and a tiny portion must and should be retained forever. ILM looks at this question and helps Corporations and individuals make those decisions on a cost-effective basis. ILM will continue to dominate the thinking of management, IT specialists and planners throughout 2006 and beyond.

Evolution Toward Survival Planning for Individuals.

Recent events such as Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma; the “fires” in Texas and Oklahoma, reports of Asian Bird flu and repeated acts of “terrorism” continually remind us all of the importance of disaster planning in the Corporate world, but even more, the “wake up” reminder that each of us should create and establish a personal survival preparedness plan for ourselves and our loved ones. While corporate America and government organizations sometimes create and establish minimal survival plans for its employees, the task of survival preparedness is essentially a personal responsibility. One of the reasons I am thrilled to be joining the Disaster Resource GUIDE and its parent-company Emergency Lifeline is because of the opportunity to help individuals prepare for the inevitable disaster, be it natural or man-made, that will inevitably touch each of us or someone dear to us. The wonderful stories of charitable response that follow each disaster are exciting and heart-warming to hear and read about but the fact is that survival preparation is even more important than survival response. While I hesitate to call survival preparedness “simple,” there are a few very basic, inexpensive steps that each of us can take to prepare our families and loved ones for the next calamity. No one can predict the next disaster, either natural or man-made, but each of us can take steps to prepare for that disaster and substantially improve our chance of survival. In later issues of the e-Guide, the staff here at the Disaster Resource GUIDE, Emergency Lifeline Corp, and our affiliated Sponsors and Experts will try and help you take those initial, important steps and help you to create a plan.  In 2006, however, I believe the most substantial change will be that the marketplace will increasingly awaken to the need for individuals to create a survival preparedness plan.

It is both a pleasure and an honor to meet the sponsors, contributors and readers of the Continuity e-Guide.

—Ralph Selle

About the Author

Prior to joining the Disaster Resource Guide and Emergency Lifeline, Ralph served as Vice President of Business Development for Iron Mountain, Inc. His responsibilities included the development of new products and services for Iron Mountain’s Off-Site Data Protection Division.  During his tenure with Iron Mountain, he worked with many Contingency Planners and Disaster Recovery experts to help increase their presence in the industry in their efforts to help Corporate America with their business continuity/disaster recovery planning.

Ralph also spent 10 years with Digital Equipment Corporation where he helped pioneer the rapid growth of off-site data storage with Digital Equipment Corporation’s Off-Site Data Protection Services business in 1983. 

Ralph has a B.S. degree in Business Administration from the University of Rochester and has authored articles in various trade journals. He has been a featured speaker at many industry events during his 25-year association with the disaster recovery and business continuity industry.

Ralph can be reached at (714) 558-8940. His e-mail is ralphselle@emergencylifeline.com or ralphselle@disaster-resource.com .