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Sometimes I think of business continuity planners as Aesopian ants in a world of grasshoppers.
We know something is going to happen – history proves the inevitability of events such as spring floods and hot weather hurricanes.
We – business continuity planners – would like to do something to avoid or mitigate the damage that attends these events.
But we are surrounded by grasshoppers who are unwilling to act to protect their own interests. Maybe they aren’t grasshoppers; perhaps they are ostriches with their heads deeply buried in the sands of “it can’t happen to me.”
And then it happens.
A hurricane’s winds and waves sweep away shoreline and homes tumble into the surf. Rivers will overflow their banks, debris will litter highways, and communities will get ready to start expensive clean-up operations – again.
FEMA will fume and threaten to withhold recovery funds if the dilatants fail to take some mitigation measures for the following season, but then it will let the issue die a back page death.
Local emergency management operations will talk about what could be, should be, done and then hear the elders reply it can’t be done for this reason or that.
Businesses will ignore our offers of help or look for a cheap fix until the event is nigh, and then will look for a planner willing to cram into 90 days or less what normally takes six months or more. Then, if the event transpires, will blame the planner for failing to do a complete job.
I know I’m preaching to the choir – you know what I know; you’ve been there and done that.
You probably are as frustrated as me.
But like me, you have done little or nothing to change things.
Now perhaps is the time we need to get off our posteriors and promote planning.

Where To Start
There are two places where this scrivener thinks we can promote business continuity planning. Neither takes a major expense on our part – I hear you comment that this already is a winner! – and both can have long-term benefits.
The first place is the local government – city, township, and country boards, and school boards which usually are separate entities.
All of these governing bodies have one thing in common – they are supported by the taxpayer, the businesses and residences that foot the bill for local government.
Contact your federally-mandated state emergency management organization – where you probably will find some folks who will be delighted to work with you as they did with me in Florida – and contact the local government powers-that-be. Put together a show-n-tell with help from the state folks and make certain to invite the local (usually county-level) emergency management people; you need them and they should appreciate your effort.
Explain to the community that while emergency management does an excellent job of protecting people and government resources, your proposal is designed to protect the tax base. Lose the tax base and there is no money for emergency management or anything else ... without a tax base of businesses and residences there may not be a need for anything else.
The second approach begins with the local college’s MBA program.
Many MBA candidates are employed in mid-level management positions and all intend to be “upwardly mobile.”
These are people who can take “the business continuity message” back to the business, people who can be shown the benefit of protecting the business and their job.
How do you get to these people?
Contact the MBA program administrator. Volunteer to present a business continuity overview with follow-up Q&A session.
The show-and-tell should take about the entire class period. Most instructors I know are delighted to get a break, and many students are just as delighted.
It doesn’t require a great investment – create a PowerPoint (or similar) program for the presentation (to governing boards and students, just focus the presentations appropriately) and photocopy the “slides” to use as “leave behind” material. If you can afford color copies, so much the better, but black and white will suffice if you are on as tight a budget as this scrivener.
In addition to the governing bodies and MBA candidates, local Chambers of Commerce, Bibs, and some civic organizations with business interests (lunchtime Lions, Toastmasters, etc.) also are potential groups to market business continuity planning. The problem with the lunch-n-learn groups is that your budget for leave behinds can be devoured between the salad and the entrée.
The ants know the world needs business continuity.
Now we have to convince the grasshoppers.

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John Glenn, CRP, CBCP, has been involved with business continuity planning for Fortune 100 companies and state governments since 1994. He shares what he knows at mirrored Web sites at http://johnglenncrp.0catch.com/ and http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/8836/.