Interested parties come in two forms; internal and external. They are your organization’s vendors, suppliers, customers, contractors, and employees. Every interested party has a genuine interest in ensuring the success of the organization, and by knowing and understanding that fact, the organization has not only a duty but a responsibility to deliver the necessary information to every interested party, no matter what level of interest they may have. have in the company.
When it comes to implementing a business continuity/disaster recovery plan, the organization will need to choose one or two places through which it will communicate with its stakeholders. The phone is certainly not the “go to” place anymore. The last thing anyone wants to do is answer the phone in the middle of a hurricane or repeat the same information a hundred or more times a day. Having the right tools at your disposal to communicate with everyone will not only help you stay sane in the middle of a hurricane, but it will empower all stakeholders to know what’s going on. Therefore, with the growth of social media tools, the ability to communicate with and empower your stakeholders has never been better than it is now.
Deciding which tools to use can be one of the most difficult tasks you or your organization may encounter when creating a business continuity/disaster recovery plan. There are many tools out there and you may find the right one on your first try or you may continue to search for the right one and find it after numerous tries. No need to worry as there are plenty of old and new tools to choose from.
By far some of the oldest and perhaps not so convenient ways to communicate with stakeholders before, during, or after a natural or man-made disaster are email, text messages, and updating a website. . Each is effective in its own way, but can be too time consuming when all an organization has are minutes or seconds.
Email gives the user the ability to convey a lot of information and attachments in a short period of time. However, one concern is that of email limits. Limits such as those imposed by email software or administrators, either to prevent spamming others or sending large files that can bog down systems that are ideally designed for small payloads, such as email messages simple.
Text messaging gives the user the ability to communicate “on the go” with short, simple messages. Communication via text messages can take a long time as transmission capacity may be limited. In most cases, this means that the user will have to send individual messages to all interested parties to keep everyone informed. However, the user may be too excited to pay the overage fees that a lengthy disaster recovery process could incur.
Updating a website can be effective and relatively easy when it comes to disseminating a lot of information to a lot of people very quickly, once it’s published. However, the question of having the time available to properly format, connect, load, and verify an updated web page might not be a reality once a hurricane or severe weather event strikes.
Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and blogs, while web-based, are also by far the easiest and most convenient ways to communicate with all stakeholders. Their accessibility from almost any PC makes them an invaluable tool. Plus, with any web-based smartphone, information can be updated from almost anywhere, in almost any situation, and at almost any time.
Short for web logs, blogs have been around for quite some time and are now very easy to set up, format (or not format at all), and use. By logging in, the user can update the current situation or accompany that status update with a photo or two, all in a matter of seconds.
Using the MySpace service also allows for quick and easy updating. Interface applications can be found for the most popular Internet-enabled phones, such as the iPhone or Palm Treo phones. Just like a blog, the user can update the current situation and even request immediate feedback from those who follow them. Non-followers will only have access to updates, as long as the account is set to protected.
While setting up Facebook is relatively easy and quick, it comes at a price. While this is a free service, the price is that stakeholders wishing to be notified by the organization will need to be “friends” of the organization prior to the release of any business continuity/disaster recovery plans. This is not advisable, especially when the Facebook user is in the middle of a hurricane, as this is not the best time to be “friends” with people to spread the word. While it is a very effective tool, it requires a lot of work up front and throughout the process.
Twitter is the newest tool in the shed. It offers any user the ability to communicate with the world 140 characters at a time. Like MySpace and Facebook, people can follow you and you can follow them, but you don’t have to to share information. With only 140 characters of use, the service offers the possibility to publish links through which interested parties can view images, download documents or read more detailed information about the situation of the organization. Like the other services, Twitter can be easily accessed through any Internet-connected PC or Internet-enabled smartphone.
Regardless of the tool or tools you or your organization decide to use, the positives will outweigh the negatives. Knowing when your doors will be open or when an operator will be available is a sure way to keep your customers happy. It will also keep your suppliers happy because they will know when and where they can start delivering the product to your location. Above all, employees will know when it is time to report to work. So when creating the business continuity/disaster recovery plan, keeping the conversation open between you and stakeholders will go a long way to getting everyone back on track as soon as possible.
