I’m here to scare you with a look at what has happened and how if we don’t change, our Christmas Yet To Come will be bleak. Let's start with the Ghost of Christmas Past. It takes the form of the planning decisions made decades earlier for pretty much every aspect of our critical infrastructure. I’m not saying to change the infrastructure because you can’t. Even representatives from the power grid said, during a webinar I attended, that there isn’t enough money to fix everythi

"When is the best time to start doing business continuity?" Best answer: along with your business plan. Second best: today. I was pleasantly surprised when I read an Instagram update on a new bagel place in Asheville. It was a first week review by the owner. They learned a lot and were actively figuring out how to make things better for the next week. First thing: they underproduced. They have a product lead-time of 36 hours. By the time they figured out they needed more, the

When I was a corporate attorney in the mid-aughts, one of the cases I worked on had some fascinating ancillary information: Hershey's bars sold in Europe had a different label. Why? In the US it said "Milk Chocolate" under Hershey's. It qualified as neither milk nor chocolate under the labeling/food regulations in Europe. It was mostly wax. Don't believe me? Think about how much Hershey squares don't melt when eating a s'more. That was a legacy choice for Hershey to make cho

Being on the cloud can be incredibly helpful to your business for lots of reasons. And not helpful for a small smattering of reasons but they are much more impactful. Take for example the AWS outage that hit the eastern part of the US (and impacted services across the globe) today, October 10, 2025. AWS supports websites and apps. When AWS goes down, those sites and apps are inoperable. It is fitting that it is cybersecurity awareness month. While there is no indication that

Some business owners mistakenly believe that insurance is an alternative to doing business continuity. All it can do ( can ) is help out...

When given the option between success and failure, you would assume no one would pick failure. Kind of like Eddie Izzard's bit about cake...

JAWS was re-released in theaters this weekend for its 50th anniversary. Since it is one of my favorite movies, I went to see it on the...

The object of poker is to make good decisions. Like business. It's winning over the long term with the best hand all the while losing as...

I'm not trying to trademark this concept, at all. But let's talk about how strategic planning is, at base, trying to divine the future....

Seismic shifts happen in various industries, even without tariffs entering the chat. It takes some expertise and reading tea leaves, but...

Pistachio nuts are all the rage right now. Lots of pistachio-flavored items for sale beyond the usual ice cream (see: matcha powder,...

I see business continuity everywhere. If it helps achieve a goal by making sure that the mission is accomplished, I see it as an act of...

I need to set the stage for what is, so it becomes what was. One of the biggest challenges for business continuity is leadership buy-in....

For a lot of business owners, knowing the quantitative impact to their bottom line is what can seal the deal in making strategic...

Succession planning can be problematic. Not just from a logistics standpoint, but also from just how integrated the out-going leader is...

I am not a fan of being constricted by anything, really. I'm also a fan of using what you already know but in a way you're not thinking...

This should not come as a surprise once I explain what I mean. The plan outlines the steps that will happen and the roles each person...

Guess what I'm not going to tell you. That you need to spend all of your money on business continuity. Why? You can throw thousands upon...

I've had two people who read my new book make a similar comment: it's already out of date because of what Trump is doing to federal...

Don't get me wrong - setting up a Go-Fund-Me if your business is located in an area that has just been hit by a disaster is great to help...