Tag: uncertainty

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How Businesses Mitigate the Risk of Unplanned Events During Uncertain Times

How Businesses Mitigate the Risk of Unplanned Events During Uncertain Times

If you’ve ever applied for a loan or business insurance, you’ve had to check a box that asked whether you had a Business Continuity Plan in place. Many applicants tend to mindlessly check yes, even if they don’t have an actual plan in place.

That is not a good idea. There’s a reason why these institutions ask for a Business Continuity Plan. And it’s not to annoy you or give you unnecessary work. They are looking to minimize risk for you and for their institution. Many are required by law to have a Business Continuity plan in place themselves.

A Business Continuity Plan is a contingency plan that provides direction about how to keep the business in operation if something unexpected were to happen. Loan and insurance applications aside, having a plan forms part of a solid business strategy particularly during times of uncertainty.

Research indicates that close to 90% of businesses with a Business Continuity Plan reported having reduced disruptions, improved resilience, and faster recovery from disruptions. So there are a number of statistically proven benefits to having a Business Continuity Plan.

Disruptions can be natural or they can be manmade. Some of the most common disruptions – an unexpected death, divorce, distress, disability, or disagreement – will affect 1 in 2 businesses. Any one of these can have a devastating impact, particularly on a smaller business.

How devastating? The average disruption will cost the business about $81,000. And still 25% of businesses will shut down entirely. That’s pretty devastating for a business without the resources to buffer the impact.

Business interruption insurance may help but only in cases where ‘a covered event causes physical damage that results in losses’. Many of the most common disruptions would therefore not be eligible for a business interruption payout as many found out during the pandemic. Check the policy or speak with your broker.

The responsibility for protecting people, profits, and the company’s growth from unplanned events is an internal job. This type of risk management and risk mitigation cannot be outsourced or delegated.

Business Continuity Plans typically include information on:

  • Whom to contact in and out of the organization. This of course includes employees, but also customers, suppliers and key stakeholders, etc.
  • Key documents. It’s essential to record where to find documents like lease, mortgage, key contracts, along with the person(s) with access.
  • Financial matters. This is usually an important one because even during a disruption the business needs to be able to continue to pay and be paid. Basics include information on location of accounts and names of signatories to the accounts – i.e. who has access.
  • Operational workarounds. What are the key tasks that keep the business running? How are they performed now and how can they continue to be performed if the current way of working were for some reason impacted now? There’s a lot of talk about cybersecurity and cyber threats. If something were to happen that prevented the business from operating in its usual way, what workarounds will allow it to continue?

Thinking through and documenting this information ahead of time minimizes response times during a disruption. This level of foresight also reduces the number of decisions that would need to be made during a disruption when emotions are heightened and the business may be losing money.

Continuity planning allows business leaders to focus on making the right strategic decisions to navigate the disruption instead of expending energy on day to day operational decisions in the heat of the moment.

Documenting these areas ensures that the relevant information is at the business’ fingertips during a disruption when the most important thing needed is readily accessible information. Once this information is documented, it’s essential that the people tasked with responding are informed and trained.

Running a business comes with inherent risks. Business leaders taking on this risk own it by taking steps to proactively insulate their growth and operations from unpredictable and unplanned events. Having a business continuity plan is one of those steps.

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Overcoming uncertainty in your event marketing channel

Overcoming uncertainty in your event marketing channel

The dramatic shift in the meetings and events industry put even the most seasoned marketers on their heels. It’s a new landscape, but one with much more potential. So, if your marketing mix doesn’t include meetings or events, you’re missing a more complete channel to deliver deep engagement while also reaching large audiences. Still, with uncertainty comes challenges. From in-person, virtual, and hybrid events—the key to success is to have a marketing game plan to take advantage of all these event types, and that requires a new way of thinking.

Uncertainty continues but with it new comes opportunities

The new events landscape continues to have the word “uncertainty” attached to it. A fact of life due to the pandemic, and the variants that continue to surface. However, this means the events channel has expanded for marketers and another word is surfacing alongside the “U Word,” and that is: asynchronous. Or, simply put, an “always on event.”

The digital boom, driven by the need for virtual and hybrid experiences, drove this concept. Thinking of events like a 24-hour news channel is a seismic shift in thinking for marketers—but not a bad one. Event technology now provides an opportunity for marketers to extend and deepen the in-person and virtual attendee experience and engage attendees with more fluidity before, during, and after events. No more one-and-done, move onto the next. Your events can now deliver for you weeks, and even months after they’re “over.”

Break down silos & strengthen internal partnerships

When it comes to events, perhaps no other marketing channel was more impacted by the pandemic than events. When in-person events suddenly stopped, organizations were forced to innovate to survive. It was survival of the fittest, with evolution taking place in real time. Not only did organizations adapt brilliantly, they arguably changed the face of event marketing forever. And the days of planners and marketers working in silos, is over.

Here are a few reasons why:

  • More organizations say that demand marketing is responsible for setting event strategy
  • In-person events are now more digitally connected
  • Successful events are now the result of marketers and planners working hand-in-hand to deliver dynamic, engaging event experiences

Taking advantage of the new event marketing opportunity demands marketers align strategy, technology, and teams to deliver the right event format (virtual, in- person, hybrid) for the right event type (events, conferences, meetings, seminars, training, etc.) for the right audience, at the right stage along the customer journey. And that means collaboration.

A new way of thinking

With uncertainly comes the reflexive action to doing things “the way we’ve always done them.” For marketers in 2022 and beyond, this is no longer a strategy for success. In fact, for many it’s likely a recipe for failure. To thrive, marketers must fold virtual and hybrid experiences into the existing in-person event marketing channel.

This shouldn’t be viewed as a burden, but as a benefit; virtual and hybrid events enhance marketers’ opportunity to reach and engage new and larger audiences, increase brand awareness and engagement, deliver more insights and, ultimately, drive revenue. Building a programmatic events channel requires reimagining traditional roles, removing silos, standardizing processes, incorporating dynamic data, and streamlining technology across the entire marketing function.

The result? Year-round engagement

Marketers spend a lot of time preparing for their events, and with this new digital landscape, planners and marketers have a great way to extend the conversation beyond a single event. All the hard work they have invested isn’t just condensed into two or three days. While nothing can beat in-person, increasingly, marketers should strive for creating communities around events. Before, during, and after. Tech makes that happen.

From pre-event conversation huddles to post-event experiences, like watching sessions they may have missed on-demand or re-watching and sharing their favorite keynotes and educational sessions—”always on” is boon to marketers from a lead generation standpoint. It greatly extends reach.  Sure, pre and post-event engagement isn’t necessarily new, but is now both easier and more impactful.

To learn more about this topic, we encourage you to visit Cvent’s interactive hub on the New Event Marketing Opportunity.

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World events, time change and anger piling on pandemic pressures

World events, time change and anger piling on pandemic pressures






Chuck Norris

Chuck Norris


Don’t care much for the constant mid-March ritual of moving our clocks ahead one hour? According to Beth Ann Malow, a professor of neurology and pediatrics at Vanderbilt University, 63% of Americans would like to see it eliminated.

The thing is, daylight saving time represents much more than a disruption to daily routines. Given the stresses heaped upon us in our world of uncertainties, it could be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

“Beyond simple inconvenience,” writes Malow on TheConversation.com, “Researchers are discovering that ‘springing ahead’ each March is connected with serious negative health effects.”

“In a 2020 commentary for the journal JAMA Neurology, my co-authors and I reviewed the evidence linking the annual transition to daylight saving time to increased strokes, heart attacks and teen sleep deprivation,” she says.

A separate post on TheConversation.com co-authored by Deepa Burman, co-director of the Pediatric Sleep Evaluation Center at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, and Hiren Muzumdar, director of the Pediatric Sleep Evaluation Center, notes that sleep deprivation can result in increases of workplace injuries and automobile accidents. One individual’s sleep deprivation can affect an entire family.

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“You may notice more frequent meltdowns, irritability and loss of attention and focus,” they say.

I wonder, could uncontrolled anger be far behind?

Now, watching a devastating war unfold on social media is also hammering away at our collective mental health. We’re all being heightened by graphic and disturbing images that fill our feeds, writes Time magazine reporter Jamie Ducharme.

“Tracking up-to-the-minute developments can come at a cost. … Footage and photos from Ukraine flooding social media and misinformation spreading rampantly (has) implications for public health,” she reports.

It has long been the responsibility of traditional media outlets for editors to decide which content is too graphic to show, or to label disturbing images with warnings. As pointed out by Roxane Cohen Silver, a professor of psychological science at the University of California, Irvine, today anyone “can take pictures and videos and immediately distribute that (on social media) without warning, potentially without thinking about it.”

Jason Steinhauer, founder of the History Communication Institute, says, “Russia has been waging a social media and misinformation war for the past 10 to 12 years.” This has only gotten worse since its invasion of Ukraine.

We should not be surprised at all that studies now suggest that news coverage of the pandemic has contributed to our mental distress. “Adding yet another difficult topic to the mix can worsen those feelings,” Cohen Silver says.

Yet the war is hardly the only attack on our senses. At a time when we are most vulnerable, the Federal Trade Commission reports that predatory fraudsters bilked consumers of an estimated $5.8 billion last year. According to the agency, it represents a 70% increase over 2020. “Almost 2.8 million people filed a fraud complaint, an annual record” and “the highest number on record dating back to 2001,” reports the FTC. “Imposter scams were most prevalent, but investment scams cost the typical victim the most money.”

“Those figures also don’t include reports of identity theft and other categories,” the report points out. “More than 1.4 million Americans also reported being a victim of identity theft in 2021; another 1.5 million filed complaints related to ‘other’ categories (including credit reporting companies failing to investigate disputed information, or debt collectors falsely representing the amount or status of debt).”

The mounting stresses placed upon us are now posing a threat to not just our mental and financial health but our physical well-being.

According to a working paper from researchers at the Naval Postgraduate School and the University of Pennsylvania, “In 2020, the risk of outdoor street crimes initially rose by more than 40% and was consistently between 10-15% higher than it had been in 2019 through the remainder of the year.” Researchers also believe that the finding “points to the potential for other crimes to surge the way homicides have as cities reopen and people return to the streets,” says the report.

Adds Megan McArdle commenting on the report in an op-ed for the Washington Post, “community trust in the police might have plummeted, possibly making people more likely to settle scores on their own. Or police might have reacted to public anger by pulling back from active policing, creating more opportunities for crime.”

Hans Steiner is a professor emeritus of Stanford’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences who has logged decades of work studying anger and aggression. In an interview posted on the Stanford University website, he says he believes that “the coronavirus pandemic, with its extreme disruption of normal daily life and uncertainty for the future, compounded by several other crises (economic distress, racial tension, social inequities, political and ideological conflicts) puts us all to the test: we find ourselves immersed in a pool of negative emotions: fear, sadness, contempt, and yes, anger. What do we do with this forceful emotion?”

“Anger signals that we are being threatened, injured, deprived, robbed of rewards and expectancies,” Steiner says. It should be “one of our adaptive tools to deal with the most difficult circumstances. Sometimes it becomes an obstacle to our struggles, especially when it derails into aggression and even violence.”

Anger problems are now spilling over into record accounts of hate crimes. It seems that today’s circumstances, with anger management and rule of law seemingly at an all-time low, have caused many individuals to become ticking time bombs. Reports CBS News, “the total number of hate crimes nationwide has increased every year but one since 2014, according to FBI data, which includes statistics through 2020.”

Steiner says that “maladaptive anger and aggression has the following characteristics: 1. It arises without any trigger, seemingly out of the blue; 2. it is disproportionate to its trigger in its frequency, intensity, duration and strength; 3. it does not subside after the offending person has apologized; 4. it occurs in a social context which does not sanction anger and aggression.”

Who among us has not seen or maybe even experienced some, maybe all, of these behavior characteristics?

“In such conflicts we need to remind ourselves that diatribes, lies and accusations will not move us forward; compassion, empathy and the reminder that we are all in this horrible situation together (needs to) inspire us,” Steiner advises.

Write to Chuck Norris at info@creators.com with questions about health and fitness.