Barney has a new friend. When I say friend, it’s more of an enforced acquaintance. A bit like that weird cousin or creepy family friend who’s clearly a bit dodgy but we’ve had to tolerate and pretend to like so ...
Last week my car tax came due for renewal. A simple enough operation, one would assume, particularly as, these days, it can be done online from the comfort of one's home. If only! Two weeks previously, the car had its MOT ...
As you may know (I think I might have mentioned it a couple of times!), the beginning of February saw the official launch of my new book Practical Business Continuity Management 2, marked by an online get-together of around thirty ...
I don’t get out much these days. Global pandemics tend to curtail one's business travel, I find. Which is unfortunate for a couple of reasons, aside from the obvious one that pandemics can be bad for your health. Firstly it ...
A couple of blogs ago (see ‘It’s all geek to me’) I mentioned the fact that I’m not, shall we say, totally wedded to technology, at least not for technology’s sake. In that blog I also mentioned that I’m an aficionado of ...
Last year I had ‘one of those’ train journeys. I suppose it’s only to be expected when you’re travelling on a third world rail system. Like the one we have in the UK, for instance. Many of you will, I'm sure, have ...
Well, here I am in Vegas after a long, slightly delayed but otherwise uneventful flight. After the standard cheery greeting at border control I wandered out into the Nevada sunshine and got a taxi to my hotel. The driver asked what ...
This is a very difficult blog for me to write and it pains me to do so, but some of you have been with me for several years now so I feel able to confide in you. I'm devastated. And the reason is ...
I spent much of my time over the past few weeks in my own little world, largely oblivious to everything going on around me. No change there, some might say, but on this occasion I have an excuse. A small problem ...
I recently had the misfortune to have to book a doctor's appointment. Nothing serious, I hasten to add, just a minor ear-related inconvenience, but it did warrant seeing someone slightly more medically qualified than the one current and one lapsed ...
I started writing this blog absolutely ages ago, as a continuation of the story in ‘Time off in loo’. I've just stumbled across it languishing forgotten and forlorn in my drafts folder, so I thought I should do the decent ...
They say that pride comes before a fall so perhaps I only have myself to blame. In my last blog I expressed my pleasure at taking delivery of a shiny new car (see "Pressure tested"), and very nice it is too. ...
In our family there's a phenomenon known as the "Thomas goodbye". Thomas is Mrs Oz's maiden name and the Thomas goodbye pretty much applies to everyone on that side of the family, whether or not they've changed their surnames through ...
On Friday I presented a webinar, on scenario-based exercising, as part of the Business Continuity Institute's Business Continuity Awareness Week. And I have to tell you, it was one of the most nerve-wracking things I've done for a long time. Which ...
Last week I went on a trip to Germany with a colleague. I’ll call him Ian – mainly because that’s his name. I’ve known him for almost as long as I’ve been involved in business continuity management and we’ve worked ...
It may not have escaped your notice but I quite like writing. I like reading too, although with everything else vying for my attention, I don't get nearly enough time to read for pleasure. On the writing front, I blog when I can, ...
Yesterday I had what could, quite literally, be described as a moment in the spotlight, when I was filmed for an e-book version of my book “Risk Management Simplified”. A film crew (well, two people at any rate) turned up at ...
This year we thought we’d do our bit for the local community by agreeing to take a teenager from a local school on a week’s work experience. We went through the assessment process, were accepted and waited with, I have ...
A colleague and I recently facilitated a business continuity workshop for a client in Cambridge. It was scheduled to start at 9.30am so we arranged to meet at the client’s offices at 8.45 to set up. Because the journey can be ...
Last week I was in the Alsace region of France (a very nice part of the world I must say), conducting a business continuity health check for a client. I’m pleased to say it all went very well but there ...
A few weeks ago Acumen moved to a new office. It’s in a multi-tenanted building on a business park on the outskirts of Evesham in Worcestershire. And very nice it is too. The other night I left the office quite late ...
In the last week or two I've entered the wonderful world of social media - or more specifically the world of LinkedIn, Twitter and now blogging. Whilst this wasn’t quite my first foray into the phenomenon of social media – I’ve ...
