Welcome to Andy Osborne's blog site. Andy (known as Oz to friends and colleagues) is the Consultancy Director at Acumen, a consultancy practice specialising in business continuity, risk and crisis management. Andy is the author of three books 'Practical Business Continuity Management', ...
Oz’s Blog is written by Andy Osborne, the Consultancy Director at Acumen (click on the 'About Andy Osborne (Oz)' tab for more info). You’ll probably notice quite quickly that Andy’s blogs, as with most of the other stuff that he writes, ...
My favourite room at Chez Oz at the moment is the downstairs cloakroom (I refrained from using the word loo, as in the title, lest you think me common). I've spent a serious amount of time in there recently. Not ...
This is a tale from the mists of time; from days of yore when it was difficult to get people interested in business continuity management and even more difficult to secure their involvement in exercises and tests (OK, in fairness, ...
A few weeks ago I took delivery of a shiny new car. So you don't think I'm showing off, or that I've won the lottery, I should perhaps explain that the previous vehicle was well over four years old and had ...
Well done to everyone who entered my Christmas competition. It was a close-run thing, but congratulations go to Penny in London, who won the first prize of a year's subscription to Audible (audio books), and to Christine in Ashby and Denise in Birmingham, who ...
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 ...
Christmas comes but once a year, and so does my Christmas competition. This year's fabulous prizes are a years's subscription to Audible (giving the winner twelve free audio books) and copies of my new e-book, a compendium of my blogs to date (which ...
As you may be aware - particularly if I, or my co-conspirators, bombarded you with information about it in my shameless quest for votes - I was recently nominated for an award. I feel duty bound to tell you that it was ...
A somewhat belated happy new year! The Christmas competition draw has taken place (ably assisted once again by Barney the spaniel) and the winners have been notified. A shiny new Kindle Fire is currently winging its way to the winner, Ed in Manchester ...
It’s competition time! The fabulous prizes this year are a Kindle Fire for the winner and one of my books each for two runners-up. Quite similar to last year, admittedly but, nevertheless, still fabulous! As you may already know if you've read the prelude, the ...
It's almost that time of year again and, due to the success of last year's Christmas competition I've decided to do it again this year. Interested? Excited even? Then read on... The lucky winner will receive a Kindle Fire! Runners-up will ...
Barney fans need fret no longer. He's here again. For those of you who aren't familiar with Barney, he's the fifth member of the Oz household - a two-and-a-bit-year-old Field Spaniel (not a Springer!). And for those of you who've read ...
Day 1 - On the road Here we are again. More precisely, here we are at a greasy spoon cafe on the way to Wales. It's 10:30 and Chris and I have just arrived. Mark B, Phil, Mike N and Dave ...
Long-standing readers a) need to be congratulated on your staying power and b) might remember that this time last year I completely ignored the fact that my blogs are supposed to be about business continuity management and gave a blow-by-blow account ...
Happy new year! The Christmas competition is now closed, the draw has taken place (ably assisted by Barney) and the winners have been notified. A shiny new Kindle is winging its way to Sarah in Nottingham and copies of my books are ...
Seeing as it's Christmas I thought I'd give my readers the chance of a Christmas treat. So this time, rather than reading my latest words of wisdom, here's a little competition for you. There are some fabulous prizes at stake ...
In a few of my previous blogs ('Fit for the job?', 'In the limelight', 'Mid-life crisis management' and 'A team effort') I’ve mentioned that I’m a re-invigorated hockey player, having been dragged kicking and screaming back into the sport by my sons ...
At the weekend I bought a new toy and I've spent the last couple of days playing with it. The 'toy' in question is a chainsaw. Unlike other midlife crisis sufferers, I have no desire to buy a motorbike or a ...
In something of a diversion from my more usual fortnightly(ish) blog, which purports to be business continuity-related, this weekend I thought I'd give you an insight into the pressure cooker of the Abersoch Open golf tournament. For this blog only, there ...
Just before Christmas, as a result of some rather inclement weather, England was closed for a few days. It happens pretty much every year, as soon as we get more than a millimeter of snow, and this time we had about 20 ...
My mid-life crisis, which has been bubbling away for a while now, took a serious turn for the worse recently. I was gutted to be asked to play for the veterans team at my hockey club. Some people's mid-life crises manifest ...
My last but one blog ("A bit of a Barney”) featured our new puppy, Barney. He’s now had his various inoculations and is able to venture out into the world and a couple of weeks ago he spent his first day ...
I’ve recently returned to work after a two-week holiday – at least I think it was a holiday as it was extremely busy, for reasons that I’ll explain. We decided not to go away this summer and opted to spend the ...
In recent months I’ve rediscovered the Telegraph crossword – that’s the daily cryptic crossword, not the fiendishly difficult “Toughie” which is just impossible for a mere mortal like me. I used to do the Telegraph crossword years ago, after my mother-in-law ...
You’ve probably noticed that the general level of business continuity awareness has grown in recent times - which is good news. But it probably means that your customers, prospects, business partners, investors or other stakeholders are increasingly taking an interest ...
