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Showing posts from February, 2011

The Perfect Storm: How a Combination of Random Events can lead to Disaster

No, this post isn't about that Wolfgang Peterson & George Clooney movie but it does borrow from the concept in a business sense. This week we skirted close to disaster but the rest of the business was completely oblivious to the danger. I wasn't worried, it was all under control but my boss said to me later, "we nearly had the perfect storm today". I thought about his words and realised that he was right. I was wondering just how many times we, and other businesses nearly have the perfect storm and don't even realise. What is a Perfect Storm? In the book and movie of "The Perfect Storm", the storm wasn't a cyclone or any kind of normal severe storm event. It was just a normal storm in which several other conditions were perfect. It's simply the combination of several unlikely events which results in disaster. Our Experience Factor 1: Backup This week we've struggled a bit with backup. We had a faulty tape which meant that we missed o

IBM Celebrations at Packt Publishing (20% off)

In case you've missed it, Packt Publishing is holding an IBM Tuesday celebration because; They're publishing four IBM books on the same day IBM is turning 100 this year. To celebrate, they've got 20% off IBM books for the entire month of February. Go here to read all about IBM Tuesday. It doesn't end there though because they've got a competition which is drawn on the Tuesday of each week, the prize for which is a years subscription to PacktLib, their online library.