Awareness of the worst that could happen
July 2, 2010

One of the presentations we've delivered to conferences and meetings is about the subject of institutional memory. The idea behind the discussion is that a lot of what we "know" is stuck inside our heads and never makes it to paper anywhere like it should. That practice of recording knowledge is important both as people naturally cycle into and out of an organization, but also in case something acute happens -- like a natural disaster. While we're dealing with flood waters in Des Moines, northwestern Iowa is cleaning up from an EF4 tornado that hit on June 25th. The only stronger tornado in recent memory in Iowa was the EF5 tornado that hit Parkersburg in 2008. Part of our presentation suggests finding ways to locate backup copies of critical data and records far off-site -- literally, 100 miles away or farther. There's no way to know in advance that this might be the month your facility is going to be hit by a catastrophic event; better to plan ahead than to be left confused and record-less while trying to pick up the pieces.

July 2010
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last revised July 2010