how teaching your children how to read yourself? i know i know, impossible.

“Has your organization instituted a plan for business continuity in the event of a major disaster, such as bird flu or a hurricane, during which key workers would be forced to remain at home or become unable to meet in one place?”

We recently received an email with the polling question above from a Genesys Conferencing email marketing campaign about “Business continuity in the event of a major disaster.” We think it’s about high time conferencing and collaboration companies began doing their calamity marketing before a tragedy happens. Either bird flu, another hurricane, and yes, let’s say it - terrorist events with nuclear, biological, and chemical means - will sadly befall us at some point. And there will be a spate of conferencing companies in the aftermath of the calamity providing temporarily “free” service to people in the afflicted area, which everyone knows is a way to promote their product or service, nothwithstanding some good intentions behind the offer.

We like this Genesys email campaign in terms of confronting the business realities of the precarious world in which we live. Some could suggest a tinge of fear mongering, but if you’re reading the newspaper everyday, you’ll agree it’s really not.

Even Wall Street should view some conferencing companies - with good management teams and technologies - as good investments in times of potential calamities caused by sick birds and dirty bombs.

It is normal in tornado alley where I live to have a few days’ stock on hand for living without power or water, something like the ‘couple extra cans of tuna’ recipe. If it were necessary or if it were recommended by our gov’t, I am sure most households could get by for a short time without mixing and mingling. However, if you recall, recently in asia, face masks became the fashion of the day [SARS, as I recall].

A pandemic isn’t an unmanageable event, but using it as a threat is something to be feared - and the fortunes to be made by certain pharmaceutical firms seem to me to be more the object of spreading panic than any public interest.

As the doctor above says, we have improved medical care greatly since 1918. But…people still die from disease. Telling everyone to stay home and learn and work and do everything remotely is not going to change that.

I’m still thinking, big does of tamiflu for everyone, and then forget about it.

I’m reading John Barry’s “The Great Influenza” which is about the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. Certainly, our medical knowledge has increased and treatment has progressed to help treat the acute respiratory failure. But this would require an investment in many, many mechanical ventilators, and the skilled health care providers to manage these patient cases. The burden on the the health care system should be the biggest concern in case the present avian flu strain mutates into a human pathogen capable of producing a pandemic.

There’s interesting research comparing the 1918 strain to the H5N1 virus that killed a Vietnamese boy during the current outbreak. They’re very similar. http://billkosloskymd.typepad.com/lexicillin_qd/2006/03/preposed_critic.html

Is avian flu just a story-du-jour that has metastastized?

It certainly looks that way from my seat.

At a minimum, people need to think and consider “What if?” and do baseline preparations. Curiously, I did a post (Web 2.0, You and the Bird Flu) about this just the other day since I’ve been thinking about the fact that most people I know are giving zero thought to it. Also, morbid as it sounds the need — and the possible opportunity — that will be manifested in the internet and Web applications is real.

Shorting Starbucks? Yep. How about restaurant chains? Airlines? There will be many affected businesses…hell, maybe all business since people will knee-jerk and just stay home (and home schooling will expand no doubt).

After 9/11, a customer of the company I was at (Vignette) had a major airline customer that was HAMMERED by millions upon millions of page views in the 24 hours after. Other customers had the same issue. Imagine the flu hits and hundreds of thousands decide to collaborate using Writely or Foldera? Setup new blogs to communicate with family, friends, clients and those employees refusing to come to work?

Will these companies (or yours, for that matter) scale to handle the demand?

If you really want to deal with bird flu, get everyone a good dose of Tamiflu, and have them put in the fridge, It lasts about five years. That’s much cheaper than reorganizing every social and civic system to be remote.

Bush and those who control this cheerleading cowboy sock puppet of a president; know that FEAR, SUSPICION, and HATRED ARE THE SUREST AVENUES TO POLITICAL POWER.

They know when the American people, in their blind, naive, stupid, or foolish trust, are directed to SUSPECT, then HATE someone or something; because they have become convinced they are THREATENED by that someone or something, and thus FEAR for their SECURITY from that someone or something…the power of the government becomes almost invincible.

It was not an accident that the Republicans lost the election in 1992. They lost the White House because the Soviet Union was no longer a credible THREAT, and the GOP no longer had the ability to make us HATE and FEAR the Russians.

New enemies needed to be found-Terrorists, Cultures, Races, And Religions Different Than Ours, Diseases, Those Who Do Not Share Our Beliefs, and Even Each Other. While the real THREAT TO FEAR is the same as it has always been, the global feudal elite– the few who have always commanded and controlled the many; for the sake of power and money to fuel their greed and conceit.

Since 9.11.2001, they have been able to manipulate or invent many things to fill our FEAR void. We are once again AFRAID, and thus looking to these inept and lying politicians to become our SECURITY blanket, to protect us from these perceived evils they have projected into our minds.

Beware. Have courage. Think for yourself. Don’t just look. See! Fear the G.O.P. and their religious power base, because of the fear they project into your life. Vote whenever you can against their techniques of fear. Make sure your vote is counted correctly.

Orson Welles caused a panic with War Of The Worlds, imagine a panic that could be created with War Of The Birds.

Would this lead to abuse by governments or suppression of legitimate news? Would this be the chance that old-media editors have been waiting for to shut down internet news?