Gamification is the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts. Today on the podcast, we’re talking with James MacDonnell - Director, Crisis Management and Business Continuity at BDO USA. James is a risk management, business continuity, and crisis management professional with more than 18 years of experience helping Fortune 100 clients and federal agencies prepare for and respond to crises and emerging risks. But what he’s especially good at is developing ways to gamify business continuity activities. You’re going to want to hear how it works and the benefits it has brought to many programs. And you’ll even get to hear my experience of gamifying my BIA collection.

Industry Groups are an essential part of any profession. They allow practitioners and thought leaders to share knowledge and generate ideas with their colleagues in a collaborative setting. However, a new generation is making up an increasingly large percentage of the workforce — one that brings with it new priorities and ideas that don’t necessarily fit the mold of current formats. This week on the podcast, we’re going to explore the impact that the next generation of professionals are having on the business continuity industry.

In this episode of the podcast, we’re talking with Michael Crooymans, the Global Resilience Officer for Signify (previously known as Philips Lighting). His current focus is establishing and implementing the Global Resilience program which focuses on improving the maturity of Business Continuity and crisis/major incident management in the organization. However, he’s also well known for his considerable efforts in building the business continuity professional practices through his volunteering. We will get to hear how he's applied that work into his professional life.

In this 2 part series on the podcast, we are going to hear from both the Crisis Manager directly liaising with the government, and also the person who experienced it directly. Both of these individuals were exposed to the same crisis, a kidnapping event, but from two very different perspectives. One having to deal with it from outside, the other one from inside.

So this week on the podcast we’re holding the first of hopefully several round table discussions with some well known voices within business continuity. Today's  conversation explores how COVID has changed many BC professional’s worldviews as inspired many to question how the industry will need to address various parts of the profession as we move forward.

This week on the podcast, we’re going to speak with a practitioner who faced the challenge of needing a BIA tool. But when she saw that a BC software wasn’t in the cards, she created her own! We’re speaking with Michelle Marx, who is the Resilience and Business Continuity Manager at Transport for London.  Michelle’s recently unveiled her latest version of her homegrown BIA tool, which is powered by Microsoft’s Power Apps - an off-the-shelf tool many companies use to create homegrown applications for their teams. We get to understand her development process and see if this is something others may wish to explore further for their own programs.

We're returning to one more old episode because of the HUGE interest it generated. On this week's show, Shane interviews John Hill, a seasoned consultant with over 20 years of experience in Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity. John has found a great way to address the consistent appearance of process issues when preparing organizations for regulatory examinations. John integrated the concept of continuous improvement concepts into his BC programs and has lots of stories about how this work has enabled him to create value with leadership. John demonstrates that by using the information he gathered during a BIA or plan development, he was able to improve the efficiency of his organization’s business processes with big results.

We're revisiting the episode that started it all! It remains our number 1 downloaded episode because it contains SO many tips on creating BCM engagement, its worth a re-listen. We talk with Scott Baldwin, a BCM program leader who has started several programs in Silicon Valley (Netflix, Ebay, Charles Schwab, Symantec) in his career. Scott has found some unique way to keep things fresh. We’re learn more about his approach to not only starting a program, but how he keeps the organization engaged through simple things like a decentralized BCM certification program.

People tend to find comfort in certain books, and reading habits and genre preferences can change during periods of stress. So what books would be valuable to discover, or rediscover as a Business Continuity professional during this year? We talk with Eric Anez, the Global Head of Business Resilience at Finastra, a financial technology company based in London. Quarterly, Erick has been releasing his recommendations for books that he’s read that has influenced his journey as a professional and a BC leader. So I asked him to join our show and share his recommendations for the top 10 books he’d recommend to our BC practitioners and listeners hoping to improve their professional journey.

For young professionals in the business continuity field, developing a personal brand might sound challenging. This week, we talk with Luke Bird, FBCI CRISC. Since his career began, he developed his personal brand within Business Continuity by writing and networking with many other international professionals. His writing led to becoming a self published author of "BlueyedBC – Business Continuity for Junior Professionals" and most recently, becoming elected as a Director to the Business Continuity Institute’s Global Board. And we’re going to talk with him about how he developed a personal brand within our field.