Business continuity quotations

We received over 300 entries for our recent business continuity quotations competition and there was a complete mix of the wise and the quirky; the mundane and the surreal.

Noah seems to be the hero of many business continuity planners: with more quotes mentioning him and his ark than any other single subject.

Other business continuity quotations stars were:

* Dwight D Eisenhower, with eight people providing variations of his statement “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

* Alan Lakein, whose “Failing to plan is planning to fail”, was submitted by five people, although only one of these could actually identify Mr. Lakein as the author of the quote.

* Yoda, of ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ fame. When asked to raise his sunken starfighter from the Dagobah swamps with the power of his mind alone, Luke tells Yoda that he would try. In his Jedi wisdom Yoda responds: “No, try not. Do or do not. There is no try.”

* Albert Einstein: nine people supplied various Einstein quotes.

* George Paton was another popular choice, with six separate submissions.

* Finally, a special mention for UK business continuity consultant Mel Gosling, who submitted six original and thought-provoking quotes of his own creation.

To read the full list as a PDF sorted alphabetically by subject, click here

To read the list sorted by author, click here

The competition was judged by Mike Bemis, CEO of the sponsoring company, Voice Continuity Services and David Honour, editor of Continuity Central. This turned out to be an almost impossible task, but the final decision was as follows:

First place
Melissa Wratten
Utica National Insurance Group
New Hartford, NY

“Court disaster long enough and it will accept your proposal.”
Quote attributed to: Mason Cooley

Congratulations Melissa! A Video IPOD is winging its way to you.

Second place
Gerry Richardson
Chelmsford Borough Council
Chelmsford, Essex

“If you can’t look after your customers, it’s certain that your competitors will”
Quote attributed to: Unknown

Third place
Kimberly Lucero
Reuters

“You don’t need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice!”
Quote attributed to: Unknown

Fourth place
Karen Jones
Enterprise Data, Australia

Quote: “Just because the river is quiet does not mean the crocodiles have left.”
Quote attributed to: Malay proverb

AND, a special mention for effort to the following poem by Stuart Young:

The Business Continuity practitioners lament

Oh God please, don’t let it happen yet,
Because my business continuity objectives are not met.
I meant to have it done and put to bed,
But all I have is a Millennium plan that was never read.

The chief execs won’t understand or care,
Until their world looks like a pear.
And then they’ll shout and rant and groan:
“Where’s my plan, the press are on the phone”

And we will smile and gently say,
The time has passed to go our way.
A BC plan is what you needed,
Our strained voices were never heeded.

We tried and tried for a BIA.
But the managers did not join the fray.
Other priorities are on their mind.
To achieve great things for mankind.

Forgotten were mere resilience matters,
To keep the business from going to tatters.
When circumstance beyond all control
Conspire to send our business down a hole,
Please spend some time to think it through
So in advance you know what to do.
We wore our fingers to the bone.

You didn’t listen, YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN !

•Date: 17th November 2006• Region: World •Type: Article •Topic: BC general
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