Ok, a little silliness, but I am headed to Spring DRJ in Orlando and I have Disney on the mind!

So what am I talking about?  The Magic Quadrant for EMNS recently released by our friends at Gartner.

The release of the MQ naturally creates buzz in the space and folks have asked me “why isn’t xMatters in the MQ?”.   Great question!  It’s simple really, we chose not to participate!  Why would you do that, you are asking?

Here’s the thing, Gartner’s MQ for EMNS is a valuable survey for understanding the baseline requirements that any mass notification solution should possess.   You should be able to send a lot messages, really fast, we get that.  You should have multiple datacenters, with high levels of encryption, we get that too.   And any vendor in the MQ can do that, as well as most of the other 45+ that weren’t evaluated in the MQ!   But what really differentiates the leaders identified in the MQ?  Can you evaluate Notification vendors purely on their throughput, number of datacenters, number of acronyms?   You bet those are important and cannot be overlooked, but is that enough???

·         How effectively are they communicating those messages?

·         Are they delivering the right content?

·         Are they ensuring that content gets to the right person?

·         Are there controls in place to ensure the wrong information is not sent out creating more panic/chaos?

·         Can messaging be tightly aligned with the business process?

The focus of the survey is geared towards the standalone Notification solutions and the criterion is all around a message being sent fast. 

We believe that technology should guide the user to send the right information.

We believe that the information sent should be relevant to that person, at that moment.

We believe that each client is unique.

We believe that each message is unique.

We do not believe that “just sending word now” is the right approach.

It has to be the right word, to the right person when they need it so they can act.  We know we’re rebellious but it’s only because we believe passionately in servicing our clients’ needs.   For us participating in the MQ was a distraction, the time and resources involved to respond the survey would have pulled us away from creating the exciting new offerings we will be showcasing at Spring DRJ in Orlando.   But you know, maybe we’ll have extra time next go round.

So let me step down from the soapbox now and check into getting those Disneyworld tickets!

Lance Stange

I just wrapped up a great week at Gartner's Security and Risk Summit in Washington D.C.  My primary focus was the Business Continuity Management track with some dabbling in the Risk Management and Security tracks as well.  Overall, the event was great with lots of educuation, networking, and discussion opportunities.

For those of you who couldn't make it, I grabbed some tweetbites (if that's not a real word, I hereby lay claim to it) from the social media stream of the event that capture the core themes of the sessions that I was interested in:

Day 1 - Picking BCM consultants with Roberta Witty and John Morency, Key risk indicators with Paul Proctor, Security risk & crisis management with former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff,

Day 2 - BCM standards comparison with Donald Byrne, Reportrisk to the board with Paul Proctor, Social Media security and privacy with Marne E. Gordon, Social software and recovery with Roberta Witty and Andrew Walls, iPad data safety with John Girard, Uptime all the time with Donna Scott, Emergency mass notification servics with John Girard and Jeff Vining

Day 3 - CFO's impact on technology investment decisions with John E. Van Decker, Domestic homeland terrorism threat with Mark Giuliano (AD counterterrorism at FBI), Modernizing recovery into resilience with Donna Scott and John Morency, Mobile technologies in disaster recovery with John Girard, and keynote with David Pogue

Day 4 - Preparing for planetary defense with Col. Lindley Johnson and the closing keynote.

All the sessions at the event were recorded and should be available for viewing at some point soon (check with Gartner for details) so if you couldn't make it, catch some of the content via replay.

I look forward to the next event!

Abbas.