[AusNOG] After Sandy Knocks Out Power, ... (huffingtonpost.com)

[Ryan Crouch]

I couldn't agree more with this point that Matt has made.



When I think back to January 2011 and the Brisbane floods I know of a
number of staff from some organisations helped others from their
competition whom were in strife in some way or another. Most technical
staff do drop the competition boundaries a bit faster but we also had staff
from all other parts of the businesses helping too. This was a heartening
sign to see and made me a little bit proud of the Brisbane community. There
were also staff providing communication on behalf of other organisations
outside the official channels which allowed many people to pre-empt
problematic power/buildings/connectivity etc.



If people are informed they are far more understanding (and in many cases
willing to help) especially in the event of natural disasters.



I know we had to take a couple of steps to entirely re-route/reconfigure
customer connectivity given the circumstances and those customer's end up
being the most loyal.



All DR/contingency planning aside, It's really all just about communication
and making the best decisions possible in the heat of the moment given the
circumstances.



Ryan





*From:* ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net [mailto:
ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] *On Behalf Of *Matt Perkins
*Sent:* Friday, 2 November 2012 1:38 PM
*To:* ausnog at lists.ausnog.net
*Subject:* Re: [AusNOG] After Sandy Knocks Out Power, ... (
huffingtonpost.com)



To my mind the win by these guys is not that they were or were prepared for
every occurrence or that they did what needed to be done to keep it on
line. All admirable. But the real win here was that they keep the
communication lines open with their customers.

 There was no ducking and weaving the problem. The end result was they
communicated the situation and that allowed some customers to help (in the
way of providing the bucket brigade).  The lesson we can all learn here and
i have said it before. Communicate with your customers. Dont Lie. Dont
cover up. Unless you have been grossly negligent being transparent and
giving the customers good timely information they will normaly forgive you.

Matt.
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