The past 6 weeks or so have been quite surreal for us, and I guess for you too. Yesterday we went shopping, leaving our property for the first time since our shopping expedition a week before NZ went into "level 4" lockdown. As of a couple of days ago, we're now at "level 3". Don't ask me what the differences are between the levels, nor what levels 2, 1 and 0 might look like. All I know is that it was a relief to see other people out and about, most of us making obvious efforts to keep our distance. The new normal isn't so bad as I imagined, certainly nothing like a zombie apocalypse or police state. Those 6 weeks blurred into one. At some point I stopped counting up and blogging about the passing days ... and eventually started counting down to the end of "level 4", or more importantly the impending exhaustion of some of our most essential supplies: coffee, wine and chocolate. Some valuable lessons there for when we replenish our "earthq...

There's a slew of social media posts promoting business continuity management, resilience, ISO 22301 and the like, right now, during COVID-19.  That's like promoting birth control to a family of twenty. It's 20-20 hindsight. Now is the time to promote the planning and preparations needed to cope with the aftermath of COVID-19, taking account of things such as: Lingering uncertainties/doubts about business, the economy, life, health, management and workforce capabilities/competence, supply chains ... whatever  Inertia - the additional effort needed to spin-up to normal speeds after the go-slow  Low morale resulting from isolation depression, sickness, stress, over-work  etc . Lack of motivation to 'get back into the swing of things' as if nothing happened Various adjustments to the new working, home and social life Coping with losses of all sorts (money, people, jobs, opportunities ...) Realisation (for some) that working from home beats working from work Familial, c...

These are the headline metrics noted by the NZ Ministry of Health : Confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 The number of people who have recovered How many people are (and have been) in hospital Cases by District Health Board, and by age and gender. The metrics are updated daily and reported dutifully by the NZ news media, but what use are they, in fact? What information and knowledge can we glean from the data?  Here is the current summary (snapshot at 7am on April 2nd):  There are no detailed definitions of these data, and my beady eye spots little differences, for example whereas the headline says "how many people are (and have been) in hospital", the data actually provided are "Number of cases in hospital" showing the "Total to date" and "New in last 24 hours". If this is a cumulative total of the number of COVID-19 cases admitted to hospital each day, are they just the "confirmed" cases or does that include the "probables...