Games are essential to our human experience and they form a part of every culture.

Defined as structured activities undertaken for fun, games are more and more being used as educational tools. By making aspects of education and work fun through games, attention and retention among participants can be greatly enhanced. The defense industry has understood this for many years — investing heavily in gaming software to enhance soldier training.

Business continuity professionals can now use a new and unique tool to reinvigorate  readiness exercises.

Disaster games can provide the missing link — FUN — to address the often overlooked aspect of business continuity plans — realistic exercises! Through fun but realistic scenarios, your team’s creativity can be applied to quickly identify gaps in your plans so they can be corrected.

Remember: The purpose of a disaster game exercise is NOT to win the game -  but rather to identify weaknesses in your plans and to engage and educate the participants so they are prepared for when the real event happens.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN — BEFORE THE DISASTERS DO!

Other disaster gaming resources can be found here:

www.stopdisastersgame.org
www.incidentcommander.net
And for your kids can too: www.fema.gov/kids/games1

Despite the many admonitions and recommendations we’ve received, only a small percentage of people, organizations, and communities are truly prepared to deal effectively with the next crisis or emergency whether man-made or natural. Perhaps a change in perspective would increase our local, regional, and national preparedness postures.

During this holiday season and as we enter the new year of 2010, let us consider becoming more prepared as individuals, families, organizations, and communities as a gift that we can offer to others. By being more prepared ourselves, we can be available to help each other when the next challenging event occurs — as it surely will.

Happy Holidays to all!