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PUBLIC IMPACT 2000
I find it most
unfortunate that the public will get caught in the middle of all this Y2K mess.
I call it a mess because there is no central focus group informing public
companies and keeping tabs on their progress and driving them to compliance. The
word on the street is every business is on their own (MD&A not withstanding)
to handle this issue. Now this topic will lead me into my next article on
Business Impact 2000 so I'll leave this alone for now. Lets get back to
impact on the common folk, you and me.
Generally people don't want to hear bad news, yet
we take the time to watch local and world news, read the newspaper and tune in
to radio and tv talk shows. In these arena's bad news is acceptable, taken
for granted and for the most part deemed reliable. What they say has
social and economical impact at times which causes or is the result of reaction.
It makes us think, at least for the duration of the report, before we get back
to our daily lives. Here lies the sleeping dog syndrome that we are told
to let lie sleeping. Lets call this dog Y2K. It's not known how this dog
will react if woken up. It is inevitable it will wake up because it has a
ticking clock set to go off at midnight on December 31, 1999. The way I see it
you have two options.
1) Wake the dog, apply hands-on training and try
to calm the beast and get to know it. Sure you risk getting bitten
but the more you work with it the less bites you are likely to receive in the
long run.
2) Leave the sleeping dog lie, deal with it when
it wakes up and hope for the best.
Due to world conditions and events: i.e..
conversion to the Euro dollar, shaky markets, NATO alliances, U.N. council
issues, financial crisis, political unrest, wars and the threat of wars and now
a new war on terrorism, Y2K is being allowed to lay sleeping. There seem
to be more important issues to deal with at the present. Ironic actually
because all this will seem trivial if allowed to blow up. We could be talking
global economic and social impact the likes of which the world has never seen.
What happens to wars with out serious financing? What happens to the new Euro
world economy if every country using it has collapsed?
What do countries do with out electrical power
and world communications? At the moment Y2K is not seen as a serious
threat today so the world deals with it's current problems and crisis and will
get to it in 1999. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of companies and
businesses world wide dealing with it as best they can, but many countries are
not and they will impact the rest regardless of our progress. The only
difference being the Unites States will have less impact then the rest if we get
the most compliant by 2000.
England has warned it people of impending social
and economic disorder caused by business disruptions for an unknown period of
time. So has Canada and Australia and now Jamaica who recently announced
the fact that they and many other countries will not defeat the bug until 2004
and that the private sector will be hardest hit. So why isn't the U.S.
government warning us? I will attempt to cover that in an upcoming
article. Lets just say they have their reasons and their hands full at the
moment.
For those of us who are "aware" most
impart due to the internet, have to be amazed at the deafening media silence.
If, as we read, the impact caused by computer control disruption on a world wide
scale of unknown proportions and duration starting on (other minor significant
dates not withstanding) Dec. 31, 1999 at midnight is inevitable - then why are
so many people, a few companies and countries unaware? Step back to last
year and add alot more to that list. We are talking about a computer code date
glitch that programmers have been aware of since its creation some 30 years ago.
Maybe the public's business attitude as well as
voters insistence of less government control in our lives has something to do
with it. This may be why there is no central government focus group that
some would say should have been formed as far back as 1990 in order to get all
the bugs fixed it time. I don't think the 90's mentality would have
tolerated the government demanding priority on this issue which in turn would
create a deluge of paper work, interference and orders to fix this bug at any
cost...which by the way would have probably only cost maybe something on the
order of 30 cents a line compared to the rising cost today of $2.50 per line of
code and rising as we head into 1999. But the closer we get, the more I think we
will have wished it was forced on us to fix the bug under the watchful eye of a
government focus group, like it or not.
>From a business point of view you can make
the defensive argument that if "they" are going to tell you what to
do, how to do it and by when, then "they" better set a good
example. To date, according to some analysis's, they get a D-.
Now we are back to every business for itself with
the public caught in the middle facing mild to sever disruption to their daily
lives. We the common folk can only hope the computer world arena gets
their act together in time to 'lesson' the impact. Notice I didn't use the word
'avoid'. It is a known fact at this point that there is no avoidance no
matter how much resource we pour into the fix.
Anyone who has done their homework on this
subject will agree no one knows what we will face on the morning of Jan. 1, 2000
or there after. We could have some electrical power, all or none at all.
We could have good water or bad coming out of our faucets. We could have
slight or sever food shortages. Possible curfews and travel restrictions
and gas rationing. We may see city looting and food riots. Society may be
based on cash, silver and gold only for a period of time. We could see
hospitals with vital monitoring equipment shortages due to bad embedded chips
which in turn reduces their vital care capability. We may or may not be
able to use our phones. We may not be able to heat our homes in the dead
of winter. If small businesses fail at a high rate then unemployment goes
up. If government checks are delayed for welfare and social security then
their recipients will suffer. The very young and old are at risk and can
not handle even a 3 day disruption of care. This list goes on and on and
extends to practically everything everywhere.
The most we can hope to accomplish at this point
in time is to lower the impact by getting as many mission critical systems
compliant as possible and replacing and or recoding via software all date
sensitive embedded chips. The less the negative impact the better off we will
all be. But like it or not there will be impact.
The government knows full well the serious impact
of no public services and has made that their number one priority for 2000.
Life will be much more bearable if we have public services and that's the best
case scenario. Not having any is the worst case scenario. We all
hope and pray for the best case scenario outcome.
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