Appreciation from the GICC Sysop

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Grassroots Information Coordination Center (GICC) : One Thread

I just want to thank the many GICC posters (over 60 during the past month) for your many quality posts and for your attentiveness to our GICC guidelines.

I've just returned from presenting a Y2K Learning Stories workshop at the American Society of Training & Development (ASTD) conference in Dallas. Our presentation referenced many documented incidents, of which the audience was unaware, as well as explanations for why incidents aren't documented, or correlated with Y2K, and why fewer incidents occurred than feared.

My personal bottom line on why fewer incidents occurred is that remediation and preparation kept the number of incidents below the critical mass which would have set off a cascading effect of infrastructure breakdown.

From having reflected on the big picture of Y2K incidents in preparation for this presentation, it's also fascinating to me that just about every incident that was predicted has occurred somewhere. Y2K incidents have been documented in satellite communications, explosions, sewage system failure, billing problems, nuclear power plant problems, air transportation problems. Fortunately, they've been isolated cases. Had remediation and testing, and digital ducttape and contingency planning, not been so comprehensive, we'd be seeing massive breakdowns, imo.

I continue to believe that the postings each one of you contribute reflect potential Y2K incidents, of which we may not yet be able to see the pattern, but by accumulating the data points, and by looking from different perspectives, and making connections, the patterns may yet reveal themselves. AND I still there are risks of Y2K incidents not yet occurred - in embedded chips with inaccurate dates, in applications for which trigger events have not yet occurred, and in delayed but not permanently fixed systems - particularly those with no plans for replacement or permanent remediation. Will the remediators of problems in 2028, who aren't even born yet, have any clues from todays records? WHat will the contributors to Timebomb 2028 (or whatever the dates are) be saying?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of the musings I've introduced here.

And if you are aware of organizations addressing their digital ducttape, or if you are aware of organizations NOT addressing their digital duct-tape, please post a reply.

-- Jan Nickerson (Y2KGICC@yahoo.com), May 26, 2000

Answers

Jan:

Thanks for the posting. If you could also post the presentation you gave at the Dallas conference (or a URL if it is already posted), that would be of great interest.

Many thanks,

-- Paula Gordon (pgordon@erols.com), May 26, 2000.


Itallicsoff

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), May 26, 2000.

Ditto that. This is now my number one source for news. Both TB2000 Y2K forums have lost all focus.

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-- (nuts@upina.cellrelaytower), May 27, 2000.


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What a nice thing to say, Jan. Double ditto, Squirrel Hunter.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), May 27, 2000.


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