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Posts Tagged ‘ethics’

Many movies have been made about the tragic story of the Titanic. Arrogance and ignorance was definitely present during its maiden voyage, which was Titanic’s last voyage.

Many warnings were given, but unfortunately, the warnings were not taken seriously. On April 14th, 1912 Titanic received six warnings that icebergs were present in their perimeter. On the night of April 14th, Titanic struck an iceberg and ultimately sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

For other entities, what happened to the Titanic does NOT have to happen to them. Many have learned from the mistakes that Titanic had made.

There are several examples that follow and form a parallel to what happened to Titanic and how an entity can learn from Titanic’s mistakes.

1. The Titanic only had 16 lifeboats, which was not nearly enough to save everyone on the ship.

Only about 60% of the entire lifeboats’ capacity was utilized! Does your company have a disaster plan in place? Are your computers, especially your servers, being backed up on a regular basis? Many servers are now being backed up on a daily basis and sometimes on an hourly basis.

When I was working at a Helpdesk, one of our afternoon gals was named the “Backup Queen” because she took EVERY major server backup VERY seriously. The company was very lucky to have the “Backup Queen” because there were several instances where our most critical server had crashed and lost information. Fortunately, information restoration was quick and painless due to the machine being backed up on a regular basis.

We were very lucky to have someone who took the initiative to handle the server backups. Is your company that lucky? Yes, doing backups can be VERY unexciting. However, losing valuable data can be very exciting, but in a negative way.

2. The crewmen in the lookout tower, or the “crow’s nest,” were not issued binoculars to better search for icebergs.

Employees were not given the proper tools to use to do their job. Is your company using the right software for the job? Are you saving money on upgrading your operating system and software, but are losing customers? If you are losing customers, you’re NOT really saving any money at all.

The right equipment can range from the very basic, such as issuing headphones that are compatible with the phone system to customer service representatives, to ensuring that a backup generator can adequately run due to a power outage.

3. Titanic had a total of 16 watertight compartments. Initially, it sounded fine, but unfortunately, each compartment did not hold water on its own. Every compartment was similar to an ice cube tray. When one compartment overflowed, water flowed into the next compartment. Each compartment did not completely seal off water on its own.

Does your company have a good disaster recovery plan in place? If a flood or a fire struck the premises, would you be able to resume business operations in a matter of days or would it take a matter of months?

Is your information that you have on site being sent off site so you CAN have another place to access your valuable information?

4. The Titanic was going at full speed at night in iceberg-infested waters.
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I am sure that you have heard the phrase “safety in numbers” before. In the animal world, creatures travel in groups because they instinctively know that, when there are many of them, predators have less of a chance of being successful during an attack. In most cases, if a predator is successful, its victim is usually a sick or weaker member of the herd. This is an important part of the process of natural selection and maintains the process of survival of many species.

On the other hand, there are predators that travel in packs because they instinctively know that in the search for prey, some potential meals have the ability to defend themselves, and a group attack is usually more effective. This too ensures the survival of the species because, without the pack, some predators would literally starve to death.

In the large corporate world, herds and packs are replaced by boards of directors, employee teams, shareholders, and subsidiaries. These are groups of people who come together to pool their abilities in support of the agenda or goals of the corporation. In essence this ensures the future success of the business. In the large corporate world, failing companies are often absorbed by successful ones in mergers and through acquisitions. Rarely does a large company just “go out of business” or become extinct. They are usually simply bought by another large company.
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There is a growing interest in suicide. When people start looking for more information about suicide, you’ll be in a position to meet their needs. This article is a brief description of much information on this subject. Let’s start with 3 levels to discern in the act of euthanasia.

There are three levels to discern in the act of euthanasia:

1.  One is a patient who is comatose or brain dead.  In these cases the doctor is asked to “pull the plug,” or remove the patient from mechanical life support.  These cases are generally not challenged by the general public.  It is an act of withdrawing or withholding necessary mechanisms used to sustain a life that cannot sustain itself.  It is here that the recognition of one’s personality is gone and the shell of a body is all that remains.

2.  Another act of euthanasia involves the use of morphine to hospitalized patients in the painful final stages of her or his life with diseases such as cancer and AIDS.

3.  The last category of euthanasia is patients in relatively good health and at the beginning of a terminal illness wishing to end their lives.  Such cases as Alzheimer’s and Cancer preclude patients to want information on PAS.  This is the most controversial of the three issues involved in euthanasia.
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