Major Incident Communications - a challenge

[Chris77]

Hello,

I have been challenged to revamp the communications that my company use surrounding the major incident process.

A the moment we send out an SMS text to cells stating the service is down, then a pre-populated email message stating the outages basic details, then 30 minute updates via email, a final green/operational pre-populated email then a final SMS text saying its all ok.

The issue I am having is that going forward all updates must be bi-lingual (french & english) and the company do not have blackberries (3000 people with no BB's! )

I'm thinking of using the new tool (VSM) that we are implamenting to send an initial SMS pointing the users to the tools bulletin boards for updates but the french issue makes it difficult (no french speakers in IT so need to be precanned)

So, how do you communicate your outages?

[BorisBear]

Use Google Translate

When did English stop being the International Business Language........even the French understand that.....are Canadiens something special?

Failing that, a standard "Nous sommes dans la merde" may suffice

[Chris77]

Hi Boris - unfortunately for me the French Canadians think they are special and google translate has already been ruled out by the business as it is only about 60% accurate apparently. We do have translators available onsite but need to be booked in advance which isnt ideal in a sev1 situation.

[BorisBear]

Hi Boris - unfortunately for me the French Canadians think they are special and google translate has already been ruled out by the business as it is only about 60% accurate apparently. We do have translators available onsite but need to be booked in advance which isnt ideal in a sev1 situation.

That is a tough one.......most people run a tight ship these days and don't have bandwidth/resource to offer an additional service in another language. I work for a vendor on a French account and if they told us they wanted communications in French we would draw up a contract change note and tell them how much it would cost. You on the other hand have been told to magic-up a solution from nowhere. Given that you're a Canadian company do you have a communications department that could help you out with the translation?