As technology becomes more and more reliable, we increasingly choose to rely on it. This is a natural relationship -- but is doomed to chaos as we humans put 100% faith in equipment that is nearly, but definitely not, 100% trustworthy. Telecom switches are supposed to maintain 'five nines' reliability; that is 99.999% uptime. The concern, however, is that as users we tend to ignore the negligible chance of system failure, so much so that any breakdown (no matter how theoretically remote) has a much greater impact than statistics would predict.

It was clear after the attacks of September 11 how reliant our global supply chain is on 'just-in-time' processes; where any disruption in the chain (let's say, no international flights) could reverberate through production floors in record time. But we should not ignore our personal supply chains -- and how as individuals we've also configured ourselves around a technology-infused just-in-time lifestyle. Whether its relying on ATMs for just-in-time cash, or cell phones for just-in-time plans: "Where are we going to meet?" -"I don't know, I'll call you when I'm there." Or online banking for just-in-time bill paying via electronic fund transfer. Or the 24-hour store of just-in-time milk.

Modern cars are much more predictable than their predecessors of twenty, thirty and forty years ago -- but when cars broke down more often, drivers were better prepared. Today, we don't need to know how to change a tire, we just call roadside service from our cell phones or OnStar. In fact, we don't even need to know where we are going, because it's right there on our GPS.

Any shocks to our personal supply chain can be, at least, an inconvenience and, at most, a life-threatening incident.

Our increasing reliance on technology has not gone unnoticed by the purveyors of backup systems, emergency storage recovery, remote data centers, etc. To that end, DSBPI suggests that when computing any workforce efficiency metrics demonstrating the ROI of enhanced technology, that investments in backup/disaster systems be treated as a negative coefficient.

Obviously, the spark for this thought was the mighty blackout of '03.