SPARTAN9 | Newsletter 5/2020

Dear <<First Name>>

My name is Grant Rayner, and I'm the founder of Spartan9. We provide consulting and training services designed to enable you and your organisation to operate safely, securely, and successfully in complex and higher-risk environments.

This is our monthly newsletter for May, which we use to keep our clients, partners, and friends updated on what we're up to. If this isn't your thing and you'd like to unsubscribe, you can click on the link at the bottom of the email.

PROJECT UPDATES

What we've been doing, where we've been travelling to, and what's next.

We've been continuing to work on COVID-19, along with most of you I'm sure. This month I've been largely confined to home in Singapore, continuing to support clients in South Korea, Singapore, and the region. There's two new initiatives we'd like to share with you.

Dedicated Pandemic Website

We've set up a new website dedicated to supporting organisations through this pandemic (and maybe even the next).

You can access the website here.

Of interest, we've added a resources page, which includes links to situation dashboards, information updates, and travel restrictions.

We've also added links to scientific articles we believe will be relevant to you as you shape your own policies and procedures.

If you come across any information you think should be included with these resources, please let us know and we'll include it.

COVID-19 Best Practice Guide to Mitigation

As our organisations are returning to work, we'll be facing new challenges:

• How do we change our workplace design to make it safer for people to work together in the same physical space?
• What screening measures are appropriate, and how do we do them right?
• How do we manage suspected or confirmed cases? How far should our contact tracing go? Who should we quarantine?
• How do we continue to communicate with employees without raising the level of anxiety and without them becoming complacent?

Recognising that mitigation is a complex topic, we're launching a new initiative to capture best practice and make it available to our community. We've designed a survey to capture what organisations are doing to mitigate against the risks from COVID-19 in the workplace. This covers everything from transport to workplace design, as well as dealing with difficult issues, such as lifts.

Most importantly, what we're trying to do with this is surface innovation. We want to find unique approaches that organisations are taking so we can all learn and benefit.

Once we have sufficient results from the survey, we'll be publishing the COVID-19 Best Practice Guide to Mitigation. We'll be providing a free copy of this to everyone who takes the time to complete the survey (15 minutes).

TRAINING UPDATES

Training workshops, retreats, and customised training solutions.

Operating in Challenging Environments Retreat

At this stage our OCE Umm Qays Retreat in Jordan will still be going ahead as planned from 5-8 October. We'll continue to review the situation over the next couple of months.

OCE is focused on sharing knowledge and experience amongst professionals who travel to complex and higher-risk environments. The content, discussion, and exercises target the most interesting aspects of this type of travel: how to read the street, how to negotiate corruption, and how to respond when things go south.

You can learn more about the retreat here.

If you have any questions, you can get in touch with directly and I'll answer them.

GEAR AND TECH

Useful gear and technology for operating in challenging work from home environments.

Continuing the work from home theme from last week, here's a few more pieces of useful technology we've been playing with as we start building a more professional home studio:

Sigma fp camera. A small and highly versatile camera that you can use for streaming or for recording video. To stream, simply connect to your computer using USB-C. No additional software required. Also a great bit of gear in the field. Great build quality, weatherproof, and usable menu system. Be sure to buy with the 45mm f2.8 lens. Details here.

Elgato multi-mount. This is a modular rigging system designed to be attached directly to your desk. You can use it to mount a camera, microphone, or lighting. Details here.

USEFUL LINKS

Links to topical and useful information.

How can airborne transmission of COVID-19 indoors be minimised?  This journal article argues that existing evidence is sufficiently strong to warrant engineering controls targeting airborne transmission as part of an overall strategy to limit infection risk indoors. Details here.

Kayak Travel Restrictions Map.  This map shows which countries have entry restrictions by air for travel into the country. Details here.

Has the epidemic peaked near you?  A live-updating and customisable version of the Financial Times Covid-19 trajectory charts that use a 7-day rolling average to visualise the number of new COVID-19 cases. Details here.

That's it for this month folks. Stay safe out there.

Grant Rayner
Spartan9

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