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	Q1 2008 IN THIS ISSUE FEATURE Readiness '08 User Conference SITUATIONAL AWARENESS SPOTLIGHT DHS HSIN Intel Portal E TEAM PRODUCT STEERING COMMITTEE (PSC) UPDATE NC4 Thanks Lou Vargo for Tenure as PSC Chairperson AVIAN FLU UPDATE PRODUCT NEWS NC4 Locations Need not be Buildings or Facilities E Team ARE Enterprise NIMC 2007 REVIEW   READER_CONTRIBUTIONS Do you have an interesting tip on how to best use ESA, ESP or E Team? What about input on an aspect of emergency or security management? We welcome contributions to the Readiness Quarterly, so please contact us at info@nc4.us if you have a story idea. FEEDBACK Is there something else you'd like to see in this newsletter? Contact us at info@nc4.us. EXECUTIVE CORNER NC4 President, Jim Montagnino   In a situation where information needs to flow not only across county jurisdictions, but also across state lines, it is imperative that incident management tools are user friendly. NC4’s Situational Response solution, E Team, provides robust emergency management functionality in an intuitive platform that lends itself to daily use, as well as during large-scale events and disasters.   A case in point is the Charlotte Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) where they have implemented nine standalone E Team systems to enhance emergency preparedness throughout the region. This E Team deployment allows public safety agencies within five counties and two cities in North Carolina, as well as one county in South Carolina, to easily coordinate efforts across state lines to respond to critical incidents and prepare for planned events. Read the full press release MARK YOUR CALENDAR E Team Customer Call Thursday, June 12 11am PDT / 2pm EDT 4th ANNUAL NC4 READINESS '08 - USER'S CONFERENCE April 21-23 Hilton Head, SC The Westin Resort   SITUATIONAL AWARENESS SPOTLIGHT NC4 was recently awarded the contract from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to enhance the Office of Intelligence & Analysis (I&A) information sharing capabilities to provide the secure portal for the DHS Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN) Intelligence Portal via NC4’s secure application service provider model. NC4 participated with the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis by providing subject matter expertise support as well as training for users on the new portal at the DHS Fusion Center Conference in San Francisco, March 18-20th. NC4 solutions continue to help improve the Situational Awareness and Readiness for organizations around the globe. For additional information, please contact info@nc4.us	FEATURE Joel Bagnal to Keynote Readiness '08   NC4 is pleased to announce the honorable Joel Bagnal, Deputy Assistant to the President for Homeland Security, as the keynote speaker for our Fourth Annual User’s Conference, April 21-23 on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Our User’s Conference offers valuable information on how to make the most of NC4, and provides opportunities to meet with the NC4 Executive team and exchange ideas with other NC4 customers and experts.   The Readiness program will include: Industry speakers New release functionality overview User presentations Product feedback opportunities Opportunity to meet one-on-one with NC4 Executives Networking events And much more... AGENDA View the preliminary schedule of events here. REGISTRATION Registration is now open. You must use the invitation code supplied in the invitation that was emailed to you. Contact us if you have lost your invitation and need the code. Registration fees are waived this year for all current customers. LOCATION The Westin Resort, Hilton Head Island Two Grasslawn Avenue Hilton Head Island, SC 29928 843-681-4000 We have negotiated a special rate at The Westin Resort, Hilton Head Island of $189.00 per night, based on single/double occupancy, plus tax and a $14 resort fee per room, per night. Our room block includes limited rooms at the prevailing government per diem rate. All room requests are honored on a space-available basis. This rate has been extended through April 7, 2008. Please mention that you are with the NC4 User Conference when making your reservations. Participants are responsible for booking and paying for their own rooms. Conference questions may be directed to info@nc4.us. We look forward to seeing you in April!
		E TEAM PRODUCT STEERING COMMITTEE UPDATE NC4 Thanks Lou Vargo for Service as PSC Chairman NC4 graciously thanks Lou Vargo for his past two years of commitment and service as the PSC chairperson. During his tenure, Lou was instrumental in working closely with the members of the PSC in defining E Team product enhancements and with NC4 to ensure these recommendations received appropriate priority in the development cycle. Lou has been a strong advocate on behalf of the E Team user community to ensure that all users had a voice in presenting ideas and needs to NC4.   NC4 appreciates Lou’s dedication in overseeing the PSC and extends their sincere gratitude to him for his continued support of NC4's Situational Readiness solutions. ________________________ NC4 is currently accepting nominations for the next PSC chairperson. Please email your nominations to Eric Kant by April 11, 2008.
		AVIAN FLU UPDATE NC4’s Weekly Avian Influenza Brief NC4’s Avian Influenza Team has been issuing weekly updates on the global bird flu situation for over 2 years. The Avian Influenza Brief is a supplement to NC4’s global services, aimed at keeping our customers up-to-date with new bird flu outbreaks, human cases, and the general development of the virus in the world. Although media outlets have not reported on the virus as they did during its first occurrence, it still poses a real threat to the world and potentially to our customers’ business continuity. A highly pathogenic strain of H5N1 avian influenza has spread to almost 60 countries, resulting in the death and destruction of millions of birds throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Furthermore, the virus has infected more than 370 humans, leading to the death of well over half of them. Some experts suggest that a mutation of the strain could lead to the virus being able to spread from person to person, potentially leading to a global epidemic. Concerns exist that avian influenza could reach the United States mainland via migrating birds or smuggled imports of diseased birds and/or bird products. Avian influenza viruses are either ‘low pathogenic’ or ‘highly pathogenic’ based on their genetic features and the severity of the disease. NC4 exclusively reports on the latter which is characterized by high morbidity and mortality in poultry. The NC4 Weekly Avian Influenza Brief assists our customers with their Situational Readiness in responding to a threat from bird flu. Weekly, we research and gather information from government and media sources that accurately reflect all human cases and bird flu outbreaks. Utilizing tools and resources from the NC4's Incident Monitoring Centers allows us to inform our customers on a timelier basis than the major bird flu reporting bodies, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). The Avian Influenza Brief is available to organizations subscribed to our global services. To be added to our NC4 Weekly Avian Influenza Brief distribution list, please contact David Zietlow.
		ESA PRODUCT TIP NC4 Locations Need Not Be Buildings or Facilities   The NC4 locations you create are usually specific buildings or facilities that are important to your organization. They can be offices, data centers, warehouses, plants, communication towers: basically, locations that are fixed and don't move. But, an NC4 location can also be a temporary dot on a map that moves to wherever is significant to your organization at that moment. NC4 temporary locations can be: an Executive's location at a conference in the USA or in another country a Job Fair location an exercise location a golf outing of the C-level executives These NC4 temporary locations can be moved around as appropriate, and what is most important, alert criteria for these NC4 temporary locations can be activated and deactivated as needed.   Bottom line: Let NC4 alert the right people that have responsibility for the temporary location. They will get alerts of just the incidents they want and need because you create the alert criteria for each temporary location - specific to that location. And, alerts will last only for as long as they are needed (e.g. when the Executive leaves the conference, you deactivate the alert criteria for the conference location). For additional information on ESA, please contact info@nc4.us or call 877.624.4999.
		E TEAM PRODUCT NEWS E Team Analysis and Reporting Engine (ARE) Enterprise now AVAILABLE ARE Enterprise for E Team provides detail and summary presentation of E Team data for report distribution and for projection display in emergency operations centers. There are three key components of ARE Enterprise: 17 report templates for the user to run “as is” or to customize for their operations, a reporting engine for scheduling and distributing reports, and a no-data template that provides header and footer information which can be used as the organizational standard for designing new reports.   The ARE templates are intentionally designed to quantify and display common E Team information, but more importantly, all templates can be easily customized to address individual requirements. Templates can be used as a basis to develop more advanced displays, which merge information from multiple sources into a single template, creating a completely new interface to address the unique requirements of your organization and its operation. Customers are encouraged to share and exchange templates. ARE templates can be downloaded from our support site. NC4 also offers professional services to assist in operational deployment and design and development of advanced templates and displays, to support all your custom reporting requirements beyond what is provided. For questions pertaining to ARE Enterprise, please contact us at info@nc4.us
		NC4's NATIONAL INCIDENT MONITORING CENTERS (NIMCs) 2007 in Review NC4 issues incident alerts based on severity and potential impact on health, safety, security and business continuity. In addition, NC4 prioritizes coverage based on the proximity of the incident to registered customer facilities. Over 60% of the information sources tracked by the NIMCs are government or private (non-media). Over 95% of the initial incident notifications come from non-media sources, with media sources used predominantly for follow-up.     The 2007 statistics cited above do not represent the complete total of all incidents of all types in all areas of the US and globally. Additionally, these numbers reflect initial alerts only: the total of all Domestic alerts, including updates was 39,816 and for Global alerts was 16,690.   Incident notification statistics are posted each week to our website.
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