Today is the last chance to sign up for DRI Volunteer Day. It's already officially sold out but we wanted to give one last chance for volunteers to join us May 19 in New Orleans. So, we've worked with Habitat for Humanity and Second Harvest/Feeding America to add a few more spots. If you haven't signed up yet, do it now by calling us at (866) 542-3744.

If you miss out on our Volunteer Day, sponsored by DRI International and the DRI Foundation, there are still ways you can help the city while you're there. Check out  The St. Bernard Project (SBP), which won the CNN "Heroes"award a few years back. More about SBP below, but first, be sure to read this week's "Clyde's Corner" for a touching first-hand account of rebuilding New Orleans.

The St. Bernard Project (SBP) is an award-winning rebuilding, nonprofit organization whose mission is to remove physical, mental and emotional barriers for vulnerable families, senior citizens, and disabled residents who are struggling to recover from the devastation and trauma caused by Hurricane Katrina and the Oil Spill. With its innovative, vertically integrated construction system, SBP is poised to serve as a model for disaster rebuilding and affordable housing. With clients throughout the Greater New Orleans area, SBP reaches the communities most in need.

Definitions can vary widely in our industry. In this week's survey we seek to understand how your organization defines this one: Disaster Recovery (DR).

Click here to answer this week's one-question survey on defining Disaster Recovery. It'll take about a minute for you to answer anonymously and we'll report the results in next week's issue, where you'll also be invited to join a social media-based discussion (on our LinkedIn) on both the topic and the findings.

If you'd like to suggest a survey question for an upcoming issue, contact DRI Director of Communications Buffy Rojas at brojas@drii.org.

In last week's one-question survey, we explored the relationship between enterprise risk management (ERM) and business continuity (BC) - two acronyms that together can spell success and security for your organization.

Complete results are available on our DRI International LinkedIn, where we invite you to join in a discussion on the topic. But here's one result to get you thinking: 37 percent of respondents reported that business continuity is a subset of risk management in their organizations, while only 4 percent said enterprise risk management is a subset of BCP.

There are exciting things going on at DRI International. We're building an online community full of certified professionals with a shared interest in business continuity to learn from industry experts and collaborate with peers daily.  

We invite you to join in our LinkedIn page and participate in weekly group discussions and dialogue amongst colleagues and peers.  We'd also like to encourage you all to check out our official Facebook and Twitter page. 

You'll receive updates on upcoming courses, industry events and be able to participate in active communication amongst business continuity professionals and colleagues.  

Ran across a blog post that got me thinking about a really cool career in business continuity and one that could (almost) make you a BCP rock star. The blog (which focuses on live entertainment and the law) talks about continuity and music festivals.

The blogger writes: "When a festival doesn't live up to audience expectations, or is cancelled, organizers are potentially losing thousands of future customers. Most recently, the company that promotes the Playground Weekender Festival in Australia announced it was $1.9 million in debt after cancelling its 2011 event due to poor weather."

Sounds like an opportunity for BCP professionals to me! Check out the rest of the blog for other examples and maybe give SXSW or ULTRA a call. Who know? You could have a new career as business continuity professional and jam band specialist!

With only about seven weeks before DRI2012 kicks off in New Orleans, I can't think of much that I haven't told you about the town, the people, the food, the shopping, or the music that we haven't already touched on. So, today I'm taking you down a slightly different path.

When I first volunteered for Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans (the first spring after Katrina), I was taken by the unbending spirit of the people looking to return their town to normalcy. The homes impacted were being gutted and rebuilt slowly, but with determination and love. The restaurants were trying their hardest to serve the waiting patrons outside their doors - but with few servers, even fewer cooks and chefs - the task was tall indeed. As the city inched back with the first Jazz Fest eight months after the storm, people wanted to return to the city and its music. It was a difficult time indeed, but people wanted to shake loose of the anguish and ride the vision of hope. With so many lives lost, so many people who had left the city (perhaps forever), and so much to rebuild, many thought New Orleans had sung its last song.

But what the naysayers didn't know was that there were many people who knew differently...who knew of the strength and determination of the people. From common man to the stars and local heroes, each had a quiet confidence that things would be alright. Working on my first home in the Musicians Village in the Upper Ninth Ward, I was teamed with a bunch of guys from the music business in New York. They wanted to help the musicians of the city - those gutty, tough, blues and jazz performers who sing about real triumphs and tragedies - and they came to New Orleans with a determination to make a difference. We hauled rebar and pressure-treated lumber, and swung our hammers building the structural bases of homes. We framed the underside of some of the first houses in the Musicians Village. We, of strong spirit, and little construction knowledge were helping to get New Orleans music back on track.

We built homes by day, and went out to music clubs at night. We partied almost as hard as we worked and made many new friends as we did. And being a part of the first Musicians Village homes to rise from the rubble, we were happy and proud to be there. It was somewhat surreal working alongside the eventual home owners who had endured considerable hardship during Katrina and after. One woman that I met while taking shelter beneath the frame of an in-progress construction (they build the homes four to five feet off the ground level to allow for the next flood so we could scurry beneath with plenty of clearance) told me her story as storm clouds deluged the spirited volunteers. As the water seeped through the yet unfinished floor boards on the home, Mary told me of how she evacuated with her disabled brother and 85-year-old mother. First to Houston she went, and then to Birmingham, and later to three or four other cities - always with the hope of returning to her beloved New Orleans.

As she told me her story I realized just how much I didn't know about the hardships endured. And then she said, "After I got back to Birmingham again, that's when I found my two children." They had been separated for months and didn't know each other's fate. I listened intently as she matter-of-factly provided me with the details of her struggles. Tears rolled down my cheeks; she reached over and took my hand and said, "It's okay, baby, we are going to be alright now. I'm going to have a house now, and we'll be together again."

And that's the spirit of the people of New Orleans. In the many years that I have come back to New Orleans since Katrina I've heard many similar stories - people losing everything and pushing forward to rebuild and rejoin the community. In that first year back after Katrina, one evening after I cleaned up after a long dirty, hot, sweaty day at Habitat for Humanity, I ventured out to a small park to listen to some music. As I entered the park  Marcia Ball and band were singing the Randy Newman song "Louisiana 1927 (They're Trying to Wash Us Away)."   The crowd listened mesmerized by the words of the song written long before Katrina - and roared their approval at the end when all proudly realized it wasn't going to happen.

New Orleans and its people have spirit and determination. So do we. We will be working to speed their recovery because that's what business continuity professionals do. We work to ensure resiliency, and we can learn something about resiliency from the people of New Orleans.

All the best,

Clyde Berger

DRI International Foundation

Director of Volunteerism