THRIVE! The official publication of DRI International
Issue #2 is now available! 

Nominations are due by February 15, 2013, for the DRI International Awards of Excellence.  You are invited to participate in the Awards of Excellence Program and Awards Gala Dinner to honor individuals and corporations who are leaders and innovators within our profession.

  

For a list of awards categories, click  here. To nominate, log in to your MyDRI account and click on the Awards of Excellence option on the top right of the screen.  And here is a list of FAQs.

  

This event will recognize those who have achieved a level of excellence in the fields of continuity management, technology recovery (DR), and crisis management. The challenges associated with building a successful business continuity management program are many and we strongly believe that as a global continuity management training and certification organization, it is our duty to recognize and celebrate excellence.

The awards will be presented as the culmination of the DRI International Conference at the Awards of Excellence Gala Dinner to be held at the Downtown Philadelphia Marriott Hotel in Philadelphia, on Thursday, June 6, 2013.

To assure a fair and unbiased assessment of all applicants, we have established a process that allows for blind judging by senior industry professionals drawn from amongst the most highly respected organizations, to independently judge the nominees in each category.

For more information, contact the Awards Team by calling (866) 542-3744 or via email at info@drii.org.

The DRI International Foundation is now accepting donations for our Silent Auction to be held at DRI2013 on June 6, 2013 in Philadelphia.  The foundation would welcome a service, product, or item to be auctioned off at this event. Any denomination of gift card, gift certificate or actual item also would be greatly appreciated, and all contributors will be listed on our web site.  Please consider asking your employer to support this event as well.

Your tax-deductible donation will support communities impacted by disaster connect with relief organizations as quickly as possible and when they need it the most.  Some of 2013's donations include: lunch and tour of the iconic New York Stock Exchange, theater tickets, hotel stays, sports memorabilia, electronics, and gift cards.
 
Donations can be mailed to:

The Millersville University Center for Disaster Research and Education, in collaboration with DRI International, is offering two versions of the "Introduction to Business Continuity Planning" course - one online and one in the classroom. The course is designed to:

• Provide business professionals with a fundamental understanding of a business continuity management program and how it is implemented in the business environment
• Educate the participant on the regulations and standards affecting the business continuity industry
• Provide tactical tools for building and managing a business continuity management program within their organization
• Prepare the participant for the DRI International Qualifying Exam.

The face-to-face offering will be held at the Dixon University Center in Harrisburg, PA. This 16-hour course is offered over four Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. on March 9, March 23, April 6, and April 20, 2013.

The online course meets live online on Mondays from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.: March 4, 11, 18 and 25 and April 8, 15, 22, and 29, 2013.

The cost of the course is $850, which includes 16 hours of online or class meetings and all course materials. For more information visit www.millersville.edu/cdre or call 717-872-3631.

Watch Nicki Minaj ignore basic fire safety

You'll be extra glad you read Drive today because loyal Drive readers are getting a sneak peek at the DRI2013 conference program!  Click here for all of the conference session descriptions and the schedule. It's not being released to the general public until later today, but I figured you deserved to be the first to know.

I'm so excited about this year's program!  It's full of awesome sessions delivered by incredible speakers from all over the world.  We've got speakers from Australia, Japan, Italy, The United Arab Emirates, Estonia, Canada, and more. And they're talking about all the things you need to know, like risk, governance, and sharing their case study stories.

I'd also like to take a second to thank Send Word Now, platinum sponsor of DRI2013 for the second year in a row. I truly appreciate the support of Send Word Now and all of our sponsors and exhibitors. We couldn't do it without them.

What I don't appreciate is a diva attitude when it comes to continuity, crises, and emergency response. "Girl on Fire" is an Alicia Keys tune, but Nicki Minaj could've gone up in smoke if the fire alarm on this week's American Idol was the real deal.  While auditioning a contestant aboard a cruise ship, the alarm sounded, prompting an evacuation.  Mariah Carey didn't have to be told twice to leave, but Minaj (who actually has a song called "Pound the Alarm") sat there rolling her eyes, and didn't get up and go until she was told she had to by producers.  Big news?  No.  But a great way to get the word out on what not to do in a fire drill situation! Tip: If you skip to the 50 second mark, you can skip the singing.

  

Here's one to pass along to everyone in your organization.  A recent study revealed that only one in 10 drivers has emergency supplies and equipment in the car -- the rest have "junk" instead of jumper cables.

While this should be a concern year-round, it is especially critical now for those who live and work in areas where dangerous winter weather makes driving especially hazardous. The study, conducted by State Farm and KRC Research, shows that more than 60 percent of drivers had some sort of "junk" (non-emergency supplies) in their trunk ranging from extra clothes and shoes to used food or drink containers.

While 99 percent of drivers had at least one emergency supply in their vehicle, such as spare tire or jumper cables, a mere nine percent carried all the essential emergency roadside supplies, including:

• Jumper cables
• Spare tire
• Hazard triangle/road flares
• Flashlight
• First aid kit
• Water
• Blanket

"Even on a relatively short trip, you can find yourself stranded for several hours. From icy waters splashing up on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago to fog covering the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, it's important to be prepared," said Robert Medved, safety expert, State Farm. "These new findings highlight the importance of having the right emergency equipment so people can safely get back on the road faster."

Medved also recommends drivers check at least twice a year to ensure the equipment is in working order. This means spare tires are properly inflated, first-aid supplies are current, all other supplies are fully stocked, and the cell phone charger is compatible with either a power outlet or an USB port in your car. Communication capability can be the number one lifeline in some roadside emergency cases.

New survey findings also revealed that sedan drivers (63 percent) are less likely to carry emergency supplies compared to SUV and truck owners (75 percent and 73 percent respectively). Also, only two in five drivers said they check that the emergency supplies in their vehicle are working at least twice a year.

The Columbia space shuttle accident was 10 years ago today. And this interesting piece from Fox News does more than recount the tragedy, it pinpoints the ways in which NASA learned from the incident and incorporated those lessons into a new space craft and changed culture.

After the incident, an independent team of investigators identified "a number of factors, from the safety culture at NASA to the design of the shuttle, that led to the disaster," according to the report. "All of the lessons the agency learned were incorporated into every subsequent flight NASA flew, and are now being used to inform the design of its next-generation spaceship, Orion. That vehicle is slated to carry people to asteroids, the moon and Mars sometime in the mid-2020s."

What a great case study in continuity, preparedness, and mitigation.  Read the article here, and pass it along.

"The reaction has been very positive around all of NASA in terms of giving us the capacity to make these safety improvements," Dustin Gohmert, NASA crew survival engineering team lead, at Johnson Space Center in Houston, told Fox News. "Previously, it was difficult to implement some of the safety features as we'd hoped. Now it really is on the forefront of everyone's mind."

The luck of the Irish.  We've often heard the phrase, but let's hope it's true!  Yesterday, the Irish Times reported that "many Irish organizations aren't spending on technology to back up critical data or recover from an unforeseen event, and others have no documented plan to save their systems if a disruption occurs."

The findings reported in the article (read the full article here), include the following:

The article quotes Fergal Hennigan, business development manager with MJ Flood Technology, the group that helped conduct the study, as saying that "most IT professionals had never calculated the cost per hour of operational downtime and consequently, many prioritized IT projects with a more demonstrable return on investment."

On Wednesday, Forbes revealed answers to what it calls the seven "great unsolved mysteries that are accompanying the great cloud computing migration of the 2010s." So, if you want the answers to the following questions, read the article in its entirety here.

1. Who really pays for cloud?
2. Is cloud really cheaper in the long run?
3. Is it sustainable for vendors to cannibalize their own business to get into cloud?
4. Is cloud computing a step backwards in the openness movement?
5. Who owns the data and intellectual property in cloud?
6. Is data actually safer in the cloud than on-premises?
7. Are the gigantic cloud data centers energy resource hogs, or are they actually saving natural resources?