This week's featured DRI2013 session is "Dark Tide: How World War One, Terrorism, and Incompetence Resulted in a 15-foot High Wave of Molasses Engulfing Boston" presented by Scot Phelps, of the Emergency Management Academy.

 

In 1919, a U.S. Industrial Alcohol molasses storage tank ruptured on the Boston waterfront, suddenly releasing a wave of 2.3 million gallons of molasses, killing 19 and costing hundreds of millions of dollars. This presentation will tell the story of why molasses was critical to the war effort, explain the background of anarchic terrorism present in the U.S. at the time, and discuss the practical and political aftermath of the disaster.

 

You might not think molasses would be important for the war, but it was critical to the military supply chain. And anarchic terrorism in the 1920s is something that not many people are familiar with, but there are important analogies to terrorism today. The political aftermath should be interesting to corporate BCMs to understand how companies were treated at the time. And you know you want to hear more about a 15-foot high wave of molasses!

 

Register now to attend DRI2013 and catch the exciting session! Click here to register, and click here for more information about DRI2013 to be held June 4-7, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA. 

 

The Asia-Pacific Computer Audit, Control and Security Conference (CACS)/Information Security and Risk Management Conference (ISRM) 2013 is Asia's premier conference for IT Audit, Information Security, Governance, Risk and Compliance Professionals. It aims to bring together members of the business and IT controls community, to discuss and share industry best practices regarding these complex challenges at a strategic and thematic level. The conference promises to bring new insights into the current IT and regulatory environment needed to develop strategies to address these growing risks and concerns at the root cause.

 

CACS/ISRM 2013 will be held on May 6th and 7th, 2013 at the Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Centre (Singapore), with the post-conference workshops following on May 8th and 9th, 2013. DRI International and DRI Singapore are supporting the event. And DRI International Executive Director Al Berman will be speaking.

Awards of Excellence!

Voting for the DRI International Awards of Excellence is open now. Just log into your MyDRI account and click on the Awards of Excellence Voting Booth. If you need a hand with MyDRI, just call us at (866) 542-3744. You must be certified and in good standing to vote. Voting closes April 15, 2013.  The awards will be presented at the Awards of Excellence Gala to be held June 6, during the DRI2013 conference in Philadelphia, PA.

   

The nominees are:

 

Lifetime Achievement Award
This honor goes to a person who has demonstrated exceptional achievement within business continuity, and professional excellence over the course of a significant career in the industry. Nominees must have demonstrated professional credibility, a substantial public relations profile, and respect within the industry in general.

• Thomas Carroll, Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC)
• Richard Fairlamb, Fairlamb Int'l LLC
• Sue Hornstra, GE Capital
• Frank Perlmutter, Strategic BCP
• Jeffrey Yu, DRI China

Service Provider of the Year
Designed to recognize the very best in service delivery amongst full service business continuity providers, this award recognizes a company's commitment in promoting business continuity to its customer base and the wider audience, which may include staff awareness, training and user-group activity, amongst other efforts.

• Ernie Bryan, Engineering Solutions, Inc.
• Bruce Gillespie, Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC)
• David Mahoney, Northrop Grumman

Do you like me?

• Yes
• No

Hands shaking, my son, Tano, handed me the crumpled piece of yellow paper (photographic evidence included here) on which was scrawled this survey question (minus the question mark). The note was passed to him by a go-between on behalf of Aliyah (the class' best artist), who has been leaving drawings in Tano's cubby for the past couple of weeks.

 

"Mom, I don't know what to do."

"Well, Tano, do you like her?"

"I like her but I don't like, like her, you know? Mom, I'm a fourth grader; I'm not ready for a relationship!"

 

He didn't just check the "No" box and send it back (although that would have been the easy thing to do) because he didn't want to hurt Aliyah's feelings.  He has a sister, and he said he thinks of every girl "as somebody's sister" (good boy!).  So, how to let her down easy and still be honest?  That's the question he posed to me.  We settled on the truth: He does think she is cool, but he isn't "ready for a relationship." 

 

Why am I sharing this story of unrequited puppy love?  It's because Tano said something that made me think of you.  Puzzling over the yellow paper, he said, "The right answer isn't here.  It's more complicated than yes or no."  And that reminded me of two things. First, that this week marks the return of our weekly survey (see below). And second, how difficult it can be to write really good survey questions...the kind that elicit the truth, not just an answer.

 

According to DRI Director of Education, Gary Villeneuve, closed-ended survey questions have their place and are an essential BIA tool. However, DRI recommends "a combination of surveys, interviews, and workshop sessions" to ensure that you're finding out what you really need to know. 

 

Tano did conduct a follow-up "interview" and did his best to let his admirer down easy.  Too easy, perhaps. The drawings are still arriving with alarming regularity and all of the animals depicted have hearts for eyes.

 

May your surveys go smoothly!

 

Buffy Rojas

We're thinking about launching a MyDRI app so that you'd be able to access your MyDRI data on your smartphone.  Click here to take a quick survey and give us your input on a MyDRI app.

Usually, our surveys are just one question, but this one asks a couple more.  It still won't take more than a couple minutes to complete, though!

The app would enable you to view your MyDRI data (like certification and payment history), make payments, reset your password, look up recertification dates, view CEAP points, and access the Professional Practices.

Since we'd be developing this for you, we'd like to make sure it does what you want it to do. So, please take the survey and give us your feedback!

We usually avoid politics and religion.  They are contentious topics and we try to be sensitive to our readers.  But this week, there were two interesting crisis management pieces - one about the new Pope and the other about a former Clinton administration advisor that were worth sharing (and not offensive).

 

Law.com sent congratulations and some advice to Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, who has been chosen as the new pope, Pope Francis I.

 

"From the start, Pope Francis will confront a host of what we lawyers call 'substantive' issues," writes James F. Haggerty. "But beyond issues of faith and morals, doctrine and dogma, the new pope will also face administrative and organizational issues at the Vatican that are not unlike those faced every day by business executives, in-house counsel, and their internal and outside advisors. Pope Francis has become, in effect, the new CEO of a gigantic global enterprise-and a troubled one at that."

 

Click here for the crisis management and crisis communications advice dispensed by Haggerty.

 

And now for the politics...

 

Lanny Davis, who was the White House special counsel for President Bill Clinton, just wrote a book on crisis management: "Crisis Tales: Five Rules for Coping With Crises in Business, Politics, and Life."  In this interview with Politico, Davis sums up the big five:

 

"The first is, get the facts out," Davis said. "The second is, get the message simple, down to a few words, the headline. The third is absolutely get in front of the story, to pre-empt the bad news from getting to reporters - the full story, good and bad facts. Don't leave out any bad facts. The fourth is, fight on all fronts - law, media and politics - with an emphasis on law, with attorney-client privilege. ... The fifth is, don't represent yourself - you'll have a fool for a client."

 

Do politicians follow the rules?

 

"God, I wish I could say they're getting better," Davis told Politico. "Every day my colleagues and I read the newspaper, see the headlines, we shake our heads and say, 'Why aren't they getting the facts out?'"

It's the NOAA's National Weather Service Flood Safety Awareness Week.

 

"Flooding is a coast to coast threat to the United States and its territories in all months of the year. National Flood Safety Awareness Week is intended to highlight some of the many ways floods can occur, the hazards associated with floods, and what you can do to save life and property," according to the NOAA site.

 

The site provides a wealth of flood safety resources for you to share with employees in your organization.  They include PSAs, informational signs, flood safety brochures, flood insurance information, and much more.