It seems that everywhere I look lately I see information relating to the contingency planning industry.
I’ve been scanning the newspapers over the past few weeks and I have found numerous articles on catastrophes, mishaps, or problems that relate to the contingency planning industry. And I’m not just talking about disasters - though those are certainly happening at an alarming rate.
The continuity planning industry covers such a wide array of subjects: security, public relations, crisis communication, information systems, data backup and retrieval, alternate sites, preparedness, recovery, restoration, and much, much more. The list is almost endless. That’s why I can relate some kind of contingency planning issue or topic to almost every article I read.
For example, in one day’s edition of a local paper, I found a wide array of articles that had to do with contingency planning or a situation that could have benefited from contingency planning. These included a story on a hospital that was diverting too many ambulances from its emergency room and was causing poor patient care. The hospital was doing a bad job of handling the publicity and came across in the newspaper article as being very defensive. Officials at this hospital could have benefited from proper crisis communication. They didn’t seem to know the “do’s and don’t’s” of communication.
There was also an article on a school shooting. This tragic event resulted in two deaths. The contingency planning issues in this story were numerous: security at the school, legal responsibilities, proper communication, employee (and student) counseling, evacuation procedures and much more.
Another article covered a bombing outside a British Broadcasting Corporation television center. A taxi laden with explosives blew up right outside the station, but luckily only one minor injury occurred. Again, security issues come into play here, but there are also issues with terrorism and public relations.
There are also several articles on the Pacific Northwest earthquake that occurred on February 28. Though damage from this quake was light (considering how populated this area is), there were many contingency planning lessons to be learned from this story. I was really surprised to learn how much preparedness Seattle and surrounding areas had completed. To learn more about this disaster, see the articles on pages 24 and 28.
These are just a few examples of the things I’ve read about lately.
In addition to reading, I’ve also been hearing a lot about contingency planning issues while I was at DRJ’s most recent conference, March 4-7 in San Diego.
I spoke to a lot of our attendees and to our speakers and got their take on what’s going on in the business continuity industry. There’s a lot!
If you’d like to read more about our conference, see the article and photos on pages 64.
I really enjoyed meeting all of you at our San Diego conference and I hope to see many more of you at our next conference. This will be held September 16-19, 2001 at the Disney Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Florida.
To find out more information, see our brochure on pages 85.
Also, don’t forget to renew your subscription of the DRJ! Some of you will find attached to this issue, a renewal card to be filled out and returned. Or you can renew online. Simply go to www.drj.com/sub and enter your last name and customer ID. Your customer ID is located on the label on the front of your journal.

Richard L. Arnold

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