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I was just emailing my mom to let her know all was well and let her know how the conference was going. It was in relaying her the updates and the plan for the rest of the week that I realized… it’s only Monday.

Yesterday, Sunday, was the official start of Spring World 2007. It’s being held at the Corondao Springs Resort at Disney World. Pictured here are two ‘mobile recovery units’; one from Sungard and one from RentSys. Basically, these are semi-trailers with carpeting, lights, desks, air-conditioning, data and telephone connections, can be fully powered by generator and can be brought onsite anywhere in the country should your business suffer any kind of “disaster” that prevents your employees from working in their normal offices.

Anyway, I spent Sunday afternoon sitting through a presentation/overview of analyzing the impact of various risks/threats to a business. After that, I spent some time walking through the vendor area to talk to people about various products and services.

Today was even more fun. I was a little late getting to the first presentation because I had trouble finding a place to park. There were 3 sessions in the morning. The first was generic and about motivation and engaging people. Ironically, it was really boring. Next, a woman spoke about past and emerging technologies in our profession. That was a big better.

The last presentation of the morning, though, was awesome. Lance Ewing, who is head of Risk Management for Harrah’s Entertainment (the casino people) gave a presentation about what his company does in terms of preparing for the unexpected and managing a crisis. Three of their casinos were destroyed (or nearly so) during hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The guy was hilarious, and did a good job of presenting what he had to deal with, and what went well and not-so-well.

There were 3 more sessions after lunch (which I’m sure you are absolutely not interested in at all because they all dealt with cost analysis and legal/regulatory requirements, so I won’t go into the details). Afterward, Sungard hosted a dinner and free drinks. I sat at a table full of people and introduced myself. It turns out the guy that I sat next to is from Whiteland, IN, which is about 30 minutes from where I live. Too weird.

Tonight is the last night where there is something planned for the evening. Tomorrow I plan to hit Downtown Disney to check out the House of Blues.