What Would You Do?

This just came across the IAEM mailing list: A simple and very real scenario.

Good Afternoon- as a student and active volunteer I need your opinions. We have no confirmed cases of H1N1 in Aruba, but we have a ship docking on Friday with 3 confirmed cases of H1N1. If it was your island, how would you handle this? Our public health officials are trying to calm the media generated hype. We have cautioned that basic hand washing and not to panic as most cases have been mild. If you were the PIO, how would you approach this? As an EM, beyond the normal concerns, what are your protocols? If you wish, please email me at [deleted, email Susanne if you can help]. I will be talking to our EM soon and wish a spin on this beyond my scope of experience. They say that everything is a lesson-real life schoolroom- but not the way I wanted.

Thank you in advance for your time. Your posts have really helped with my learning.

Regards,
Amy

"The social graph"

"the social graph" -- Dan Russell (Google) used this phrase in an email talking about using data from social networking technologies.

I find it both telling and fascinating. One of the difficulties I experience personally with the use of social networking tools, and which is a critical obstacle to their use in crisis management, is that they assume a "flat" graph. I need a clustered graph: I do, want and need to compartmentalize most of my interactions, e.g., I'd use Twitter much more if I could target/hear from friends vs ISCRAM board vs ISCRAM community vs Silicon Valley Red Cross vs American Red Cross etc.

(The next step needed for crisis management is the ability to filter and screen interactions based on cluster membership and role.)

Is anyone looking at clustering for identifying and managing social groups meaningfully?

There's no I in power

In Gulliver's Travels, Gulliver visits Lilliput, where he -- a relative giant -- is overcome by hordes of (relatively) minuscule Lilliputians. Many analogies can (and have been) drawn from this tale; the one I'd like to muse upon here is the power of the collective over the power of the individual.

As both a leader and a manager, there is a temptation to try to solve the problems people bring to us, that is, to be the one with the answer, the "go to" person -- "just bring it to me and I will take care of it." This can be a result of wanting (or needing) to reinforce authority, and it can be a well-intentioned desire to make things easier for the people around us.

Either way, we've all heard that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

When I make myself the center of problem-solving and decision-making, I am laying down an I-shaped brick bottleneck. People have to wait for me to attend to all the other important problems I am handling before I can attend to theirs. And, after they've waited, I can only give them the insights and knowledge of one person: me. In Gulliver's Travels' terms: I am trying to be the Lilliputian with the one big rope that can hold Gulliver down.

Uhm, but, the message was: There is no one big rope that can hold Gulliver down. So, if I want to see the giant held down (and, incidentally, just possibly, maybe, help build a stairway to heaven), I do much better by relaying to, trusting in, relying upon, all the individual threads that we possess. That is, there is greater power in the net than in the rope.

As a leader and manager, I get more authority and make things easier for the people around me when I nurture the net and let us be the center of problem-solving and decision-making. People get answers more quickly, and benefit from the insights and experiences of many individuals -- including, perhaps, just the right one. (Besides, it's a lot less work for me.)

In other words: Engage, delegate, empower. There is we in power but no I.

P.S. Einstein may have stood on the shoulders of giants; me, I stand on the shoulders of hundreds of midgets.

If you're interested in the power of we, I can recommend the book It's Your Ship.