Help Research and Support the Response to Hurricane Irma

We need your help! If you have a few minutes, please read below.  

As Hurricane Irma bears down on Florida, hundreds, maybe thousands of organizations are preparing to descend upon the state to support the survivors. It is an effort that takes many different types of people from many different organizations. But who are these groups?  How do they find each other?  

These questions are the impetus for the Response Roster Project, an effort I am supporting with G&H International Services, Inc. We want to understand response efforts from the perspective of both the official and unofficial response. Who are the unsung heroes and responders taking time to help in any way they can?

This project provides some critical understanding about how these various groups, projects and initiatives can be better supported and integrated in the future. It is impossible to support the survivors of disasters such as Hurricanes Harvey and Irma without the support of neighbors, non-profits (e.g., Humanity Road), and other groups that form as needs arise (e.g., Cajun Navy).

The Project

Today, we officially launch the Response Roster Project. It as an operational research tool designed to understand who is responding and how they are finding each other. This project is unique in that it has a real-time operational component that allows the public as well as responders to:

1. Submit any type of organization that is helping survivors of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in any way; and
2. Search and find each other during response and recovery efforts.   

This catalogue will be actively curated throughout the response and recovery to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. When the dust settles, this information will be used to understand how self-organized groups can be better supported in future disasters.

How You Can Help

Helping will take just a few minutes of your time.  Specifically, we need help finding the various groups, projects and initiatives that are supporting response and recovery efforts. You can submit your findings using a simple form found at:

No time to submit? Please help spread the word! If you have any questions about the project, please contact us

• https://responseroster.com/about/
• https://twitter.com/ResponseRoster

Upcoming Emergency Preparedness Webinars

Webinars are a great way to learn about a new topic. The Safe+Ready Institute is sponsoring a series of great and free webinars over the next few months. I hope you can join!

Business Continuity Planning and IT Recovery with Donald Schmidt

March 30, 2017 @ 1 pm ET

You will learn how to:

1. Identify potential hazards that could disrupt your business or ruin your organization. This includes identifying those with highest probability of occurring with the greatest impact.
2. Implement a comprehensive program to address risk mitigation and hazard response and recovery. This includes the key elements detailed in NFPA 1600. 
3. Understand the key components of a comprehensive emergency management/business continuity program. This includes program management, planning, implementation, training and education, tests and exercises, and improvement planning.
4. Use various resources to support all tasks associated with business continuity and emergency management. Below is an example of an essential resource.

Zombie Incident Preparedness Training with Susan Sanderson

April 25, 2017 @ 1 pm ET

• Stay Informed
• Create an emergency plan
• Communicate during emergencies
• Get supplies and create a kit
• Help others
• Practice your response
• Provide basic medical care
• Prepare your kids, pets and elders

Active Shooter Consequence Management with Chris Floyd

May 18, 2017 @ 1 pm ET

• Details TBD

The Role of Competing Objectives in Exercise Design and Evaluation

As an exercise practitioner with experience in different types and levels of exercises, I question the efficacy of our existing exercise evaluation paradigms (e.g., HSEEP, REPP, CSEPP, etc.). In my experience, they are messy and misaligned with the overarching objectives we are trying to achieve. 

The Problem with Exercise Objectives

This messiness is partly due to the fact that we create dueling objectives such as training and evaluation. For example, if you slow down or modify an exercise to ensure responders understand and can perform their duties (training objective), can you objectively state the system capability they performed was successfully tested (performance objective)? I have a hard time saying this unless the capability's performance is duplicated in more challenging and realistic environments. 

Additionally, the limitations of time and budget influence the desire to maximize the value of each exercise conducted. Running an exercise, especially a large-scale/multi-organizational exercise that is more realistic of a full-blown response, is not an easy task. It requires many personnel from different organizations and disciplines to agree on the objectives of the exercise. Reconciling these objectives into a refined set of clear objectives is a tough task by itself.

The resulting objectives, though, must also be considered collectively to understand if and how they may compete with each other. For example, the most valuable learning and evaluation for system performance comes from understanding and examining the relationships between different plans and activities, not the plans and activities themselves. As a result, additional objectives surrounding plan testing should be carefully considered in order to ensure a coherent exercise design that will produce the desired behavior so it can be effectively evaluated.

The Four Types of Objectives

There are four types of objectives to understand in order to ensure the exercise design is aligned with your evaluation framework:  

1. Training Objectives seek to improve the knowledge, skills and abilities of single person or group. The objective type is often encountered in tabletop exercises and drills where the goals are to familiarize people with plans, procedures, and equipment. 
2. Task/Activity Objectives seek to demonstrate and verify the knowledge, skills, and abilities of a single person or group. The task or activity being performed can be the execution of a plan; however, the objective is for a person or group to demonstrate competence in that plan, not validate the plan itself.  
3. Plan/Procedure Objectives seek to validate a plan and its assumptions. These objectives focus on learning about the plan itself. The successful execution of the plan, though, does not automatically indicate the plan will actually make the organization better prepared. That objective is better assessed in system performance objectives. 
4. System Performance Objectives seek to determine if the response system met the needs of the constituents it serves. These objectives reflect the interaction effects between different plans, processes, actions, tasks, etc. that supported the response. These objectives can include both internal (e.g., EOC fulfilling fire department resource needs) and external (e.g., setting up two field hospitals) constituents.

All objectives are needed and no objective is more noble than the other. As a systems engineer, though, system performance is the most intriguing objective type that has the greatest potential to help understand what it means to be prepared. There is much more work to be done in this area. For now, a good exercise is one that enables the performance of the behavior under observation AND the evaluation of established objectives.

Exercise Design and Evaluation

Exercise design and evaluation can be significantly improved with an understanding of how objectives are different and potentially in competition with each other. For example, you may design the exercise and your evaluation materials to evaluate workforce competence rather than capability performance if you want to validate training success. If you want to validate a plan, then your evaluation will reflect the nuances of that plan and it's assumptions.     

While the post-exercise evaluation process with root cause analysis and other techniques can help identify and deconflict important issues on the back-end, this should not be relied upon. What happens if you find one prevailing incident that affects your assessment of other objectives you are trying to evaluate? Sure you may pull out some marginal benefit (e.g., small lessons learned and areas for improvement), but are you able to better understand and significantly improve your overall operations with such limited data? In my experience, no.

Parting Thoughts...

Exercises with their complexity and high costs need to do more than provide marginal benefits. This starts with ensuring exercise objectives are well-aligned and do not conflict with each other.

Additionally, existing exercise design and evaluation frameworks need to acknowledge that competing objectives occur and incorporate a deconfliction process to ensure the value of the exercise is maximized before the exercise is designed and conducted. The supporting exercise evaluation material then need to reflect the objectives being sought. Evaluation material should not simply be based on high level core capabilities and may require multiple "types" of evaluation material that address the different types of objectives.

Have you experienced competing exercise objectives?  What happened and what did you do? 

Redefining Information Requirements for Crisis Response

Developing information requirements for crisis response is a tedious and flawed process filled with many uncertainties about the situation and the response. While we can take an honest stab at knowing what different responders need, when, and how, our unilateral focus on needed information stymies the best of intentions: historical learning is only as good as a similar future, which is rarely the case; and visioning workshops are only as good as the ability to identify the uncertainties that lie ahead, a very difficult task with severe consequences if something is missed. 

While decisions can be made without needed information based on expertise and experience, this is far from ideal in a complex adaptive system such as crisis response (another important topic, but no room in this post!). Every move one makes (small or large) can have significant positive and/or negative impacts on system performance, not to mention possible interaction effects of different decisions and actions. Information is therefore a lifeline for decision makers when evaluating the consequences of different decisions and actions. Information provides important cues that help decision makers develop accurate representations of the system and the situation in order to better leverage their expertise and experience.

In more certain work environments with repeatable tasks, decisions, and problems (e.g., manufacturing), information requirements can be refined through thorough investigation and iterative development. But crisis response is far more uncertain about the tasks, decisions, and problems that will be encountered. Planning activities can help, but they will never be 100% ready. Unanticipated situations will always be encountered for which one must react in the moment. Additionally, information are often not created and available until a crisis occurs, so it is hard to plan for its use.  

We need a dedicated strategy and approach to information management (collection, processing, and sharing of data/information) that balances flexibility with standardization and that extends beyond technical interoperability (similar to our response management paradigms). People, policies, programs, processes, and products all need to align to inform and improve the handling of the known-knowns (e.g., will set up a point of distribution), the known-unknowns (e.g., how public will react), and the unknown-unknowns (e.g. unforeseen circumstances) encountered during a crisis response. 

This is not an easy endeavor and requires radically different thinking that embraces the uncertainty associated with crisis response. We are doing ourselves a disservice if we focus on predictable information needs in an environment where the most valuable information is unpredictable! 

Tackling this issue will likely take the better part of my career, but it is important to start somewhere. As you consider your information requirements, I suggest you consider the following information requirement types:

Type A - Clearly Needed Information

First, it is important to outline the information that is clearly known to be needed. Bite off the top layer of information needed by each role. These are the absolutes that you know the role(s) need to have. Be judicious, though, as your information management plan will most definitely provide you with ALL this information and you don't want to overload responders. 

Type B - Likely Helpful Information

Second, consider what information should not be delivered, but rather immediately available to responders if they decide they need it. This is information one could presume might be needed, but is hard to define when, where and how it will be useful. This information should be made available and easily accessible to responders without distracting or overloading them.

Type C - Supporting Information Sources

Lastly, because it is unlikely that you will have envisioned all possible information needs, consider how your responders can access different sources of information that will allow them to find the information they need on the spot. This is hard as you need to build relationships and technical integrations ahead of time to execute well.  

There are two things to notice about my suggested information requirement types. First, I call them types rather than levels. This is because the relationship between them is dimensional, not linear or hierarchical. Type C information can be just as important as Type A information. Second, they assume a "role-based" perspective on information requirements gathering. Collecting information requirements at an organizational level obfuscates the information needs of individual responders who are the true consumers of information. Plus, if you know the role-based information needs of individual responders, you can more easily discern the organization's overall information needs through aggregation and comparison of all the information required in each role. This then sets you up to develop an information system that meets organizational needs through knowledge of individual responders' information needs.   

I hope this helps you expand your understanding of requirements gathering and rethink what is "needed" in light of the many uncertainties that crises bring. The goal here is to intentionally and strategically approach information management such that you are giving your responders the best possible chance of obtaining available information they need, when and how they need it. I don't address the timing aspects and delivery methods of information needs here, but they are indeed also very important (perhaps another blog post!). 

I look forward to your comments!

[APPLY NOW] Coaching for Tech-Enabled Disaster Management Projects

Last year, I wrote about a similar coaching opportunity with The Governance Lab at NYU. The lab has since moved to the Tandon School of Engineering from the Wagner School of Public Service (my master's alma matter), however, that does not mean they are any less focused on doing good.  

This year's coaching program focuses on tech-enabled disaster management. This program is ideal for you if you have specific project in mind or are actively working on a project. You will have access to great mentors and support. While the focus of the program is on developing a solution, you do not have to be technically oriented. In fact, this program works for anyone motivated to solve a real problem in the disaster or humanitarian space.  Also, they have instituted a $250 fee, but I think this is more than worth it.

You can apply by clicking the button below. The application deadline is May 27th if you want to be considered for the summer session (June to August).

Here at the details:

Innovations in Disaster Management is a ten week online coaching program designed to convene government, social and civic entrepreneurs (both individuals and teams) who are developing projects that have the potential to tackle the pressing needs of people in disaster-affected communities. Whether your project is nonprofit or for-profit and whether you are focusing on disaster preparedness, disaster management or disaster relief, this program aims, through peer-to-peer support and expert coaching and mentoring, to help humanitarian innovators implement, scale, and assess effective projects.

Ideal participants are those who have already identified a project and/or have a project underway and have clear insight into the problem they are trying to ameliorate. Projects might aim to tackle diverse issues from the protection of vulnerable populations, to strengthening health initiatives, to providing shelter, education, and livelihood opportunities. They will have in common the application of open, data-driven, bottom-up and collaborative approaches. A public interest and public engagement focus should ultimately be the driving force behind the projects.

The GovLab Academy coaching programs have helped 450 government, social and civic entrepreneurs take 250 projects from idea to implementation. We aim to help you “cross the chasm” from idea to implementation and help you scale.

Building Better Disaster Response and Resilience with Information and Technology

For nearly five years I have been in higher education exploring how information and technology can improve disaster response and resilience. I have explored complex issues in great detail and I have learned a lot about the challenges and opportunities being faced by communities, organizations and people trying to leverage information and technology to better respond to disasters and build resilience.

But as I begin my transition back to the working world in the near future, I am forced to reflect on how I can apply this new knowledge to help address current problems while also preparing for an innovative future beyond what we can imagine today. I find myself writing about my philosophy on leveraging information and technology to improve disaster response and resilience. This philosophy will guide me in my career and allow me to apply and transform my knowledge into pragmatic and sustainable change that pushes disaster response and resilience to achieve better outcomes with information and technology.

My Philosophy

I subscribe to the notion that a specific approach helps focus change and improvement. The approach of having good people, processes and products is essential to guide small businesses through significant growth and change toward profitability. For disaster response and resilience, focusing on the following five initiatives will help communities, organizations and people achieve better outcomes with information and technology: 

1. Understanding the value that information and technology provides to different people in different situations.
2. Improving policies that better enable data and information sharing while preserving privacy and security.
3. Developing better programs that incentivize sustainable disaster information and technology innovation, research and education.
4. Designing scalable and consistent ways to process (e.g., collect, manage, analyze and share) data and information across a variety of information and technology systems.
5. Creating new products (technical and non-technical) that deliver significant value to communities, organizations and people responding to and affected by disasters

Beginning to address these complex initiatives starts with a paradigm shift in thinking that focuses on the value of information and how information systems, separate from technology systems, can improve disaster response and resilience. In addition, it requires concurrently aligning policies, programs, processes and products to overcome the unique nuances and complexities of disaster response and resilience.

Origins of My Philosophy

My philosophy on improving disaster response and resilience with information and technology is based on five years of intense study and reflection that culminate in new paradigms and theories. It represents my foundational beliefs that are influenced by two primary issues:

1) Information systems are different from technology systems

An information system is a conceptual understanding of who needs what information and when, and how it needs to be delivered to them. It helps describe the larger organizational systems that are being supported and understand the unique nuances and complexities of disaster response and resilience. An information system is also technology agnostic as it is about understanding why, how, when and for whom information is needed. Unfortunately, disaster information systems have received little attention over the years in both research and practice.

A technology system is a specific tool that helps manage information as it moves from its raw form (or original location) to its relevant and actionable form for the consumer. The value of technology systems is that they primarily help with time and effort intensive processes such as collecting, managing, analyzing, and sharing data and information as well as perform functions that humans can’t do (e.g., analyze big data).

However, if an information system is not well defined or understood, the supporting technology systems will only provide marginal benefits. This is, in part, why we have seen limited adoption and diffusion of new and innovative technologies despite there being a plethora of ideas and innovations. New and innovative technology systems need to reflect the real-world complexities of disaster response and resilience information systems; otherwise their adoption and diffusion will be slow with marginal benefits. Someone needs to be looking out for how technology systems integrate with information systems.  

2) Disaster information and technology policies, programs, and processes are misaligned

Disaster response and resilience is a complex industry and profession that has not done a thorough job looking strategically and comprehensively at the impediments to effective information and technology systems. This has resulted in misaligned policies, programs, processes and products that stall innovation and hamper sector-wide progress and achievement. For example, attempts to develop and track meaningful response and resilience metrics are hampered by the inability to get reliable data and information about those metrics quickly and easily. The impediments though, are not due to a failure of ideas or technology. Rather the impediments are due to a complex working environment/profession that:

1. Lacks understanding about the discrete value of information for different situations as well as different communities, organizations, and people.
2. Has policies that primarily focus on how to protect and secure rather than share data and information.
3. Lacks grants and programs that specifically and adequately focus on information system projects, research, and curricula.
4. Develops custom and ad hoc processes to collect, manage, analyze and share data and information that result in missed opportunities for leveraging economies of scale and in high sunk costs that disincentive change.
5. Seeks out technological solutions that conform more to existing policies, programs, processes and products rather than fundamental need.

The Importance of Sharing My Philosophy

It is important to share my philosophy because it helps inform employers, clients, partners, readers, etc. of my approach to leveraging information and technology. This approach, combined with my expertise and strengths, is why I am attracted to positions that help challenge the status quo and lead to innovation and systemic change. These include disaster information and technology positions related to:

• Strategy and policy
• Program/project management
• Public-private partnerships
• Product management
• Education and training
• Applied research and evaluation

Feedback Needed on House Bill Proposing Social Media Research Project with Red Cross

Representative Thompson from Mississippi introduced a bill to the House of Representatives for the American Red Cross (ARC) to conduct a pilot research project to better leverage social media in disasters. The language in the bill is fairly vague, but I gather they want the ARC to implement something tangible and then evaluate its usefulness and performance. 

A study like this could be very useful to the wider social media in emergency management (SMEM) community. I particularly like how the bill incorporates the use of social media to help deliver response supplies to affected areas, a form of operational intelligence. And social media for operations and intelligence is the next frontier of social media research that will enable disaster decision makers to make better decisions faster and more accurately.  

I will be providing feedback on this bill and am curious about others' thoughts. What other components of SMEM should be researched? Will this be useful to you? How so?

You can track the bill here. Here are the quick and dirty details of the bill:  

Department of Homeland Security pilot program

(a) In general. --

The Secretary of Homeland Security, acting through the Under Secretary for Science and Technology of the Department of Homeland Security, shall conduct a one-year pilot program with the American National Red Cross to research and develop mechanisms for the Department to better leverage social media to improve preparedness and response capabilities, including the following:

(1) The timely dissemination of public preparedness information for terrorist attacks and other disasters.

(2) The delivery of response supplies to affected areas.

(b) Report.--

Not later than 90 days after completion of the pilot program required under subsection (a), the Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit to the Committee on Homeland Security of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the Senate a report on the lessons learned from such pilot program and any plan to integrate such lessons into operations of the Department of Homeland Security.

ISCRAM is Conducting Survey for Masters Degree on EM Information Systems

ISCRAM, the international academic-practitioner group focused on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management is conducting a survey that may be of interest to many people. The survey is looking for input on a Master's level degree in EM with a concentration in information systems.  

I like ISCRAM's approach because it is not just about a particular type of technology such as GIS. Information systems for EM is sorely underrepresented in higher education and something I believe should be in included in every degree program.  This topic is also near and dear to my heart as I have not only written about information and technology in EM, but is also the subject of my research and future work. 

You need not be an expert in information systems, information, or technology to respond to this survey.  In fact a non-technical EM expert may provide some great feedback! 

Please respond by clicking this link or the button below:

Here are the details of the survey provided by ISCRAM:

The Education Committee of ISCRAM (Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management), under the leadership of Dr. Murray Turoff, is seeking to establish guidelines for a Master's level degree in Emergency Management with a concentration in Information Systems (IS) for Emergency Management (EM). 

This survey is designed to solicit the opinions of EM professionals, practitioners and academics, as to what such a curriculum needs to have. Even if you are not an information systems practitioner or researcher, your opinion is valued. The results of this survey may be used for other scientific research by the ISCRAM Education Committee as well. 

The survey is comprised of four sections. The first section addresses general emergency management courses for the program; the second section addresses information specific courses for the program; and the third section addresses which, if any, information systems for EM focused courses should be included in all Master's Degree programs in EM, regardless of the focus of the program. We recognize that specific content of certain courses might be influenced by the country in which they are taught such as what disaster types, risks and threats, response organizations are emphasized. The final section consists of a few general non-identifying demographic questions. 

Participation in this survey is voluntary and anonymous. Identifying information will not be collected and individual responses will be kept confidential. If you choose to provide your email so that we can send to you results of the survey and/or invite you to participate in future work on this project it will be kept separate from the data used for analysis. 

There are no known risks to participating in this survey. You must be at least 18 years of age. If you have any questions or concerns, you may contact Linda Plotnick at lplotnick@jsu.edu.

National Survey on R&D Priorities related to EOC Technology

This is a national survey on EOC technology. The goal of the researcher is to establish research and development priorities. I think this is a great idea and am glad to see it sponsored by some big names such as Harvard, AMTRAK, City of Los Angeles and the Department of Homeland Security. The survey takes about 10 minutes.  Respond to the survey by clicking the button below or clicking this link.

Here are the introductory details of the survey!

Purpose: This research project will solicit prioritized Research and Development Emergency Operation Center (EOC) requirements from Local, Tribal, Territorial, Private Sector, State, and Federal Emergency Managers and select other professionals that will best advance the missions of Emergency Management.

Methodology: (1) Perform an online survey that allows Emergency Managers and/or Emergency Operation Center Managers, to identify their EOC Research and Development Priorities. (2) Publish the information in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology online “National Conversation” forum and solicit feedback from the whole of community regarding the findings of the survey. (3) Synthesize the data and discussion to create significant findings in coordination with Harvard University’s National Public Leadership Initiative faculty.   

Outcome: Present the findings of the survey to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Task Force for Homeland Security Research and Development and the DHS Undersecretary for Science and Technology (S&T) for consideration during the prioritization of research and development activities.  The findings will also be distributed to the leadership of: Big City Emergency Managers, International Association of Emergency Managers, National Emergency Management Association, and the Federal Emergency Management Grants Programs.

Sponsorship and Research Staff/Support: This is a Harvard University - National Public Leadership Institute 2015 Cohort Capstone Research Project done in conjunction with the AMTRAK Office of Emergency Management, the City of Los Angeles Emergency Management Department, and the US Department of Homeland Security - Domestic Nuclear Detection Office and the Science and Technology Directorate.  

Academic Research on Disaster Communications Technology [Survey]

Two great universities, the MIT Lincoln Laboratory and the Pennsylvania State University’s College of Engineering, are coming together to do some much needed research on disaster communications technology. I am very pleased to see this type of research taking place and hope you can participate by completing this survey.

The researchers are looking for all levels of practitioners involved in emergencies or disasters (e.g., DoD, DHS, Public Safety, private industry, etc.). The survey has 25 questions and should take about 15 minutes.  

“The purpose of this research study is to explore emergency response tasks, equipment and incident management operations. The responses collected will be vital to improving communication technologies and addressing future incident challenges more effectively.”

They are also exploring the relationship between traditional Public Safety (i.e. Fire, Law, EMS) communication and information usage / needs in the Utilities sector (i.e. Refineries, etc.). 

Here is the full link to the survey: https://pennstate.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_a2CczrRQPpObbrD

[APPLY NOW] Free Incubator for Disaster and Humanitarian Innovation!

I just got word of a great FREE coaching program at my master's alma matter.  If you have been considering an idea and want to work on it more with great mentors and support, this is a great program for you.  While the focus of the program is on developing a solution, you do not have to be technically oriented.  In fact, this program works for anyone motivated to solve a real problem in the disaster or humanitarian space.  Also, if your idea is disaster related, I might be one of the mentors you have access to as well.  Here are the specifics...

The Governance Lab at NYU's Wagner School of Public Service is searching for highly motivated and passionate individuals with good ideas but who may not know how to develop them without help! The aim of the Humanitarian Innovation Project Collaborative is to help individuals or teams worldwide to develop innovative humanitarian projects from idea to implementation.  I highly recommend checking out the link above for additional details.  The application process is also relatively short.  

NYU GovLab will provide tailor-made resources to anyone with a good idea to implement in a conflict/emergency setting after 8 weeks. The classes will be held in the evenings every two weeks for 2-3 hours and be scheduled around the participants' availability.  For those participants still not able to make a class, GovLab will record the session or be available for one-on-one sessions.  

“Convened by a former White House Senior Advisor responsible for leveraging emerging technologies to address national challenges such as Hurricane Sandy and an Australian Prosecutor working for the UN Advocacy Division International Crisis Group, this eight week collaborative convenes those working on projects that have the potential to tackle the pressing needs of people in conflict, post-conflict, or disaster-affected communities through the use of civic innovation tools. Projects might aim to tackle diverse issues from the protection of vulnerable populations to strengthening health initiatives to providing shelter, education, and livelihood opportunities. But they will share in common the application of open, bottom-up and collaborative approaches. Through peer-to-peer support and coaching, expert mentoring and hands-on advising, the goal of this program is to help humanitarian innovators implement, scale, and assess projects. Ideal teams or individuals are those who have a project already or close to underway and clear insight into the problem they are trying to ameliorate.”

— GovLab

Is ICS Organic or Mechanistic? [RESEARCH]

The incident command system is a staple in emergency operations.  If you are in emergency services or emergency management, you know ICS because it plays such a role in your operation.  It is the way in which we organize ourselves to manage the complexity and craziness with emergencies and disasters.  

In recent years, there has been some focused research discussing the relative merits and downsides of the system.  In fact, much of our ICS best practices have been based around our intuitive understanding of the system.  But more research is still needed to understand the many nuanced strengths and weaknesses of the system.   

A fellow PhD colleague of mine, Ray Chang at the University of Delaware Disaster Research Center, is seeking to understand how the organizational structure of ICS is built out during a disaster.  He is trying to identify how and why decisions are made to expand and contract the ICS structure.  

If you are available, Ray would like to interview you.  You are a great candidate if you fulfilled a Supervisor or above role in a Type II or Type III (complex emergency with IAPs) emergency/disaster AND others within your department and outside of your department who also served in the same emergency/disaster are also willing to be interviewed.  

The best would be if he could get two people from each of five different organizations that worked together under an ICS structure in the same disaster and were supervisors or above.  

If you would be a great fit or you have a great referral, contact Ray Chang at ray.h.h.chang@gmail.com.

Whether you participate in the research or not, I look forward to your comments! 

Attend the Best Conference for Information Systems in Disaster Management

During May 18-21, 2014, Penn State University will be hosting the 11th annual Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM) Conference.  ISCRAM is an international community promoting research and development, exchange of knowledge and deployment of information systems in the field of crisis management.  The May conference is expecting to draw approximately 300 attendees.

You are encouraged to engage the expert panelists on the following four topics.

1. Super Typhoon Haiyan: the Information Management Disaster?
2. Crowdsourcing Crisis Response: The Boston Marathon Bombing
3. Doing IT Right: Ethical, Legal and Social Issues of IT Supported Emergency Response
4. Creating a Common Operational Picture (COP) with the Crowd

At last year’s ISCRAM conference, the headline topics were holistic crisis management as well as the need to close the gap between scientists and the practitioners.  It is envisioned that ISCRAM 2014 will advance these discussions as the organization positions itself to take a leadership role to reframe information systems for emergency response and crisis management scenarios.

What Should Researchers Know About First Responders?

I have been invited to speak next Thursday on a panel at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency Academic Research Symposium.  The title of the panel is "Social Media Research for First Responders and Analysts" and it's goal is "...to help researchers understand what operational capability gaps need to be filled."

In hopes of informing my panel talk, I want to ask you what should researchers know about the operational needs of first responders?  Especially as it relates to social media!

I am excited about this workshop because it starts to put practitioners with academics in hopes of aligning the priorities of both worlds.  In fact, a new term is emerging called the "pracademic."  The pracademic has experience as both a practitioner and an academic and chooses to work to align the worlds so that academic research can be as applicable as possible.  Patrick Meier captures this well as "scholar-practioner" in Advice to Future PhDs from 2 Unusual Graduating PhDs.

Some prior practioner-based gap analysis work has already been done on this by DHS's Virtual Social Media Working Group (of which I am a member).  In June of this year, the VSMWG released Lessons Learned: Social Media and Hurricane Sandy.  The report highlighted many of the success and learning points regarding social media.  On page 29, it highlights a number of technology, process, and policy gaps requiring further attention.  The major themes included:

• Big Data
• Compliance and Requirements
• Funding
• Standards, Training, and Guidance
• Policy and Process
• Partnerships
• Technology, Tools, and Features

I will undoubtedly speak to these gaps, but other feedback and thoughts would be helpful and greatly appreciated!

To PhD, or Not to PhD...What Do You Think?

A couple weeks ago I found out I was accepted to the George Washington University School of Engineering and Applied Science PhD program in Crisis, Emergency, and Risk Management. This is an amazing opportunity I am grateful for, but realize there are some drawbacks as well.  Rather than contemplate these decisions by myself, my close contacts and my PhD advisor (who I believe will be awesome and supportive of my pursuits), I thought I would ask my fellow followers to add their thoughts, opinions, and experiences to help inform our decision (this is joint decision with my girlfriend).  Below are my top pros/cons:

Intellectual Curiosity

The biggest thing driving me to pursue a PhD is the intellectual curiosity I have, especially with so many unique and amazing things taking place in the industry.  Social media has taken the industry by storm and technology is changing the way disasters are managed.  As a result, there are so many unanswered questions, especially empirically.  Patrick Meier and others are already doing great work in this area, especially with big data and analytics.  They are pushing the bounds of what is possible and I look forward to addressing the challenges of implementing these cutting edge solutions.

The chief questions I have are:  How is social media and technology transforming the way we operate?  What is the best way to organize and respond given these enabling tools?  Essentially, I want to help define how we as emergency managers, communities, citizens, organizations, governments, etc. respond well in a "Networked Age."  It is no longer sufficient to attack problems uni-dimensionally; we must attack them holistically, empirically, and multi-dimensionally in order to thrive in this increasing complex world.  Ultimately, I hope to look at the issues from an organizational design perspective.

This is an exciting time and I think the time is now to go for it, except....

Financial Concerns

I am thankful that I will be receiving free tuition and a stipend in exchange for my half-time work conducting research.  However, this stipend is small and forces me to work on a tight budget.  In addition, I have not earned any significant income for the past two years while pursuing my MPA from NYU Wagner and have incurred significant student loan debt.  I am feeling a bit drained at this point and am not looking forward to additional years scraping by and incurring additional interest on my loans (payments can be deferred).

While I have some consulting opportunities in the hopper to help supplement my income, they are not consistent and there is no guarantee that they will be there throughout my tenure.  Also, and very importantly, given that I am in a serious relationship, I want to be secure in providing for the many future milestones that are sure to come.

Post-Graduate

If you have ever met me, you'll know that one of my strongest attributes is the ability to network.  While I am confident I will get to know many of the right people over the course of the next few years, I am still at a loss as to what to do after receiving the degree.  Obtaining a PhD certainly prepares me for teaching, researching and consulting, but I am unsure of what path might be best for me.  Additionally, each has its pros and cons (thoughts?).  While rejoining the workforce as a practitioner is also a possibility, I may be over-qualified for many of the positions.

I also realize there are so many good things going on that I am like a kid in a candy store not knowing where to begin.  I can't do it all (not enough time in a day), so where do I draw the line?  In some ways, I am trying to have faith that it will all work out.  In other ways, I am trying to be strategic about it.  For all I know, my future job may not have been thought of yet!

The Big Move

My story in a nutshell...I grew up in the NYC suburbs, spent a total of five years in Denver, CO for undergraduate and working in EMS, then moved to Arlington, VA for three years where I was a Disaster Management consultant, then back to NYC for the past two years to pursue my MPA at NYU Wagner.  I have done some moving in my time and feel comfortable with it.

But this time is different.  I have someone else in the picture and this is a big decision for both of us.  She has built a life here in NYC and moving, while exciting in some ways, is not so exciting in others.  For one, there is the question of her finding a job in the DC metro area as an elementary school  teacher.   This is a big issue.  We are exploring all the avenues, but if we miss the cycle for hiring this year, it will be very difficult to find a job during the year.  Additionally, she is leaving tenure and a prestigious elementary school to move.  Will she be able to find something comparable and secure in the DC area?

Parting Thoughts

Decision time is coming soon.  It is a tough decision and I would love your thoughts...

Do I go do a PhD, or continue working as a practitioner or consultant?  What are the pros and cons of either from your perspective?

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