Meeting Facilitation: Structure your meetings for success
Download Facilitation Feb 2012
Drought, climate change, and slow-onset disasters
We spend a lot of our time planning for the sudden, unexpected event. These are the events that leave you in little doubt that they are significant – major floods, earthquakes, fires, etc. But what about the slow-onset events that sneak up on you? These are less easy to identify. It's hard to recognize the […]
Earthquake Risk: A blueprint for disaster housing
The San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) has just issued a new report, Safe Enough to Stay, that examines housing needs in San Francisco following a major earthquake. SPUR estimates that a loss of just 5% of housing stock could result in a major outmigration that could significantly slow recovery. SPUR's analysis suggests that 25% of our […]
Public warning takes a step forward
The folks on the Google Crisis Response Team have come up with an interesting concept. By making use of the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), they are able to post warnings from credible sources to Google maps to create a public alerting system. Currently the system is only providing warnings from the National Oceanic and Atmosphere […]
Social media is not a substitute fax machine
For the past few years I've been blogging and writing on why government agencies are having problems adapting to social media. In a recent article on his blog, homeland security expert Chris Battle sums up the issues very eloquently. In speaking to his law enforcement colleagues, Battle reminds them in very direct language that social […]
Inadequate preparedness has its price
"I should have prepared an adequate disaster manual and raised awareness among teachers about the level of danger." These words were part of the apology issued by Kashiba Teruyuki, principal of a Japanese elementary school that suffered the deaths of 74 students and 10 teachers during last year's tsunami. Only 34 students survived. The apology came after […]
Does anyone read the Constitution anymore?
A friend and I were discussing how the focus in schools on 18th and 19th century US history results in students knowing little or nothing about US history after World War II. Couple this with the lack of civics courses that provide a basic understanding of how government works and its no surprise that the average […]
Increase your credibility: Just say, “no”
When was the last time you said, "no" to a client or superior? It's not an easy thing to do but sometimes it's absolutely essential. We're often a victim of our own success and our clients and superiors think we can do it all. Sometimes we even encourage that attitude because it boosts our own ego. […]
Gas pipeline safety: rewarding the wrong thing?
As a consultant, one of the things I tend to look for when evaluating a client's program is something psychologist call "cognitive dissonance". Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort caused by holding two conflicting cognitions (ideas, values, beliefs, etc.). In simpler terms, it's the internal conflict you feel when you're told to do one thing but […]