What do zombies and pandemic flu have in common?

No, I'm not having a meltdown here. And while the question is a bit tongue-in-cheek, it is serious…well, sort of, anyway. Are you getting just a bit burned out on H1N1 planning and finding that people just aren't feeling the old fire in your exercises? Here's a new approach you might try – using zombies […]

Why is it so hard to accept help?

There was an interesting article in the San Francisco Chronicle on Saturday about the Taiwanese government finally agreeing to accept international aid for Typhoon Morakot. Sadly, we've seen this sort of thing before in numerous instances such as Cyclone Nargis in Burma last year or during the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. There seems to be […]

Who Needs Standards?

I just spent two and a half days getting up to speed on the new ASIS SPC.1-2009 Organizational Resilience standard. Aside from getting up close and personal with the standard, an interesting part of the course was an insight into how standards are developed and the rivalry between standards setting bodies. We often forget that […]

What Do You Really Know About Disasters?

Last week I was asked to participate in a conference by a government agency seeking to improve its emergency plans. One of the main areas of interest for the agency was identifying research topics that could help improve their plans. I'm not sure why I was invited but fortunately there were a number of well-regarded academics […]

Who Runs Your Emergency Operations Center?

A colleague on the International Association of Emergency Managers list recently asked this question. I foolishly thought that I could dash off a quick reply. Instead I found myself doing one of those mini-research projects that keeps me up later than anticipated and earns me a sigh from my long-suffering wife. The question was specifically […]