In a few days the iconic South By Southwest (SXSW) festival opens in Austin, Texas. The future of music, film and computer technology is presented and explored, including new social media apps. Twitter was introduced there in 2007 and Foursquare ...
Read More »Tin Cans and String
WTH? I can’t believe what I just read. The Washington DC Fire Department, located in the heart of federal grant land, cant’ even communicate with other agencies during emergencies. Last month’s deadly Metro subway fire exposed big time problems with ...
Read More »Back To The Future
Mark Anderson, an uncannily accurate predictor of future trends in technology, is a local treasure in these parts. He lives one county over, and I had the honor and pleasure of meeting him at a regional cyber-security summit where we ...
Read More »It’s Time To Herd The Cats
“Volunteers bring risk that is hard to manage.” This recent tweet, made by someone with purported emergency management experience, was made in response to my asking the question about several tweets they posted discounting the concept of using volunteers for ...
Read More »Fuzzy Rules
This recent headline in my local newspaper caught my eye; “Whatcom County councilors like Facebook; public-records rules remain fuzzy” The piece briefly examines the use of Facebook by county elected officials, and the reasons why some use it and others ...
Read More »Somebody Needs To Own It
Who’s tired of hearing about the ugliness in Ferguson, Missouri? Me, for one. I’m tired of watching a community commit suicide by Molotov cocktail, while dedicated police officers try to contain the chaos without getting hurt. I’m tired of hearing ...
Read More »FSACK-A New Epidemic of Arrogance
Is there something in the water? Recent stories of leadership faux pas by fire chiefs, including allegations of criminal and racial activities are damaging the reputation of their departments and the fire service in general. Dave Statter’s blog, Statter911 features ...
Read More »Hashtags, SMashtags
“Standardize hashtags”- Ugh, here we go again. Another call for standardizing the use of hashtags during crisis. A report by the United Nations was just released, “Hashtag Standards For Emergencies”. Patrick Meier’s recent blog post provides excellent summary and background information ...
Read More »Response Times-Time To Get Real!
On October 23rd, the Los Angeles Times published an article about LAFD’s response time performance to emergency calls. “No progress on LAFD 911 response times, new data show” blared the headline, summarizing data about how long it takes to; 1. ...
Read More »Fearbola Is Here
A couple months ago I wrote a piece about public concern with bringing an Ebola infected U.S. citizen back home for treatment. At the time I thought the hysteria surrounding this maneuver was way out of proportion to the potential ...
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