« Spy makes it easy for authorities to monitor social media in disasters | Home | Why this blog is moribund, and why I believe what I’m doing instead is vital to the future »
FEMA once again blew it in Texas. Try Web 2.0-based process..
By WDavidStephenson | December 3, 2008
AP reports that there’s still a 30-mile long “scar of debris” along the Texas coast that “..stands as a festering testament to what state and local officials say is FEMA’s sluggish response to the 2008 hurricane season.”
According to state and local officials, it’s FEMA red tape that’s holding things up.
That reminds me of an interview for my book that I did yesterday with one of my personal heroes, Phil Windley, the former Utah CIO. He mentioned the 1-stop, integrated new-biz incorporation site Utah developed 6 years ago or so.
I can’t understand why FEMA can’t emulate them, with a totally Web 2.0-based, totally-transparent response approach including:
- a wiki, so that everyone involved would have instant access to the latest remediation information (and they could actually solicit ideas from the affected regions and perhaps leverage some “crowd sourcing”!)
- an integrated, XML-based application process
- and RSS feeds (they don’t bother with individual feeds for events such as Hurricane Ike: one size fits all).
BTW: the homepage for Hurricane Ike still has picture of Chertoff and talks about recovery beginning: the current DHS simply doesn’t get it about The Internet Tubes, does it? They think of it as a place for brochureware, which someone updates when they feel like it, rather than as THE central repository for real-time information. I think the 1-sentence summary of my forthcoming Democratizing Data book is relevant — and totally over their heads:
“Democratizing data, making it available through real-time structured data feeds plus visualization tools or applications powered by it, gives employees vital information when and where they need it most to manage their work effectively & collaborate, encourages organizational transparency, and allows voters or customers to participate in decision-making and idea creation.”
Indeed!
Obi-Wan Napolitano, you’re our only hope…
Technorati tags:
homeland security DHS FEMA Department of Homeland Security networked homeland security homeland security 2.0 publicdata public data dataviz government transparency e-gov e-government 2.0 e-government transparent government e-democracy government IT government politics crowd-sourcing wisdom of crowds crowdsourcing smart mobs swarm intelligence emergent behavior mobile social networks collaboration disaster management 2.0 disaster management business continuity disaster planning disaster planning 2.0
Sphere: Related ContentTopics: empowering public, technology, policy and politics, collaboration, e-gov transformation, networked security | |
