Resilience In The Face Of Disaster

This year when ball drops in Time Square next week to usher in the New Year, it will be a little different than in prior years, because rather than blanket cheer, there will be a good amount of consternation as we hit the debt limit of $16.4 trillion as well as the Fiscal Cliff where broad spending cuts and tax increases are to go into effect (whether in full, partial with some sort of deal, or in deferral).

Like the statue pictured here, the strength and resilience of the American people will be tested and we will need to stand tall and strong. 

In this context, it was interesting to read in Wired Magazine (January 2013) a interview with Andrew Zolli, the author of Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back, an exploration of the importance of resilience in the face of adversity. 

Whether in response to natural disaster like Hurricane Sandy or man-made ones like the financial crisis and terrorism, we need to be prepared to adapt to disaster, respond and continue operations, and recover quickly to rebuild and grow. 

According to Zolli, we need shock absorbers for our social systems that can "anticipate events...sense their own state...and can reorganize to maintain their core purpose amid disruption."

Adaptability is important, so that we can continue to operate in an emergency, but also vital is "self-repair" so we can "bounce back."

These concepts for resiliency in emergency management are similar to how Government Computer News (December 2012) describes the desire for building autonomous self-healing computer systems that can defend and recover from attacks. 

The notion is that when our computer systems are under cyber attack, we need to be able to defend them in an automated way to counter the threats in a timely fashion. 

Thus, acccording to GCN, we need IT systems that have situational monitoring for self awareness, real-time identification of an attack, continuous learning to adapt and defend againt changing attack patterns, and self-healing to recover from them. 

Thus, bouncing back from social and cyber disasters really requires similar resilience, and for some challenges, it may be sooner than later that we are tested. ;-)

(Source Photo: Minna Blumenthal)

Resilience In The Face Of Disaster

When Technology Fails, People Can Succeed

We were really happy to find the Sun Trolley in Ft. Lauderdale.

For 50 cents a person, you can ride between the beautiful beaches and downtown Las Olas Street where there are wonderful art stores, cafes, museums, and shopping. 

One day, riding the bus though, there was a technology failure that really made we think about the relationship between man and machine. 

On the bus, there was a elderly couple with a teenage girl and a young boy, who was in a wheelchair.

Driving along the beach (and hotels), the couple indicated to the driver that they wanted to get off (these buses don't stop at pre-assigned stops, but rather wherever people say they want to get on or off). 

The bus pulls over and the driver gets up and goes to the back of the bus, and he starts trying to work the device that make the bus wheelchair accessible.

But despite the driver trying to get the device to work, nothing happens.

The women and girl had already left the bus and where standing on the sidewalk waiting. The other people on the bus were waiting to get to their destination as well. And the man and the boy in the wheelchair seemed both embarrassed at the scene, but also worried how they were going to get this heavy wheelchair off the bus.

The driver pulls out some metal pole contraption and is trying to free the wheelchair accessibility device on the stairs--again, over and over--but still can't get the device to work. 

I thought about this poor family, but also about how dependent we are on technology and when it doesn't work--very often we are not sure what to do, because we just assume it will (like it always does, or is supposed to). 

When I saw that the driver was not going to be successful with getting the device to work, I got up and said to the man--can I help you (i.e. to help him with the wheelchair and boy).

Not sure how this elderly man and I would do it, I was glad when another man came forward and offered to help as well.

Between the three of us, we carried the boy and wheelchair down the stairs and off the bus, being careful that the boy was safe and comfortable. 

I was glad that we were able to help this family, but also continued to think that technology never will really be a substitute for people, because technology is not only developed, operated and maintained by people, but also that technology invariably can fail, and people must step up when it does. 

Technology is great when it works, but it is never failproof, so we had better be prepared for those days when systems go down and we must carry on. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

When Technology Fails, People Can Succeed

Great Balls Of The Apocalypse

So the Chinese have invented an amazing life-saving device for whenever a great life-threatening catastrophe strikes.

Rather than an ark, this lifeboat is a giant ball of steel, concrete, and fiberglass--two layers thick and weighing four tons--they are advertised as waterproof, fireproof, ice-proof, shock-resistant, and they stand upright and float in water. 

In case of a tsunami, earthquake, shipwreck, or other major crisis, these can be you lifepod to safety. 

CNN reports that they can hold 14 people (video says up to 30 people) and can store food, water, and oxygen for two months. 

The pods also have a propeller for the craft and seatbelts for your added safety--should things get a little rough on the water of Armaggedon. 

The inventor says the next generation survival pod will be made of stronger steel and have more comfort gadgets--although, I imagine he can't mean a flat screen TV. ;-) 

Great Balls Of The Apocalypse

Reaching The Victims Of Disaster

I watched on TV, a congressman from Staten Island talk about the complex response to Hurricane Sandy--in particular, how people whose homes were flooded and were without power could not contact authorities for the help they desperately needed.

Going on two weeks after the storm, the Congressman explained how engineers and architects were in turn going door to door to find out who needed help and what could be done--but this was slow and cumbersome. 

Today, I am reading in Bloomberg BusinessWeek (30 Oct. 2012) about an organization that "matches volunteers with people affected by disasters."

Recovers.org does this by establishing local recovery sites for communities (e.g. townname.recover.org) on a subscription model.
By establishing recovery sites to manage relief efforts--without waiting for government or aid groups--recovers.org enables self-sufficiency for communities in the face of disaster.

Moreover, by working at the grassroots level and going straight to neighborhood organizations such as houses or worship or community centers to serve as site administrators--those who know their community and who needs help--Recovers aims to bypass the "red tape."

The recovery sites they establish, include features for: 

- Searchable volunteer database that matches skills of volunteers to needs in the community
- Disaster Dashboard that aids in information sharing between victims and responders
- Donation mechanism where 100% goes directly to the areas affected, rather than to a relief organization

Recovers is the brainchild of someone whose own home was destroyed in a tornado in 2011, and who understands the logistical chaos that can ensue without proper recovery coordination on the ground!

I like the idea of this community Recovery portal for coordinating relief efforts through volunteers and donations, and see this as complementary to the formal FEMA DisasterAssistance.gov site for applying for various forms of assistance and checking claims.

Still though, the fundamental problem exists when you have no power--you can't logon to recover.org or disasterassistance.gov--you are still cut-off and in need of help. So it looks like we are back to the drawing board on this one again.

As a vision for the future, we need the ability to establish remote wireless charging generally-speaking for all, but specifically for communities struck by disaster, so they can call out for help and we can actually hear them and provide a timely respond!  ;-)

Reaching The Victims Of Disaster

Zombie Homeland Security Training 101

Unbelievable. The Halo Counter-terrorism Summit (Oct 29-Nov. 2, 2012) is hosting a mock Zombie Invasion as part of its emergency response training for about a 1,000 special ops, military, police, medical, firefighter, and other homeland security professionals. 

The Zombie Apocalypse training exercise is occurring mid-summit on October 31, Halloween--so it is quite timely for other ghoulish activities that day. 

There are two sessions--#1 at 4:30 PM and #2 at 7:00 PM.

Both the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have posted the CDC's Zombie Preparedness guidance--saying that "if you are generally well equipped to deal with a zombie apocalypse you will be prepared for a hurricane, pandemic, earthquake, or terrorist attack."

I guess this is very good news with Hurricane Sandy or "Frakenstorm" bearing down on the East Coast this evening.  Zombies, you ain't got nothing on Frakenstorm! 

In Yahoo News, Brad Barker, the President of Halo Corp., explained why Zombies are good for training, especially in asymmetric warfare: "No one knows what zombies will do in our scenario, but quite frankly no one knows what a terrorist will do."

Barker also jested that "No doubt when a zombie apocalypse occurs, it's going to be a federal incident, so we're making it happen."

Frankly, I love to see this type of creativity brought to national and homeland security and believe that this makes it less likely that we'll be perpetually fighting yesterday's war, instead of tomorrow's. 

The key is that we think out of the box in terms of what will the adversary do next--from cyberwar to weapons of mass destruction, we can't afford to be blindsighted. 

So do I think that aliens or zombies are coming for us some day--let's just say, never say never. ;-)

Zombie Homeland Security Training 101

Realizing Bubble Boy

Cool innovation out of Sweden, as an alternative to regular bike helmets, there is now the Hovding. 

An "invisible" nylon air bag helmet that is worn stylishly around the neck and inflates only when the it detects a pending accident.

The wearable device has a rechargeable accelerometer and gyroscope for sensing accidents, and it can inflate with helium in just a tenth of a second. 

It also has a "black box" that records that last 10 seconds of the accident, so that investigators can analyze what happened.

The helmet shell for around the neck comes in a variety of styles and colors, and it costs between $450 and $600 dollars, but  is not usable after a single inflatable event. 

While many people don't want to wear crash helmets because they are either unattractive or uncomfortable, this new inflatable helmet provides style and comfort, and most importantly head protection. 

The developers see other potential uses for skiing, horseback riding, epileptics, and the elderly.

I wonder about future applications for even more extreme sports and activities like motocycle riding, sky diving, and even race-car driving--people could do the things they enjoy, more naturally, without the clunky helmet, but still have the protection they need.

Also, I believe that the inflatable helmet has potential to be expanded into a more complete body guard package--like an invisible protective shield ready and waiting to be deployed all around a person in case of an accident, attack, or other disaster scenario. 

Like the idea of Bubble Boy, who lives in a sterilized dome to protect him because of a compromised immune system, people of all types may one day be able to have a protective bubble that keeps them out of harm's way. 

Technology, such as the smartphone, is moving from mobile to wearable, and high-tech helmets too have the potential for a big lift--stay tuned for yours. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Geoffery Kehrig)

Realizing Bubble Boy

The Heat Is On But Something Is Off

The Huffington Post (28 June 2012) ran an article this weekend called "Land of the Free, Home of the Unprepared."

This at a time, when the United States East Coast is battling a heat wave with temperatures over 100 degrees for days running.

Emergencies have been declared in many states, including Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, as well as in Washington, D.C.

On top of that, an early weekend storm with hurricane-force winds took out the power for millions!

Utilities described the damage to the power grid as "catastrophic" with restoration taking up to a week for some.

People were seeking refuge from the heat with no power at home for airconditioning, refrigeration, or telecommunications.

Everywhere--at Starbucks (the garbage was piled high), Barnes and Nobles, the Mall, people were sprawled out in chairs and even on the floors, and were powering up their devices wherever they could find an outlet.

Moreover, there were long lines at gas stations and supermarkets, where power was working for some.

Many street lights were out at intersections and many other stores were either closed or only taking cash.

While catastrophes do happen including natural disasters, the frequency, duration, and impact in the Washington, D.C. area--the Capital of the United States--is ridiculously high.

I could not help thinking that if something more serious struck--whether terrorism, pandemic flu, a serious earthquake, or whatever, 11 years after 9/11, we seem really ill prepared. 

We need to get our game on, not only when the heat is up, but for disaster preparedness in general.

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

The Heat Is On But Something Is Off

Preparing For All Hell To Break Loose--The "Doomsday Plane"

Diane Sawyer from ABC News has a great piece here on the Flying Fortress, our Airborne Command Center, for the President and a 50-member entourage including the DefSec and the Joint Chiefs, to manage the United States response and retaliation should a worst-case situation happen--such as a nuclear, chemical, or biological attack. 

The plane has been referred to as The Doomsday Plane, Flying Fortress, Airborne White House, Airborne Arc, and The E-4B Nightwatch.

Located at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, this plane is on constant high-alert and ready 24 x 7 x 365--it is airborne within 5 minutes notice!  

According to Ideas and Discovery Magazine, there are actually 4 planes--the most-technologically advanced 747s in the world.

Built based on more than $2 billion in research, these planes are the most expensive in the world, fly 40 miles per hour faster than regular 747s, can stay in the air for about 3 days straight with in-air refueling, and are shielded from thermo-nuclear radiation and electromagnetic pulses.  

The planes are protected by 60 Air Force special forces troops, have their own on-board maintenance teams, and precision technical communication specialists. 

The planes have an area for battle staff to assess the situation and draw up action plans and a technical control facility for managing surveillance and command, control, and communications to issue encrypted commands on "virtually all frequencies" through 67 satellite dishes and antennas on the roof.

They can even communicate with submarines by dropping a 5 mile rope with a transceiver into the ocean below. 

These planes stand ready to evacuate the President and his staff in the case of a national emergency.

"The commander-in-chief can then send orders to troops and personnel, communicate with allied governments, or update the American people on the situation."

While it has far less amenities than Air Force One, this high-tech doomsday plane is very cool indeed. 

What I admire the most about this plane is not even the technology per se, but the planning and risk management that go into preparation for something "really bad" happening. 

While some people think emotionally that preparing for disaster is almost tantamount to pushing for one to actually occur, really that is an emotional reaction and denial of reality anchored in fear.   

Like insurance, you hope you never need it, but are really glad you have it, when all hell breaks loose! 

Perhaps, we can all learn something for ourselves here as well, that (disaster) preparedness can be scary and expensive, but we all need to have a plan and make it a good one.

Preparing For All Hell To Break Loose--The "Doomsday Plane"

SCADA Beware!

In case you thought hacking of our critical infrastructure and SCADA systems only happens in the movies, like with Bruce Willis in Live Free or Die Hard, watch these unbelievable videos of what Max Corne seemingly does to the energy, maritime infrastructure, and highway transportation systems.


Max apparently is able turn off (and on) the lights in entire office towers--one and then another, control a drawbridge (up and down)--and has people and cars waiting and backed up, and even changes traffic signals--from speeds of 50 to 5 as well the message boards to motorists. 

While I understand some have questioned the validity of these videos and have called them hoaxes, the point that I come away with is not so much whether this guy is or is not actually hacking into these computer and control systems as much as that the people and organizations with the right skills could do these things.


And rest assured that there those out there that can perform these hack attacks--reference the Stuxnet worm that attacks Siemen industrial control systems such as those used in the nuclear industry (June 2010).


I also heard a story that I don't know whether it is true or not, about how a cyber expert personally dealt with a very loud and unruly neighbor who was playing Xbox 360 at 3 AM and keeping him awake. So the cyber expert simply hacked into his neighbor's Xbox game over the Internet and set off a program that whenever his neighbor tried to play it, a timer would automatically turn the Xbox back off again (neighbor turns it on again, hack turns it off again....), until at one point, the cyber expert heard the neighbor pick something up (presumably the Xbox) and throw it against the wall. 


In this story, the damage was limited, in other cases as the Max Corne videos demonstrate (in terms of the realm of the possible), when hackers attack our critical infrastructure and control systems, the results can truly be life threatening, majorly disruptive, and can cause widespread chaos.


Every day, there are digital natives (in terms of their advanced computer skills) that are proving what they can do to bypass our firewalls, antivirus protection, intrusion detection systems, and more.


While in the case of the hack attack on the Xbox, that was the end of the problem for the loud playing neighbor keeping this other guy up at night, but in general, the unbelievable ability of some hackers to break into major systems and manipulate controls systems and disrupt critical infrastructure is certainly no game, no laughing matter, and something that should keeps us up at night (Xbox playing or not). 


The takeaway is that rather than demonize and discourage those who have the skills to figure this "stuff" out, we should actually encourage them to become the best white hat hackers they can be with it, and then recruit them into "ethical hacking" positions, so that they work for the good guys to defeat those who would do us all harm. 

SCADA Beware!

Cyber War - The Art of The Doable

CBS 60 Minutes had a great episode this past June called Cyber War: Sabotaging The System.

The host Steve Kroft lays the groundwork when he describes information or cyber warfare as computers and the Internet that is used as weapons and says that "the next big war is less likely to begin with a bang than with a blackout."

This news segment was hosted with amazing folks like Retired Admiral Mike McConnell (former Director of National Intelligence), Special Agent Sean Henry (Assistant Director of the FBI's Cyber Division), Jim Gosler (Founding Director of CIA's Clandestine Information Technology Office), and Jim Lewis (Director, Center for Strategic and International Studies).  

For those who think that cyber war is a virtual fantasy and that we are safe in cyberspace, it's high time that we think again.  

Here are some highlights:

- When Retired Admiral McConnel is asked "Do you believe our adversaries have the capability of bringing down a power grid?"  McConnell responds "I do." And when asked if the U.S. is prepared for such an attack, McConnell responds, "No."

- Jim Gosler describes how microchips made abroad are susceptible to tampering and could "alter the functionality" of let's say a nuclear weapon that needed to go operational, as well as how they "found microelectronics and electronics embedded in applications that shouldn't be there." 

- Special Agent Henry talks about how thieves were able to steal more than a $100 million from banks in less than half a year, not by holdups but through hacking. 

- Jim Lewis tells of the "electronic Pearl Harbor" that happened to us back in 2007, when terabytes of information were downloaded/stolen from our major government agencies--"so we probably lost the equivalent of a Library of Congress worth of government information" that year and "we don't know who it is" who broke in.  

The point is that our computers and communications and all the critical infrastructure that they support--including our defense, energy, water, transportation, banking, and more are all vulnerable to potentially lengthy disruption.

What seems most difficult for people to grasp is that the bits of bytes of cyberspace are not just ephemeral things, but that thy have real impact to our physical universe.   

Jim Lewis says that "it doesn't seem to be sinking in. And some of us call it 'the death of a thousand cuts.' Every day a little bit more of our intellectual property, our innovative skills, our military technology is stolen by somebody. And it's like little drops.  Eventually we'll drown. But every day we don't notice."

Our computer systems are vulnerable and they control virtually all facets of lives, and if the enemy strikes at our cyber heart, it is going to hurt more than most of us realize.  

We are taking steps with cyber security, but we need to quickly shift from a reactive stance (watching and warning) to a proactive posture (of prevention and protection) and make cyber warfare a true national priority.

Cyber War - The Art of The Doable

The Internet Lives

While the Internet, with all its information, is constantly changing with updates and new information, what is great to know is that it is being preserved and archived, so present and future generations can "travel back" and see what it looked liked at earlier points in time and have access to the wealth of information contained in it.

This is what the Internet Archive does--this non-profit organization functions as the Library of the Internet. It is building a "permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format."

In the Internet Archive you will find "texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages" going back to 1996 until today.

I tested the Archive's Wayback Machine with my site The Total CIO and was able to see how it looked like back on October 24, 2010.

It is wonderful to see our digital records being preserved by the Internet Archive, just like our paper records are preserved in archives such as The Library of Congress, which is considered "the world's most comprehensive record of human creativity and knowledge"), The National Archives, which preserves government and historical records, and The National Security Archive, a research institute and library at The George Washington University that "collects and publishes declassified documents through the Freedom of Information Act...[on] topics pertaining to national security, foreign, intelligence, and economic policies of the United States."

The Internet Archive is located in San Francisco (and my understanding is that there is a backup site in Egypt).

The Internet Archive is created using spider programs that crawl the publicly available pages of the Internet and then copy and store data, which is indexed 3 dimensionally to allow browsing over multiple periods of times.

The Archive now contains roughly 2 petabytes of information, and is growing by 20 terabytes per month. According to The Archive, the data is stored on hundreds (by my count it should be about 2,000) of slightly modified x86 machines running on Linux O/S with each storing approximately a terabyte of data.

According to the FAQs, it does take some time for web pages to show up--somewhere between 6 months and 2 years, because of the process to index and transfer to long-term storage, and hopefully the process will get faster, but in my opinion, having an organized collection and archiving of the Internet is well worth the wait.

Ultimately, the Internet Archive may someday be (or be part of) the Time Capsule of human knowledge and experience that helps us survive human or natural disaster by providing the means to reconstitute the human race itself.

(Source Photo: here)

The Internet Lives

The Elevator and The Bigger Picture

Some of you may have watched the HBO series called Six Feet Under that ran from about 2000-2005 about a family that owned a funeral home, and every episode opened with a freakish death scene.

In fact, the father who was the funeral director dies an untimely death himself and bequeaths the funeral home to his two sons.

The series, which ran for 63 episodes, evoked a recognition that life is most precious, too short, and can end in both horrible and unpredictable ways.
This week, I was reminded of this in all too many ways:

First, Brett Stephens wrote a beautiful piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about the graceful death of his father from a horrible brain tumor. Brett describes in vivid terms the operations, loss of sight, debilitating bouts of chemo and radiation, agonizing shingles, loss of memory, mobility, sight, ability to eat, and more. Brett writes: "cancer is a heist culminating in murder."

Then today, all over the news were reports of of a horrible accident in New York, where a woman was killed in an elevator accident when it shot up while she was still only about half way on and she was crushed between the elevator and the shaft in a 25 story office building on Madison Avenue.

Third, I learned from a colleague about a wonderful gentlemen, who served his country in the armed forces and was an athlete in incredible shape, when one day in the gym, he suffered a massive heart, which deprived of oxygen for too long, and he was left horribly crippled for life.

Unfortunately, similar to Six feet Under, in real life, there are countless of stories of life's fortunes and misfortunes, death and the aftermath (adapted from the show's synopsis--I really liked how this was said). Yet, in the end, we are left with the completely heart wrenching feeling of how it is to be without and sorely miss the people we love so dearly.

In the Talmud, I remember learning this saying that to the Angel of Death it does not whether his intended is here or there--when a person's time is up, death shows up and no matter how peaceful or painful, it is never convenient and always deeply traumatic in so many ways.

For one the elevator opens and closes normally and brings a person to their destination floor, and to another the door may close on them, never at all, or the elevator may shift right beneath their feet.

We can never really be prepared emotionally or otherwise for the devastation brought by accident, illness, and death--and while it is hard to be optimistic sometimes, we can try to maintain faith that The Almighty is guiding the events of our lives, and that he knows what he is doing, even if we cannot always understand the bigger picture.

May G-d have mercy.

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Chris McKenna)

The Elevator and The Bigger Picture

9/11 - A Lesson In Risky Business

Corresponding to the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Bloomberg BusinessWeek (5-11 Sept 2011) has a great article on risk management called The G-d Clause.

When insurers take out insurance--this is called reinsurance, and reinsurers are "on the hook for everything, for all the risks that stretch the limits of the imagination"--that's referred to as The G-d Clause--whatever the almighty can come up with, the "reinsurers are ultimately responsible for" paying for it.

And obviously, when insurers and reinsurers don't well imagine, forecast, and price for risky events--they end up losing money and potentially going out of business!

Well when it came to 9/11, insurers lost fairly big financially--to the tune of $23 billion (it is in fact, the 4th costliest disaster since 1970 after Japan's tsunami, earthquake and Fukushima nuclear disaster ($235B), and hurricanes Katrina ($72B) and Andrew ($25B) in the U.S.)

Even Lloyd's "that invented the modern profession of insurance [and] publishes a yearly list of what it calls 'Realistic Disaster Scenarios,'" and while they had imagined 2 airlines colliding over a city, even they failed to anticipate the events of September 11, 2001.

According to the article, even insurers that make their living forecasting risks, "can get complacent."

And the psychology of the here and now, where "people measure against the perceived reality around them and not against the possible futures" is the danger we face in terms of being unprepared for the catastrophic events that await, but are not foretold.

In a sense, this is like enterprise architecture on steroids, where we know our "as-is" situation today and we try to project our "to-be" scenario of the future; if our projection is to far off the mark, then we risk either failing at our mission and/or losing money, market share, or competitive advantage.

The ability to envision future scenarios, balancing reality and imagination, is critical to predict, preempt, prepare, and manage the risks we face.

Post 9/11, despite the stand-up of a sizable and impressive Department of Homeland Security, I believe that our achilles heel is that we continue to not be imaginative enough--and that is our greatest risk.

For example, while on one hand, we know of the dangers of weapons of mass destruction--including nuclear, chemical, biological, and radiological devices--as well as new cyber weapons that can threaten us; on the other hand, we have trouble imagining and therefore genuinely preparing for their actual use.

Perhaps, it is too frightening emotionally or we have trouble coping practically--but in either case, the real question is are we continuing to proceed without adequate risk-loss mitigation strategies for the future scenarios we are up against?

Frankly, living in the suburbs of our nations capital, I am fearful at what may await us, when something as basic as our power regularly goes out, when we get just a moderate rain storm in this area. How would we do in a real catastrophe?

In my mind, I continue to wonder what will happen to us, if we proceed without taking to heart the serious threats against us--then the tragic events of 9/11 will have unfortunately been lost on another generation.

Like with the reinsurers, if we do not open our minds to perceive the catastrophic possibilities and probabilities, then the risky business that we are in, may continue to surprise and cost us.

(All opinions my own)

(Source Photo: here)

9/11 - A Lesson In Risky Business

Busting The Organizational Bunkers

There is a law in Switzerland that every citizen has to have quick access to a bomb shelter and that all new residences be outfitted with these.

According to the Wall Street Journal (25-26 June 2011), there are over 300,000 swiss bunkers with enough room "to shelter all 7.6 million citizens" and with 1 million to spare!

Yet, the Swiss continue to add 50,000 new spots a year in the bomb shelters.

Note, these are not just a proverbial hole in the wall shelter, but bomb bunkers able to withstand the "impact of a 12-megaton explosion at a distance of [only] 700 meters (765 yards)"--this is 800 times the energy discharged in the bombing of Hiroshima!

So the Swiss are very serious about sheltering themselves.

According to Swiss Info Channel, this preoccupation began in the 1960s with fear of nuclear attack and soviet invasion. Hence the slogan at the time, "Neutrality is no guarantee against radioactivity."

Despite the high cost of these shelters and the end of the Cold War, the Swiss hold dear to their shelters to protect against the variety of new dangers out there from terrorist's dirty bombs to nuclear/chemical/biological accidents, and natural disasters--and the recent events with Fukushima only served to reinforce those beliefs.

The WSJ points out, preparedness comes "second nature" to them--they popularized the Swiss pocket knife, they still have a mandatory military draft for men, and aside from the U.S. and Yemen, they have more guns per capita than anyone else out there.

I find their obsession with security fascinating, especially since they are a neutral country and haven't had a major conflict for about 200 years.

Perhaps, the Swiss as a small country surrounded by Germany, France, Italy, and Austria that were pummeled in World Wars I and II, witnessed enough bloodshed to be forever changed.

It reminds me of organizations with defective cultures, where employees see others beaten down so often and so long, they simply learn to keep their mouths shut and their heads down. They have in a sense learned to "shelter in place."

Of course, being prepared to duck when something is thrown at you is a good thing, but when you are perpetually stuck in a ducking stance, then something is wrong.

I admire the Swiss and the Israeli's propensity to prepare and survive, when they are the David's amidst the Goliath's.

However, in an organizational context, I am concerned when I see so many employees hiding in shelters, afraid to speak up and contribute, because they have been marginalized by broken organization cultures.

The organization is not the place for bunkers, it is the place for collaboration and productivity.

(All opinions my own)

(Photo Source: Facts Worth Knowing)

Busting The Organizational Bunkers

Avoiding The Ultimate In Surprise

Everyone remember the I Love Lucy show? Well, that show really epidemized what it meant to surprise and be surprised by all the antics that the main character, Lucy, got into--show after show.

One thing that's very clear is that no one really likes surprises (except maybe for some comic relief and that's one reason I believe the show was the most popular season after season).

So what's the problem with surprises? They are not inherently bad--there can be good surprise and bad ones.

The issue is really that people want to be prepared for whatever is coming there way.

Even surprise parties or gifts somehow seem sweeter when the recipient isn't completely "taken by surprise."

One of my bosses used to often repeat to the team, "I don't like surprises!"

Hence, the importance of what we all got in the habit of saying--communicate, communicate, communicate--early and often.

With the tragic tornados that struck last week across the south killing some 329 people, we are reminded how important early warning to surprises in life can be.

The Wall Street Journal reports today that new technologies are being developed for early warning of these tornados such as:

- Visual cues--Antennas that can track cloud-to-loud lighting, which is often invisible from the ground, but it "drops sharply in a storm just before a tornado develops" and can therefore provide early detection for those that can see it.

- Sound waves--Using "infrasonic microphones" we can pick up storm sounds from as far as 500 miles away at frequencies too low to be detected by the human ear and can filter out the noise to track the storm's severity and speed, and therefore hear in advance if it is turning dangerous.

Early warning saves lives...even a few extra minutes can provide the much needed time for a person to get to a shelter.

After the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami which killed more than 230,000 people, an early warning system was put in place there and again with the the recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 2011, we see the ongoing need for these efforts to advance globally.

These efforts for early detection and alerts have always been around.

Already thousands of years ago, settlers built lookout towers and fire signals to get and give early notice of an advancing army, marauders, dangerous beasts, or other pending dangers.

Nowadays, we have satellites and drones providing "eyes in the sky" and other technologies (like the proverbial trip wires and so on) are being developed, refined, and deployed to protect us.

Advance warning and preparation is important for risk management and life preservation and leveraging technology to the max for these purposes is an investment that is timeless and priceless.

The challenge is in identifying the greatest risks (i.e. those with the most probability of happening and the biggest impact if they do) so that we can make our investments in the technologies to deal with them wisely.

Avoiding The Ultimate In Surprise

The Twitter Miracle

Twitter is a crazy thing--little blue birdie...tweet, tweet, tweet.

Why do we even do it (tweet)?

Here are the "4 Stages of Getting Twitter" (Credit: Andfaraway):

• Stage 1--It starts with utmost skepticism and even denigrating the tool (e.g. it's stupid, dumb, a time-waster...)

• Stage 2--Then it moves to well why don't I just try it and see what all the commotion is all about--maybe I'll like it?

• Stage 3--As the interaction with others (RT's, @'s and messages) start to flow, you have the ah ha moment--I can communicate with just about anyone, globally!

• Stage 4--I like this (can anyone say addiction!). I can share, collaborate, influence--way beyond my traditional boundaries. This is amazing--this is almost miraculous.

Here are some other things I like about Twitter:

1) Like a journal, it's a way to capture your thoughts, experiences, feelings, likes/dislikes. (One thing I don't like about Twitter is there is no good way that I know of to archive or print them--I hope they fix this, please).

2) Another thing about Twitter (and Blogger and Wikipedia for that matter)...I imagine sometimes that this is an incredible social time capsule (i.e. knowledge repository) that we are putting together (almost unknowingly) that will carry humankind forward past any future natural or man-made disasters. Years ago, people would bury a few mementos in a treasure chest or something, as a time capsule, and what a find this would be for people years later when they would open it up and learn firsthand what life was like "those days." Now, imagine the treasure trove of the exabytes of information contributed to by hundreds of millions people from around the world. What is also fascinating to me is that people contribute enormous amounts of their time and energy and all for free--hey, this is even less than what Amazon's Mechanical Turks could do this for! :-)

Clearly, people want to express themselves and connect with others--and social media gives ever new meaning to this beyond physical space and time.

The Twitter Miracle

Disaster Preparedness and Enterprise Architecture

There are several disaster preparedness exercises that test and train our government and private sector partners’ ability to respond to incidents that could have catastrophic consequences. These exercises can be supported by a robust enterprise architecture; here is a brief description followed by a sketch of how EA can support disaster preparedness.

TOPOFF

“Top Officials (TOPOFF) is the nation’s premier terrorism preparedness exercise, involving top officials at every level of government, as well as representatives from the international community and private sector. Thousands of federal, state, territorial, and local officials engage in various activities as part of a robust, full-scale simulated response to a multi-faceted threat.” [Exercises have tested responses to chemical, biological, and radiological attacks.]

(http://www.dhs.gov/xprepresp/training/gc_1179350946764.shtm)

Cyber Storm

“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) successfully executed Cyber Storm, the first national cyber exercise Feb. 6 thru Feb. 10, 2006 [and a second biennial exercise was conducted in March 2008]. The exercise was the first government-led, full-scale cyber security exercise of its kind…Cyber Storm was designed to test communications, policies and procedures in response to various cyber attacks and to identify where further planning and process improvements are needed.”

(http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/releases/pr_1158340980371.shtm)

Government Computer News, 14 April 2008 reports on the Cyber Storm II exercise in which DHS “hosted federal, state, local, and international government agencies along with more than 40 private-sector companies” in these “high-stakes war games.”

Carl Banzhoff, the vice president and chief technology evangelist at McAfee summed it up as follows: “when the internet burns to the ground, how are you going to get updates?”

“The goal was to test communication coordination and partnerships across sectors.”

Bob Dix, the vice president of government affairs at Juniper Networks said that “the greatest impediment to sharing information still is trust.”

Whether the preparedness tests are for terrorism or cyber security, the essence is to test our ability in preparing, preventing, responding, and recovering from security incidents. This involves building capability for uninterrupted communications, information sharing, and coordinated response.

How can enterprise architecture support disaster preparedness?

1. Requirements—EA can capture strategic, high-level requirements from mission areas across the many functional areas of homeland security and weave these into a core map of capabilities to build to. For example, we have a requirement for system security that is mandated by law and policy, and securing our communications and infrastructure is a core capability for our information systems that must be executed. The weakest link in security has the potential to jeopardize all components and their response capability.
2. Planning—EA analyzes problem areas and uncovers gaps, redundancies, inefficiencies, and opportunities and uses these to drive business process improvement, reengineering, and the introduction of new technologies. Improved business processes and enabling technologies can enable integration, interoperability, standardization, modernization, and information sharing that can enable a better prepared homeland security infrastructure. For example, identifying shared mission communities and building information sharing and collaboration among stakeholders in these improves our preparedness abilities.
3. Governance—EA brings the various stakeholders to the table to vet decisions and ensure sound business process improvement and IT investments. Governance involves sharing information, building trust, and making decisions towards a unified way forward. For example, through the DHS Enterprise Architecture Board (EAB), the CIOs of all components can collaborate and engage in developing targets that will lead to implementation of best practices and standards across the Department that will improve overall efficiency of all components.

Of course, EA is not the be-all and end-all for preparedness, but it provides critical elements of requirements management, planning, and governance that contributes to disaster preparedness.

Disaster Preparedness and Enterprise Architecture