Welcome to Managing Crisis! It's a very great pleasure to join Emergency Management's fine team of bloggers. I look forward to sharing my thoughts with you and hopefully engaging in some meaningful discussions.
So what's the plan?
This blog is really about management. While I reserve the right to ramble from time to time, there are two areas I expect to focus on. The first is the management of crisis. Everyday I read of examples of organizations who responded well to an incident but failed to deal well with the larger crisis. My interest is in understanding how we recognize that larger crisis and how we deal with it in both the short and long term.
The second area I'd like to explore is the nuts and bolts of managing emergency programs, looking closely at the "management" piece of emergency management. We have lots of good material on how to respond to crisis but very little about how we handle day-to-day tasks like managing personnel, building consensus, budgeting, etc. To be effective as an emergency manager at the higher levels, you need to be a manager first. I'll do my best to make the case for that statement.
One other thing I'd like to accomplish is to showcase the importance of theoretical research. There is a great deal of work being done in the social sciences and other disciplines that can help us better manage crisis. In fact, one can argue that many of our traditional ways of responding to crisis is not only unsupported by research but in some cases is directly in conflict with what the research suggests we should be doing.
Who is this guy anyway and why should I read his blog?
Good question. I have a rather eclectic background, having spent time in the military, the private security industry, and Federal and local emergency management before becoming an independent consultant. By a strange twist of fate (okay, I wrote a book) I've found myself straddling the gap between practitioners and the academic community. Just to make things more confusing, I also have an MBA.
As to why you should read my blog? I'll do my best to consider things from new perspectives and to keep things short and interesting. Sound like a deal? Good. Stay tuned!
