Breivik Report on Communication Fiasco - What about us?

The reasons behind a communication fiasco, lessons learned, and what we can do to improve the situation

 

In Norway, the Breivik report, a 482-pages fat document, has been released yesterday. The findings are damning for the Norwegian police department.

A striking lack of communication prevented the murderer from being arrested much sooner. This could have saved many lives. Some of the critics included:

• Bad communication between units 
•  Emergency centres were flooded with calls
• Sightings of the murderer in Oslo city centre after the bombing were not forwarded properly
• Existing emergency procedures were not followed 
• Security measures already approved had not been implemented 
•  No immediate nationwide alert was given 
•  No attempt was made to mobilise helicopters

       Details about the above can be read in the press. These findings do not surprise me, and here is why:

         Emergency management is about communication, communication, communication

A lot is invested today in communication means to assist decision makers, first responders, fire fighters, police forces, soldiers. These tools will be very efficient, when communication is implemented and handled in a homogeneous environment, i.e. fire fighter talking to fire fighter, policeman talking to policeman. But it will utterly fail, as soon communication needs to be handled in a heterogeneous environment, where:

• You do not know, who needs to be called in a different unit / brigade / department / organisation: it is not easy to share vital information with other organisations, when you do not have access to the identity of whom you need to inform, and especially what kind of information they need
• You do not know where the actors are, and how to reach them: thanks to mobile communication technology (smartphone, laptop, mobile phone,…), mobility makes it harder to locate and inform a person 
•  You do not use the same communication tools: for example police forces will use digital radio, Red Cross voluntaries rely on mobile phones 
• You do not use the same words: a wind blowing at 100 km/h will be considered as a yellow alert storm by police forces, but will provoke a red alert amongst first responders

Para bellum, si vis pacem

In our civilised countries, a lot of effort and investment is made in implementing security measures to avoid accidents or crises. Alarm systems to avoid burglary, fire extinguishers to avoid fire, dams to avoid floods.

But how much is actually made to prepare the actors, and ultimately the population to the unexpected or the worst case scenario? Human nature does not like bad news, so we will ignore warnings of disasters, until something bad happens. We are living in a world where every citizen is expecting to see running water when turning the tap, or see light in his home at the switch of a button. And this 100% of the time. In our countries nobody is really prepared to spending days, even hours without electricity, because everyone relies on the fact, that “necessary measures have been taken to make sure this never happens.” But is it really so? Can we be sure, that nothing bad will happen to us, because millions were invested in securing infrastructures and the supply chain?

When investing in securing the well being of the population,  more effort and resources need to be allocated into preparing for the worst case scenario, just in case our safety pins do not hold together.

About population resilience

As Patrice Dallem, Director for First Response and Emergency at French Red Cross, told me once,  population needs to be fully integrated in the communication chain in emergency situations. ”In  case of an earthquake, most lives are saved in the very first minutes by direct relatives and neighbours. In emergency situations, population always shows great ability to adapt to extreme situations, and react promptly to natural disasters.”

So why is it, that in our modern civilisation, population is kept outside the vital communication chain before, during, and after emergency situations? A better information would increase their resilience capabilities.

Police forces know what to do, if a spree killer attacks a school, but do teachers know what to do? Have they been given instructions on when they need to leave a room, or on the contrary to stay confined?

Is population properly informed when drinking water is polluted? If yes, will they also be informed, when the situation is restored?

When I was a kid, we learned at school how to recognise the different tones provided by the sirens in our village, warning of fire, storm or nuclear threat. The sirens still exist, they are tested once a month during lunch time, but as nobody is at home, nobody even knows they exist, and I am convinced nobody would react to them in an emergency situation. 

Anyway, in today’s times, there is no excuse anymore in not keeping citizens properly informed, considering the multitude of communication channels offered. So, first, prevention needs to be promoted at school, then communication towards the population needs to be properly organised. In a crisis situation, they will at least know how to help themselves, until outside assistance is available.

 It is not about technology, it is about being prepared

In the last decades, mobile technologies have revolutionised our lives. Imagine, no emails 25 years ago, no SMS text messages 20 years ago, and no smartphones only 5 years ago. Twitter and Facebook are bringing us into a new dimension of communication. All these means can, and should be used to improve the way we communicate and protect ourselves from the unexpected. There are tools out there, that specialise in exactly that. Without them, it will not be possible to properly manage an intelligent communication, that will be at the same time targetted, performing and useful.

But let us not forget that these tools should be used to assist the actors, not to replace them. At the end of the day, you can have the most sophisticated alert, notification and information system in place, if you are not prepared, there will be nobody there to use it!

 Luxembourg, 14^th August 2012

Are Business Continuity Managers in Banking Sector competent?

I am terrified about the number of business continuity managers in banking sector, who do not understand their business. I notice through the questions they ask me.

I have met excellent BC managers in the banking world. My comment sounds frustrated, I actually just want to point out, that the good BC manager, alongside his/her knowledge base and experience, is the one asking the right questions when implementing BC measures, and not following the strict BC rules, or "what has been done for 20 years in the BC business". He must be able to adapt to the most unexpected hazard affecting the organisation.

In my world of emergency communication and notification management, I have had to spend hours explaining our communication cost strategy (how much does an SMS cost, how much does a voice call cost,...), and very few actually would point out obvious things like, "If we have a power cut, will you be up and running?" which makes much more sense.

I see more value in working with someone who chose our company because our solution was matching their BC needs, than with someone who selected us because our text messages are 1 cent cheaper than the competition's !

Population Alerts - It's not only about the Technology, it's about being prepared

When I talk about mass notification systems to members of local authorities, the reaction is often to ask questions about technical abilities of the solution. While performance, availability and reliability of the solution and telecom operators are key elements, one is often neglected, which is:
preparedness of the operators and system administrators, preparedness of the key players taking responsibility for manageing emergency procedures (emergency managers, politicians, first responders,...), and of course preparedness of the end-user, i.e. the citizen.

I am reading the excellent book "The Human Side of Disaster" by Thomas E. Drabek, who describes perfectly how we react to disasters. It reminds me of how we, at M-PLIFY, perceive the importance of message content: it's not only about technology. Here an example:

In 1862, when Victor Hugo released his famous "Les Miserables", he was worried about the success and sales around his book, so he wrote a letter to his editor with the following: " ? ".
The answer came days later: " ! ".

This example shows, that when actors in a community are prepared and know the context of a message (who has sent, when was it sent, what is it concerning?), you can stay very limited in words, yet be explicit on actions to take.

I'm not saying you should send a question mark to population, when problems hit the area, but if population has been properly informed on what risks threaten them, and what measures have been put in place to inform them, it makes life of emergency managers easier, and life saving more efficient.

At the end of the day, it's not about technology, but how to insert it intelligently in the alert procedures under human control, the day it is really needed.