I’m wary that anything I may write herein will trivialize the catastrophe that frames these considerations. That, certainly, is not my intention.
As a detached observer of the scenes currently unfolding in Haiti, it is hard not to wonder how on earth the responders at hand will ever manage to return some semblance of normalcy to that wretched, devastated place. Every step, any step, forward is surely a testament to human decency. That some sense might be made of the informational chaos unleashed by the earthquake, let’s hope that those organizations in the midst of it all are able to lower their drawbridges to each other just enough. I take a keen interest in understanding how barriers to trust and cooperation might be overcome, and this situation seems to provide ample cause to put certain organizational/cultural differences aside.
Wired’s Danger Room discusses some of the data and information sharing efforts from the military side (imagery and such) and points toward two distinct “collaborative portals” that the U.S. Southern Command has put in place for the present response effort…two unclassified portals, one “for official use” and one for everyone else — the academics, the NGOs, the IOs, and the non-military U.S. government. Classified or not, if experience and organizational inertia are anything to go by, it would seem that this represents a certain redundant measure of unnecessary redundancy. But that’s only a superficial impression.
As it turns out, the tool set being put forward must be enduring a trial “under fire”, so to speak, since development and testing were still underway when the earthquake occurred. Going live with a system the day after an event seems a bit late to build the trust and working relationships needed during such a time, but circumstances are what they are. Still, “collaboration” is not a feature. Either it will occur or it won’t, and those of us with an interest in the matter ought look to enable it where we can and limit the barriers that even our best intentions might put in our way. From provisioning capabilities to reifying assumptions about information, the paradigms within which we might not even be aware we operate can be wholly unconducive to what needs to be achieved.
The problem of developing and maintaining shared knowledge is one of near immeasurable complexity, and only few will get it right, so I fear that one-offs and ad-hocery still continue to define constructive informational spaces.
Godspeed, the task is too important.
