Re: Draft XG Charter

Just to clarify one thing. The term "political" can refer to 
international relationships (where diplomacy rules), and you illustrate 
that well, as well as to formal regulations at a national level (what 
agency is responsible for what kinds of emergency missions).

A remark:
     Actually, whenever there is an instance of an emergency or a
     crisis, there is some public agency that is in command, and all
     other agencies involved in handling that situation is working in
     supporting roles. In some situations, it may be the fire
     department that is in command, having the authority to issue
     commands to other agencies. In other situations, it may be a
     national emergency agency that is in control, giving orders to
     fire departments, etc. Such ways of forming a mission may
     clearly be called political (without quotes).

     The chains of command are important in the real world.


The other meaning is when the term refers to the competitive *ecosystem* 
of organisations, where organisations try to expand and protect their 
power -- by their way of acting in areas that are not covered in detail 
by existing rules and regulations, by the way they choose to interpret 
rules and regulations, and by lobbying behind the scenes in the public 
sector.

I was more worried about the second kind of "politics". The first one 
can be described by existing agreements and regulations, as well as by 
how it works in practice.

As an example, from the perspective of the "socio-political" side, I 
would prefer to keep healthy distance from specific technology choices 
made in stakeholder organisations (agencies). They naturally prefer 
standards that are similar to their existing technology solutions, as it 
makes adoption easier. Or, inversely, if they believe that a proposed 
standard is an ill fit for them while it matches other organisations' 
technology solutions, then they may reject the standard.

Which I would like to call "finding neutral common ground", where 
stakeholders see more value than threats.


/olle

Kristin Hoskin wrote:
>
> Hi All
>
> Just want to clarify a point that has not been too clear in the last 
> few emails. It may not be necessary in which case ignore it but for 
> those unfamiliar with the ways some things work it might be of use.
>
> International organisations, including those supplied by other 
> governments, come in when they are "invited". They are essentially 
> guests and have no rights to impose aid or support except where this 
> has been prearranged. They don't just come in when domestic 
> organisations and governments can't cope either (that would be 
> considered invasion).
>
> Predominantly overseas organisations and governments offer specific 
> assistance which may or maynot be accepted by the affected nation or a 
> pre-established working relationship with organisations within the 
> affected country is already in place for disaster contingencies. The 
> only exception is for the purpose of evacuating their own citizens 
> that are in the affected area. To illustrate this, rural or wildfire 
> fire fighters often send teams overseas to perform specific roles that 
> supplement the domestic capacity of an affected country. They do this 
> to help with specific response functions and to gain experience in 
> specific deployments as well as to build interoperability capacity and 
> to share their knowledge and skills with others. A specific instance 
> of this would be where there is a need for fire jumpers - the US has a 
> particularly well developed capability in this area due to terrain, 
> size of forest fires, access to equipment (and people crazy enough to 
> jump out of planes and into the middle of a forest fire). They have 
> specialised techniques and skills that many other countries don't have 
> either due to the expense of resources or lack of need. In the rare 
> instances when this type of approach is of benefit then fire jumpers 
> might be volunteered. A similar example is in coordination of wildfire 
> response. New Zealand rural fire people often go to Australia to 
> assist with the coordination aspects of managing large scale 
> multi-front fire responses, not because Australians can't do it but 
> because it helps to meet the capacity requirements and keeps the NZers 
> trained up. These are just fire examples and I give them because most 
> people can relate to and visualise such examples. There are of course 
> many others at all levels of emergency management.
>
> In summary the point I want to articulate is that many organisations 
> and governments have standing overseas support arrangements but with 
> the exception of nations that are under civil war it would be rare for 
> aid to be provided as a "guns a blazin' hero on a white horse saving 
> the day" approach. It isn't a matter of politics so much as a matter 
> of manners and appreciation that those on the ground know what they 
> need and that others will supply what is asked for. It is worth 
> stating that this is quite distinct from long term recovery aid 
> packages which I would not consider a part of assisting emergency 
> management but of assistance to social and economic recovery.
>
> Kristin
>
>
> On 10/08/2007, at 15:41 , paola.dimaio@gmail.com wrote:
>
>>
>> Chamindra
>>
>> Just to be clear Olli's statement is  not contrasting mine, but 
>> reinforcing it
>>
>>  It is well understood - I think - that our work is 'non political' -
>> Ollie reinforces this, and I think we all agree -  it is also true
>> that our 'users' are (often) constrained by politics when making their
>> emergency technology choices.
>>
>> The question that follows is: how can that 'aspect of reality', as
>> well as the need for neutrality, be reflected in our work, and it what
>> measure ?
>>
>> I know its a difficult one, and we should not necessarily find an
>> answer, rather keep it as
>> a 'reminder' of an aspect of our model that may beed some clever 
>> engineering :-)
>>
>>
>> pdm
>>
>>
>>
>> On 8/10/07, Chamindra de Silva <chamindra@opensource.lk> wrote:
>>> I think Olle and Paola are talking at different levels of this issue. I
>>> agree with both, but in a different context on each point.
>>>
>>> (1) In agreement with Olle: Interop standards should certainly be
>>> apolitical and agnostic of any particular organizational sensitivities
>>> and play to the lowest common denominator as much as possible. We have
>>> to! otherwise it is not a standard which we can depend on and encode
>>> into our systems to allow them to exchange data electronically.
>>>
>>> (2) In agreement with Paola: Terminology for end users and systems will
>>> need to be configured to meet the target user group and organization,
>>> national sensitivities. Certainly we can keep that terminology out of
>>> this group, but it would still serve as a valuable standard and 
>>> input to
>>> forge the interop framework. I think saying there is political 
>>> influence
>>> is a bit strong, as it is more about creating ontologies that people 
>>> can
>>> use in common especially in sharing disaster information (human to
>>> human) effectively (without ambiguity) across nationalities and
>>> organizations.
>>>
>>> paola.dimaio@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>> So, what I am saying is that (1) I would like to keep all issues
>>>>> originating in political structures out of the XG, and at the same 
>>>>> time
>>>>> (2) the work of the XG must be defined with an awareness of the
>>>>> political issues in the field, so that important parties see the 
>>>>> XG as
>>>>> an opportunity, not a threat.
>>>>
>>>> HI Olle
>>>>
>>>> I am sure most of us will agree -  thing is that our 'users' must move
>>>> within political constraints and its the politics that prevents
>>>> cooperation (more than the technology at times)
>>>>
>>>> therefore we should design accordingly  - if we simply  'avoid
>>>> acknowledging' the issue,
>>>> we may produce something that is not easily usable from that viewpoint
>>>>
>>>>  How do you think such 'awareness'  and 'neutrality' should be
>>>> reflected in our work?
>>>>
>>>> pdm
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --Paola Di Maio
>> School of IT
>> www.mfu.ac.th
>> *********************************************
>>
>>
>
>


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Olle Olsson   olleo@sics.se   Tel: +46 8 633 15 19  Fax: +46 8 751 72 30
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Received on Friday, 10 August 2007 11:36:35 UTC