to get more participation, elaborate the vision

I suggest Gavin is right (once again) to seek more
input before major decisions (such as naming the
incubator or deciding who to listen to about what) are
undertaken.  I suggest this outreach must employ some
statement of what is to be achieved in terms that will
appeal to the beneficiary, not to the practitioner, as
a competent practitioner will recognize what is of use
to the beneficiary.  Accordingly some attention must
be paid to the vision statement, which frames the more
detailed mission statement and generally outlines what
"we" intend to achieve say from 2007 to 2012, 2020...
perhaps not just through this effort but related ones.

Although the following "vision" is apparently not very
objectionable (it has survived several edits) it isn't
perfect either.  It tries to roughly characterize the
stages or steps in a roughly chronological order, and
introduce terms.  I suggest a line-by-line review of
it, citing references and authorities, aligning it to
the language that will appeal to the beneficiary or at
least not alarm them ("incident management", 4Rs, and
so on).  If any major steps are missing, add them.  I
doubt we'll get very far without some shared vision. 
The most controversial element may be "characterizing
problem states", this borrows from Dave
Snowden/Cynefin and is basically the ABIDE approach in
3 lines.

Obviously, if someone wants to undertake a rewrite, I
suggest we do that on the mailing list, as not all are
very familiar with moinmoin (a rather obsolete wiki I
wish W3 would replace with semantic mediawiki soon).

http://esw.w3.org/topic/DisasterManagement
--------------
== Vision ==

An ideal emergency management ontology describes the
following critical steps:
 * once the emergency is widely anticipated, sharing
of data describing response and resource
characteristics that are needed in this kind of event,
e.g. databases of vulnerable persons and places,
ensuring warnings take place
 * as the crisis unfolds, gathering of data on its
scope and emerging effects
 * as the response begins, gathering of data on its
outages and missing links (including communication and
data systems that fail or are incompatible with the
standard ontology and must be replaced) and matching
with relief capacity
 * as the response by first responders is overwhelmed,
sharing relief requests to prioritize relieving the
first responders who are most overloaded or tired.
 * as the relief unfolds, gathering and integrating
data from all responders to build a common baseline
map of the situation and facilitate probes and first
attempts at pro-active data gathering (e.g. MSF lead
logistician role)
 * characterizing problem states as chaotic (no
baseline and no reliable map), complex (changing too
fast to identify causes, requires probes) or
manageable
 * rapidly deploying compatible information and
communication systems to local authorities and
institutions capable of dealing with the manageable
situations
 * calling for expert review of action proposals to
limit/contain chaotic situations, and mass peer review
of probes that better define complex ones, with intent
to limit the unanticipated side effects of management
decisions
 * comparing predicted to measured effects of
interventions within 48-72 hours
 * identifying situations which are not improving and
calling for more options (in chaotic or complex
situations) or more resources (for manageable but
large scale problems)
 * helping experienced response teams move on to the
more complex situation by facilitating rapid handoff
and just-in-time training of those less experienced
 * guiding recovery and reconstruction efforts by
identifying those outages or problems that most
inhibit the resilience networks and outside relief
efforts
 * guiding resilience efforts by identifying which
prevention and anticipation options (e.g. evacuation)
could have prevented the most morbidity or loss of
life-sustaining infrastructure, e.g.
["weather-resilient home"]s, ["levee"]s
 * passing off all data gathered in the disaster to
the appropriate authority after the crisis passes,
updating databases of vulnerable persons and places


       
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Received on Sunday, 24 June 2007 00:15:40 UTC