Social Ruminations

Neighborhood Networks

Not long after I moved into my new apartment, I experienced three separate power outages of significant duration within the span of 24 hours.  Since my iPhone was charged and AT&T's network remained operational, I was able to connect with the outside world and inquire about the situation.  Given I now live in an area that is primed for earthquakes at any time, I've thought about how bad the situation could become if a significant event took place.  Having lived through Hurricane Gloria on Long Island, N.Y. many years ago without power or other types of support for two weeks, I have a clear memory of the implications.  In such situations, you are on your own.  And as we have witnessed from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the situation can turn dire in short order.  

As we face threats to our infrastructure networks, both natural and man-made, I am continually surprised by the government's unwillingness to rethink the role of the average citizen in the security equation.  We continue to retain a centralized mindset with federal, state and local government entities responsible for restoring services and order following a major event.  This approach works to a point.  Given we've developed national infrastructure that is highly optimized yet far from fault-tolerant, impacts on critical nodes in the networks can have disastrous effects.  And it is during these catastrophic failures of the infrastructure networks where the centralized model of disaster response fails.  

Consider one of the central weaknesses that is continually exposed during crises: communication.  I find it ironic that in the age of Web 2.0, we still revert to an age-old model of communication during disasters: the radio.  It's one-way nature is a reflection again of the centralized model.  We use a channel that supports mass information distribution but provides no mechanism for two-way or group communication.  

What would it take to fundamentally change this infrastructure?  In sunny California, I'm imagining an ad-hoc peer-to-peer network that is activated by residents following a disaster event.  With solar infrastructure providing power, a community could stand up an emergency network to support information sharing and coordination of activities.  With a viable communication channel that supports group communication, we can then move to thinking about preparing a community to be active participants in establishing stability and security while government entities attempt to surge resources into an afflicted area. (My network thinking is inspired by the OLPC movement.)  

Clearly the technological dimension to this problem is by far the most straightforward. Changing our culture and mindset may be far more difficult.  We need to get to know our neighbors before a crisis takes place.  We need viable trust networks to fall back on when times are tough.  We need a shared sense of responsibility to rise to the occasion and some notion of our role in the endeavor.  The government can choose to support this change or communities can go it alone.  We hear stories of small communities that do exactly that when times are tough.  Everyone knows everyone and looks out for one another.  That is an ethic we should seek to spread and enhance with technology when appropriate.   

Weaving Trust Networks

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to listen to a retired Marine general who, upon leaving the military, continued to pursue his passion in the area of strategic collaboration.  During the course of his military career, at various levels of command, he had seen and wrestled with the challenges of orchestrating the actions of multiple civilian and military organizations in dynamic, uncertain environments.  During his presentation, his objective was to discuss the wicked hard problems in the extreme scenarios of disaster recovery and reconstruction events such as post-Hurricane Katrina operations and Iraq reconstruction.

In his review of the myriad reasons for the failed response following Katrina, one that stood out was an organizational change that took place prior to the event.  From 1979 to 2003, FEMA stood as an independent agency within the U.S. Government.  In 2003, FEMA became part of the new Department of Homeland Security.  During that transition, priorities changed leaving core missions marginalized in the new organization.  This caused a significant fraction of the senior leadership within the agency to leave.

According to the general, the loss of the senior leadership dealt a significant blow to FEMA's ability to respond to Katrina due to a tremendous loss of social capital.  The senior leaders had accumulated years of experience responding to these types of disasters and knew all the key players in the world of disaster recovery and reconstruction.  They had developed these critical trust relationships over the years through past experiences working together on similar hard problems.  All of this was lost in short order.

A question that came up after the presentation was the following.  What options, if any, exist for accelerating the development of trust relationships in such scenarios when you have players from different organizations working together for the first time?  At that time, we envisioned an event similar in concept to speed dating that is mediated by technology.  Several companies have developed devices (such as SpotMe and nTag) for conferences to aid in networking through the use of profiles and location awareness.  In a disaster recovery setting, the goal would be to use technology to mediate introductions between the right individuals that need awareness of one another to support overall mission objectives.

If organization dynamics were driven solely by mission and function, this might provide additional value.  Yet one important dimension is missing from the equation.  The development of strong bonds between people is primarily driven by compatibility in terms of personality and objectives.  The relationship chemistry is not a factor that can be captured in a profile.  Yet the determination of compatibility a priori can have a significant impact on the effectiveness of an organization that one is actively constructing.  Our goal is to weave trust relationships in such a way that our formal and informal networks are better aligned, leading to positive outcomes in terms of the overall mission.

To improve the effectiveness of mobile devices for network weaving, unconscious or honest social signals must be sensed and processed to assess compatibility.  As Sandy Pentland's work in recent years has shown, these signals can be effectively measured and used to predict the outcomes of social interactions in a range of scenarios.  According to Pentland, such signals transcend culture and language which is critical in international development contexts. 

By profiling individuals both in terms of their organizational role and patterns of social signaling, the goal would be to utilize devices to mediate introductions between people that both need and hopefully want to work together.  Taking into account any characterization of social signaling early on could potentially prevent significant breakdowns in communication later on when stakes are high.  We want to build effective organizations rapidly by accelerating the discovery of valuable social connections.  Today that search is far more time consuming and fortuitous.  In reconstruction and recovery events, where time is of the essence, any improvement in efficiency of networking to construct effective organizations is significant.