Crisis Management and Collaboration

The massive explosion of oil at the bottom of the sea a mile under the Gulf of Mexico has captured the media’s attention like no other environmental disaster in years. In addition, it’s easy to see that this disaster is of epic proportions and will send tens of thousands of people into bankruptcy, if not more.
From many standpoints, the list of events we are following via the media seems to be a mountain of communication and collaboration failures. At the cyber-age of social media, it’s hard to understand why the situation is getting more chaotic every day.
Looking at the media magnifying glass, the Oil Company (BP) and eventually politics (the Obama government) are the first to be blamed for the causes and consequences of this crisis.
If we look closer, the issue has a deeper reach and the missed opportunity to come out together with solutions even bigger.

Organizing the discussion
Effective collaboration requires a right mix of people based on the skills/expertise mix, and clearly-defined roles and decision-making. Oil Companies, independent experts, Lobbies and Activist, Volunteers and ONG, Politics and governmental agencies, media and the crowd… everybody is interacting with everybody else creating a lot of noise with few positive and efficient things we can retrieve from there to positively impact on the events. In terms of crisis management, it’s very important to clarify the role of each other and being as transparent as possible. It’s also essential to explain the context of each decision and the environment. Here, no one seems to know specific roles & responsibilities and the decision-making process. Then of course the issue of trust is evident.

Collect, Measure, Analyze and Recommend
The disaster is covered by the media 24/7. Satellite cameras, observations from special submarines, on-site investigations, 3D/wheater simulations… We know exactly what’s going on effective collaboration. The phenomenon is even increased by the use of the Real-Time Web. However, not a word about what do next, how can we (at any level, do something more than just keep looking for somebody to blame). Unfortunately, the disaster is real, there is no coming. Of course, we can wonder about the cause, ask for more regulations, sign petitions… it won’t change the immediate situation. The oil is getting closer to our cost and we keep watching this non stop flow of oil like hypnotized by the situation. Today, we have tons of measurement tools, some are private other public and can be used by anybody. Using all this data and combining it would be a first step in the right direction. The share of information between governmental agencies is critical when it comes to a major disaster. Remember Katrina? Remember the local authorities and the FEMA? Once this data have been collected and share, the analysis is key. Understand a situation is important but identifying actionable data and recommend actions is mandatory for such a crisis. Sharing the results of the measurement and analysis with third parties could generate thousands of actionable insights and concrete solutions. For example, the US is the largest and most innovative GIS (Geographic Information System) market in the world with hundreds of laboratories and universities, the data is standardized which makes it easy to share. This would be a great place to start.

Crowdsourcing
Top hat, top kill, cut a cap, junk shot… one idea succeed to another failure and so on. This crisis is also a failure of imagination. We often see that the reality is outside the boundaries of where people are looking. That holds true for group problem solving as well. One of the contributions we should expect of effective collaboration is to stretch the imagination of the group for what external factors might happen or for the potential solution space. With all the comments out there, the millions of opinion and hypothesis, how can we filter the noise and gather the best ideas, regroup them and look at trend or innovative ideas. BP is now looking at external solutions with the participation of celebrities like James Cameron or Kevin Costner. Are they the only having good ideas and available solutions? Yesterday, a former VP of a oil company was explaining on the air that he was very surprised by the fact that nobody was currently trying to recuperate the oil at the surface of the sea. He mentioned different technical solutions which have been successfully used in similar situation. Why not enabling collaboration between these experts, the oil companies, the government and the technical system providers? Why not letting more experts and people express their ideas about the potential solutions? In this case, Crowdsourcing would be an appropriate answer. Wired Magazine as defined the term as: “the intend to substitute the selective contracts and specific formation of work forces by means of massive participation of volunteers and the application of auto-organization principles”.

Taking action
Again, the Oil spill is probably one of the largest environmental disasters in the US history. It will generate immediate and long term consequences on the nature, people and businesses. However, the crowd and the media are not currently focus on the consequences, they analyze the causes and look for somebody to blame for.
Collaboration is a key element in such circumstances; it’s about bringing people together to solve problems, not about dividing people and politicizing one’s own position. This won’t be productive and the main issue will be the same or worse the day after. The large amount of resources spent in this process is not utilized to find solutions. The fact is nobody knows how to fix this problem right now. It shouldn’t mean we have all to wait for the oil to reach the Coast. BP, the government, activists and volunteers can use this small time frame to coordinate, recruits, teach safety requirements… The use of social media can help achieving these objectives faster and reach a larger population.