No Status Quo: Find Innovators at CEPCA Conference in Ottawa in September

I’ve been doing some form of emergency management since 1988. It’s basically been my career. Over the years I’ve participated in many major incidents and events, facilitated many after-action reviews for major incidents, and generally paid close attention to trends in emergency management particularly those related to emerging and converging technologies. Apparently, I’m a pretty strong systems thinker, which is just a fancy way of saying I can connect many dots and understand the “big” picture. I’ve developed some skills around strategic foresight, and those who know me generally agree that innovation is part of what I do. So in that context, I’d like to share a thought or two about how I see innovation in the emergency management world these days.

Generally, when people think innovation, they tend to jump to the technology world. I mean, why wouldn’t they? Exponential technological growth is everywhere, and we are bombarded with it in some form everyday:

• Artificial intelligence & big data
• Exponential growth in affordable computing & quantum technology
• Web 3.0, mixed reality & the metaverse
• 6G and low earth satellite connectivity…almost everywhere
• The age of social influencers
• The internet of absolutely everything 

The list goes on…the incredible potential from combinations of these technologies expands…

We are at a time where the convergence of technological growth and capability represents the single most disruptive period in the history of earth. According to some of the most prominent thought leaders and futurists, this is the best time to embrace innovation and technology for the better. I’m in this camp with these folks. Everything I see indicates that there is a “perfect storm” brewing in the public safety domain with all the converging and emerging technologies, and the increasing needs placed on humanity for climate resilience. The solutions are there. You just need to look for them.

Introduce this thought:

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results every time.”

This opens up a huge rabbit hole where I could vent for hours on how some aspects of emergency management are still steeped in “this is the way we’ve always done it” mindsets, peppered with a strong dose of resistance to change. But I won’t go down that hole. I only present it because it seems to be part of a larger systemic barrier to embracing new technologies at a time when the nature of emergency response and recovery requires it, and the impacted populations and their politicians demand it.

I will also add that there is some tremendous advancements in the public safety business practices world these days so clearly, some folks are embracing and supporting innovation the right way.

So, I wonder why it is so difficult for some government agencies to truly embrace and support innovation, particularly at the corporate culture level?  I should know. I’ve had several firsthand experiences with that resistance to accept new practices and explore new ideas in my 30+ years in government. I’ve been branded “thought leader” and “10 years ahead of my time” by some, and “rogue employee” by others, typically senior leadership who in my view, never truly understood how to identify and nurture the idea champions. I’ve been out of government for 7 years now and from what I can see, not much has changed.

And I’m guessing I’m not the only one who has experienced the frustrations of presenting obvious solutions to senior leadership who are unwilling or unable to embrace the change. Any of those senior leadership folks reading this comment will automatically react with “we support innovation, we have an innovation program”. But if that’s the case, why are we still seeing the same old themes and recommendations in our large wildfire or flood after-action reviews? You know…stuff related to lack of situational awareness and communications, not enough staff, siloes of business practice and that sort of thing.

I have a pretty good sense of that because I’ve been part of, and/or facilitated, many many debriefs, hotwashes, reviews etc. over the years, and the same stuff keeps coming up. But I also know that there are solutions out there to a lot of these common repeating themes. I’ve seen them. I’ve researched them. I’ve talked to the people who have come up with them. In fact, some of them are going to be at the Canadian Emergency Preparedness and Climate Adaptation (CEPCA) conference in Ottawa September 25 & 26.

I spoke to a senior wildfire manager a while back about a relatively low tech practice that I could see had some significant game changing potential. I wasn’t trying to sell him anything as I had nothing to do with the folks who offered it. It was just something that I had come across and had an “aha” moment about. I thought it was powerful enough that it needed to be shared with his organization. In fact, this approach had already been proven operationally elsewhere with some good success.

His response was “they’re pretty expensive”.

My response was “nowhere near as expensive for the provincial government as when it comes to all-of-community response and recovery costs”. I don’t think he really got my point. And it was also apparent that he really didn't understand a government's role in supporting the larger economy through its spending practices. Somewhat ironically, I've noticed over the years that was fairly common to a lot of senior government management folks.

My experience has been that a lot of government organizations operate in siloes and they don’t really get, or choose not to get, the bigger picture. Instead, they tend to protect and defend their business practices within their policy and financial constraints. That doesn’t really seem too conducive to promoting innovation, does it? It’s awesome that they’re good at preparedness and response, but wouldn’t they rather be great at mitigation, prevention and early detection? Never mind lowering the safety and risk exposures to responders and communities alike. That’s another conversation in its own right.

I see a lot of government agencies touting innovation. In fact, I recall one time an Assistant Deputy Minister sending out an email to all staff that basically said “I expect you all to be innovative. Here’s the email to send your innovation ideas to.” I sent 17 emails, all with the best of hope and intent, but as near as I can figure out all I did was get branded by senior leadership as a critic and complainer. Maybe I should have only sent 16 emails...

Clearly, there’s work to be done with some senior government leadership around truly understanding what innovation is, how to support it, and perhaps more importantly how to foster it as a foundational mindset piece in the corporate culture. Failing forward is fundamental to innovation, but generally there’s never really been much of an appetite in government for that approach from my experience.

I’ve had a chance recently to talk to some senior “decision makers” in government agencies across Canada about some new innovative practices that as near as I can tell, gives them solutions to a lot of the challenges and problems that have been formally identified and then translated into their strategic plans. I’ve come away from those conversations with a less than warm and fuzzy feeling in that almost all have basically said “we have to think about it” or “I need to bring this back to the team for discussion”, with no clear signs of desire to embrace any innovations. I get that they’re charged with protecting the provincial financial coffers but there’s a return on investment play here when it comes to innovation that they might not fully understand.

Dare I say, success at the speed of government some days? Most days? I don’t mean this to be critical of our government agencies. There are a lot of really smart and dedicated people who share frustrations about trying to bring innovation into their practices. They do the best they can within their frameworks of business practice. I use this comment to illustrate the collective frustrations and challenges that many of our private and public sector innovators out there experience every day when trying to bring solution to some societal challenge where some level of government has a responsibility or accountability.

I personally think that somehow there needs to be a mind shift away from siloed protection of the status quo towards absolute all out embracement of innovation in our government public safety agencies. Not sure how that would work exactly, especially in the short term where the need and demand for change in emergency management practices is fairly apparent if you believe everything in the media these days, but I have a few ideas. As do many others. But then what do I know? Apparently, I’m rogue.

We’ll be at the CEPCA conference in Ottawa on September 25 & 26. I know that there will be some innovators there. I’ve talked to a few already. Some will be high tech, but some will also be low tech. I encourage many of you to seek them out. Don’t bring your barriers to acceptance and your desire to protect current business practices.

Instead, bring your curiosity and open mind, and seek out some of these innovators. Don’t dismiss them or discount what they’re trying to do. Talk to them. Challenge them. Inspire them. Think outside the box a little…or a lot.

If you haven’t already registered, as a speaker we are allowed to share a registration code with you that will get you 15% off the fee. Go to the CEPCA registration page and use the code:  CEPCA15

Hope to see you and your open mind there.