For the application assignment for this week, I would like
to reference not only to a great Power Point presentation I hunted down from
FEMA but also to personal experience. The presentation is titled “Emergent Organizations and Networks
in Catastrophic Environments.” It can
be found as the third entry at the link below. The presentation discussed many myths and realities about
emergent organizations in disaster situations discussed Incident Management
Systems as well as extensions to Transactive Memory Systems much like our
reading this week by Majchrzak, Jarvenpaa & Hollingshead.
The presentation touched upon the myth that centralized decision-making and response is
always appropriate and went on to discuss many aspects of emergent groups in
the context of an emergency. One
of the later slides talked about how after the Towers fell in New York City,
Water Taxis, and dinner cruise boats, private boats and ferries jointly worked
with the Coast Guard to converge upon Lower Manhattan to evacuate people and
help get them home.
That brought me
back to that moment that I watched the 2nd tower go down as I made
my way to the Nonprofit I was running in Soho. It was pretty awful. No one knew what was happening, cell phones were down, and
the swarms of bloodied, dazed, people pouring up the streets looked like
something from a post apocalyptic movie.
They were all trying to flee north and I was trying to get through them
, south, to my office and make sure my co-workers were all safe. While I would
never equate what I did with the rescue workers on further downtown, in the
fray, I will never forget how we opened our doors after I arrived.
Most people saw our
doors open and just kept on heading uptown as fast as possible but some stopped
in begging for some water and just needed to sit down and catch their
breath. I had my small staff make
room for them and give them water from our cooler. When people realized that our phone was working at the front
desk they were desperate to call home.
I let the receptionist give control to the phone to any of the victims
that rambled in, so they could let their loved ones know that they were ok. People
from several different countries stopped in to make tearful calls to places all
around the globe. While other
larger scale emergent groups put together blood drives and enlisted civilian
help to search through the rubble. In our own little way, we helped quite a few
people take a breath in a moment where there seemed to be no air.
David, thanks for sharing your personal experience during 9/11. Your story is a great example of an emergent response group, where there are not preexisting structures but people work together in the face of a catastrophe.
ReplyDeleteSince you covered transactive memory in you midterm paper, you are particularly knowledgeable about this theory. What do you think of Majchrzak et al's (2007) extension of the theory to this topic? Do you think it provides a useful framework for better understanding emergent response groups?
Very moving. Thank you for sharing this.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jessica and Megan,
ReplyDeleteIt's funny - it had never occurred to me apply my 9/11 experience until I saw the FEMA slide and it caused me to have a very visceral reaction. It wasn't at all what I expected to feel from doing this assignment.
As for Majchrzak et al's (2007) extension of the theory to this topic, I think that they did a very good job of addressing the idea of modifying Transactive Memory Systems; however, I wonder if it almost should be considered a whole different theory because of the multitude of differences between a regular TMS and a modified TMS based on the factors associated with an emergency situation.
In a crisis situation, tasks cannot be assigned based on relative expertise of the players because there most likely has not been enough time for a group to establish the familiarity needed for a traditional TMS. Additionally, due to fleeting nature of the group it would be difficult to maintain a true TMS with the actors coming and going at such a high rate.
As with a traditional TMS the willingness to share knowledge for the common good is a crucial factor. Majchrzak et al assert that "trust is continually created and recreated through action," which makes perfect sense would especially if there is perceived common threat looming over all the participants. In the time of crisis, the decisions must be made to save lives and the sharing of knowledge would be of the utmost importance to facilitate results.
I definitely agree with the practical implications from extending the TMS theory as way to shift the focus of rescue workers from the idea of "command and control" towards a more thoughtful push towards "assess and coordinate and intermediate." In the end, the better prepared and trained responders can be the more lives can potentially be saved. So this type of speculation is important and necessary.
David, your personal experience with 9/11 and your work to help all those people in need is very commendable and I would consider you a hero for helping the people that walk through your office door. It is quite amazing how people switch modes in crisis and that some of us can become even more functional when we see others in need. Again, thank you for sharing your experience and how it ties into TMS.
ReplyDeleteThank you David. You did a very selfless thing by helping everyone during that horrible day. It was so scary on tv, I can't imagine being there. You made some compelling arguments regarding TMS in emergency situations. I agree it is very difficult to assess every ones strengths during a crisis. Watching the 9/11 footage of the firefighters and how they all handled the crisis was a great example of when it works. Sadly, they didn't all make it, but they were all heros and did there jobs very well. Do you think FEMA did a good job when they arrived in NYC?
ReplyDeleteDavid, Thank you for sharing your 9/11 experience. You too me back to where I was when this happened. I was at my cubical in Portland, OR where I was working for Intel. Like it was yesterday, all my family and friends in NYC started emailing and calling me saying we're being attacked. I remember logging on to CNN.com and site being shut down because of traffic.
ReplyDeleteI also watched the second tower come down and not knowing what I was looking at on TV. I have been in that building some many time as a kid. You brought up some great points about how people react in certain emergency situations. From my perspective, and being a NY'er, watching the response by the NYPD, the NYFD, and NY'ers everyone did a great job working together in a emergency situation.
Thanks for sharing.