Everything will be OK ... Until it's not!

This is a statement I consistently use with my management team when we are in situational analysis and future planning mode.

For me, “Everything will be ok … until it’s not” demands far greater attention than its sister expression ‘Fail to prepare, prepare to fail’, quoted by the great Benjamin Franklin. This latter expression is one that poetically rolls off the tongue as a wonderful ode to 'preparedness'. 

For me, ‘Fail to prepare, prepare to fail’ has become so ubiquitous in its use, that its meaning, application and execution gets completely lost in translation. It’s a statement that, in modern business, is more used to demonstrate a knowledge of the need to be prepared rather than the state of being prepared. It is as if by saying it, people believe that the state of preparedness being discussed is magically established. 

"Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago" ... Warren Buffett

Unfortunately, such magical powers do not exist, and 'preparedness' is something that requires vision and a high degree of intuition, or, at its very simplest, the ability to recognise potential problems before they manifest themselves in various states of emergency.

In order to ensure that we truly are discussing our level of preparedness for potential future disruptions to our business, I consistently challenge every affirmation I hear with “what if it’s not”.  I find that this type of challenge forces a more focused and detailed discussion that asks everyone to consider not only the intended consequences of what we plan to do, but more importantly, for me, the unintended consequences of us doing it. 

And for sure, 8 out of 10 times everything will be OK, but, as a business leader, responsible and accountable for the decisions we make, I am more concerned about our ability to react to, and actively manage, any potential scenarios that might play out in the other 2 out 10 times. After all, nobody like surprises, and it's often harder to deal with them. 

So what, I sense you ask?

Those of you who know me, or those who have read previous articles of mine, will know that my mission is to help people understand the social, economic and environmental benefits of geographic information, in a way that positively impacts the lives of employees, customers, stakeholders and society in general. My purpose is to make people's lives better by helping those who can effect change to better understand the impact and influence of location, place & geography on both the business & political decisions that affect society.

I am passionate about the use and application of location, place and geography. For 23 of my 30 years working in the geospatial industry here in Ireland I have consistently advocated the benefits and value of taking a geographic approach to business; not only to help make better more informed decisions today, but also to help predict and analyse future risks in a way that enables us to prepare and plan for a safer sustainable tomorrow.  

For the most part, many senior executives, businesses leaders and senior civil servants get it, but unfortunately there are still those ‘naysayers’ that don’t! … until they have to ... and that usually happens when the proverbial sh!t hits the fan.

"Preparation through education is less costly than learning through tragedy" ... Max Mayfield

If we take the current global pandemic as an example. No matter what your race, creed, colour, gender, age, politics, social class or title, COVID-19 has taken the world by surprise. Why? Primarily because of the ‘unknown’, but more likely due to the lack of preparedness on a global scale, the likes that has never been seen before (at least in my lifetime). 

Of course, I fully accept that we will never know what we don’t know; in ‘risk management’ parlance this would be akin to trying to plan for the ‘unknown unknowns’. But equally, and as challenging as that can be, it should never ever absolve us of our responsibility to lay down the basic support infrastructures, in preparation for any worst case scenario that might play out, if things were left unconsidered and unchecked. 

Location, place and geography, in the form of spatial data, GIS technology and geospatial expertise is one such supporting infrastructure, the use of which allows us to plan for the more reasonable ‘known unknowns’ enabling us to recognise potential problems before they become emergencies, or at the very least, minimise the effects of an ensuing disaster.

And while one might (hopefully) argue that the current COVID-19 pandemic is a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, what is definitely not a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence are incidents such as hurricanes, tornadoes, winter storms, famines, civil unrest, drought, tsunamis, oil spills, human displacement, earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, wildfires and floods, all of which require proactive emergency planning, emergency management and emergency response. In fact, in some parts of the world these such incidents have become a fact of life, or, dare I say it, the 'new normal'.

These increasingly regular incidents cause significant human displacement, heartache and pain; they adversely impact and influence the environment; and they contribute to a massive economic upheaval for individuals, businesses and local & global economies. However, given the Worlds current state of digital connectedness, nearly all of these incidents can be prepared for now, if we were to take the time and effort to do so.

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe" ... Abraham Lincoln

Creating safer, less vulnerable communities in this "new normal" requires a modern approach to understanding threats and hazards that are more complex, costly and devastating than ever before.

For many agencies around the world, and indeed here locally in Ireland, Location Intelligence is at the heart of this modern approach. With location intelligence we develop a deeper understanding of risk and maintain real-time real-world insights to help plan for and mitigate complex threats and hazards and coordinate response and recovery efforts when disasters and emergencies occur.

Unfortunately, the frequency and intensity of emergencies today are unlike anything seen before. Agencies need real-time integrated location-aware solutions for emergency operations to help prepare, plan and support mission-critical decisions. These solutions must help emergency management professionals maintain situational and operational awareness; quickly carry out impact analysis; assess damage; locate, commission & deploy needed resources; and, educate, inform and warn the public and stakeholder communities. Knowing ‘where’ matters in all of these areas.

Maintaining situational awareness is critical to response efforts for any emergency or disaster. Processes that involve the manual collection and sharing of data are not only siloed and slow but are also immediately out-of-date; keeping emergency response teams in a reactive, disconnected state. With an integrated, real-time, location-based solution at your fingertips, maintaining situational awareness makes it easier for emergency response managers and first responders to monitor changing conditions as they happen, brief their teams immediately, and make better-informed decisions that can ultimately save lives and property. 

Location Intelligence enables emergency professionals to be more agile and informed at all points during their emergency management response efforts, providing powerful mapping and analytics capabilities that allow them to monitor incidents as they unfold. Armed with this information, disasters and large-scale emergencies can be managed with a high degree of foresight and agility.

“Maps are like campfires; everyone gathers around them, because they allow people to understand complex issues at a glance, and find agreement about how to help the land” ... Sonoma Ecology Center

With Location intelligence we have the world's most advanced data science, 'the Science of Where' for visualising and analysing risk; for modelling, predicting & designing mitigation strategies; and for collaborating & communicating with the whole community to build resilience from the ground up.

However, while this general acceptance is clear; there is still evidence of a sluggishness that exists within our local stakeholder communities that, for me, creates a vacuum of geospatial leadership at a high level, sometimes resulting in a slowness to act, and, possibly most concerning of all, a reticence to share, co-ordinate & collaborate for the greater good of business, government and society in general. During times of calm, this potential lack of energy and enthusiasm is a massive problem when it comes to the chaos and urgency associated with emergency management and response; particularly in our ability to react quickly to the dynamic ever changing scenarios that tend to unfold before our eyes in emergency situations.

"The greatest error is not to move quickly; the greatest error is to be paralysed by the fear of failure. If you need to be right before you move you will never win. Speed trumps perfection... Mike Ryan, the WHO

There is little doubt that today's business and political leaders are confronted by a consumer and citizen that is deeply concerned about fraying communities, rising inequality, unsafe and unsustainable industry practices, and a climate change crisis that is manifesting itself in an ever increasing frequency of emergencies and natural disasters all around the world.

As geospatial professionals, and people who fundamentally understand the importance of location, place and geography to all of these challenges, we must help business and political leaders to join the dots between the work that is done at a local customer & community level, to that required to manage the economic, social and environmental fallout when natural disasters and emergencies occur at local, regional, national, international and global levels.

In times of emergencies we won’t always be able to choose what happens, but we sure can choose how to prepare and how to respond. And, unfortunately, there are those who won’t prepare and respond in the most effective way, examples of which we’ve witnessed from leaders locally, and across the globe, since the current COVID-19 outbreak took hold. In their world’s it would seem that everything will be OK ... until it’s not.

But thankfully, there are those who will.

In my experience those who will are those who truly believe in the value of what we (the geospatial community) can do together to facilitate, enable and help any emergency situation. Together as a community the choice is within our hands. Knowing what we now know, and acting on the learning we've already had in just 10 short weeks, we must ensure that the value of what we are doing now, in this time of need, remains long after this is over.

And when the calm returns ... and it will return ... we must use that time to take what we have learned and enrich the way we share, collaborate and co-ordinate for the greater good of all in society, so when the next big thing happens ... maybe, just maybe, Everything will be OK!