With the new year, traditionally people and their business pursuits, be it government, education, for-profit or not-for-profit organizations take a long sigh and begin again as if the calendar automatically causes an opportunity to fix, refresh, start again, erase or redevelop all that preceded and change what was done.
Like a handful of clay, carefully molded, shaped and designed, and in an instant it can be reshaped and started all over again.
So it goes with so many disciplines and emergency management is no exception. We need to continue to look at the way we have always done things and yet ask ourselves do we need to develop more "best practices" to get better results with the next disaster or develop " "the next practices" that take into account the discovery that government is not really the "first responder" we think it is. The challenges of emergency preparedness for the emergency manager are radically different from what it was when most traditional thinking about emergency management was developed and when many of today's emergency agencies were formed. We believe that there are new realities and they demand new strategies. The Emergency Preparedness Institute, people who have lots of practical experience in safety management, many of whom are now part of our "Preparedness Coalition" (www.getprepared.org) are a leading source of fresh, forward looking ideas and create an invaluable resource of emerging strategies for anyone interested in emergency management.
Those ideas are presented to us in live interviews on our Internet Radio Show "The Preparedness Report" at
www.wgpnradio.com. We welcome inquiries about guests that have an idea to share about the next generation of emergency managers, the new realities and emerging strategies in emergency preparedness @ norris@getprepared.org.
