Project White Horse Forum

Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness
We continue to discuss the idea of “team of leaders.”  This video well worth your time. Thanks to John Robb at Global Guerrilllas.  See his site for comments.

But let’s take this one step further into the context of  “What kind of war”  determination as impacting how we [...]

 Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness
The military, facing a complex and intractable mixture of “wicked problems” on the battlefield, has responded with a doctrinal revolution in the production and practice of operational theory.  But most police agencies don’t incorporate the “operational level of maneuver” into their planning and concept of operations.   We [...]

Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness
Why would our societal orientation in complex, dynamic, fast moving situations be good when our educational system trains people only to think through simplified, linear, sequential problems? Strategic thinkers need to be able to see “the big picture” and handle uncertainty, or they cannot be said to be strategic thinkers.
The ship [...]

 
By Captain Charlie Meinema
Tacoma Washington Police Department

 
Disasters may be local, but few are.  Even local disasters are not local, as Yogi Berra might say.   This is often because criminals, explosions, terrorists and fires fail to respect jurisdictional borders, and / or because the crisis – even if inside one geographical or jurisdictional boundary – is [...]

The goal of emergency and crisis response is to reduce output variability in a context in which inputs are highly variable; to that end, crisis response is, in part, about creating an orderly arena within a chaotic environment. … research on High Reliability Organizations (HROs) has suggested that some complex, hazard-managing organizations, for which failure is [...]

Culture:  The sum of attitudes, customs, and beliefs that distinguishes one group of people from another. Culture is transmitted, through language, material objects, ritual, institutions, and art, from one generation to the next.
In our case groups of people who defy being victims, those who realize survival is an ongoing team process, an ongoing learning endeavor [...]

I’m very pleased to announce that Project White Horse 084640 Edition #8 – A Culture of Preparedness and Intersectional Ideas  – is now on line.
The last two editions have provided perspective on “resilient communities” and leadership required. In Edition #8 we shift from providing “perspective” to creating actionable understanding and answers. The first part of [...]

After more than 37 years of uniform service to the U.S. army and our nation, I will spend the second half of my life committed to a new mission: Creating a “Culture of Preparedness’’ in America. Every effort I take, whether it is this new Web site, public speaking/lectures, fund-raisers, or the books I have [...]

We now move to Discussion Thread 3.

>> Intelligence implications for a resilient community response force team in a low probability/high impact  worst case disaster environment:

critical information – what, where and how
education aimed at preventing “victimhood”
planning on multiple levels
being a responder not a victim
building leaders AND followers – who, how 

By necessity that team [...]

>>  Thread #2 Intelligence meaning and usage in natural disasters with Katrina as an event example
As we move further down the time line from September 11, 2001, multiple issues and events tend to push professional response organizations toward an “all hazards” approach. Those focused by agency or function speciffically on intelligence, anti-terrorism, counter-terrorism, gang response, [...]

A significant aspect of Project White Horse research, e-magazine editions, and forum/blog is search for and use of multiple/diverse experience, education, or discipline perspective with intent to gain better insight into decision making in the hyper complex, low probability – high impact type disaster situation.  In that regard and in preparation for the upcoming edition, [...]

Original Post: 22 Feb, 2007, Updated 11 Jan, 2009

After introducing Project White Horse 084640 in October 2006 as an electronic magazine focused on decision making in unconventional-hyper complex-worst case disasters, the next step for this website was the opening of a forum for exchange of ideas. Not intended as a day-day blog, the idea was [...]

The “To Lead” series of articles suggests that leadership requirements for response to events characterized as hyper complex, Black Swans, unconventional crisis or worst case have unique and multi-faceted requirements. These needs do overlap with aspects necessary for business, political and particularly combat operations, but they also – we submit –  require some distinctly different [...]