Responsibility Grid for Haiti

It was an earthquake. A really big one. Turns out the reaction and response reaches every corner of the globe. Perturbative, this event has challenged the dimensions of security, of rules sets, of money, of infrastructure, and of resources; and the world is challenged to provide strategic flows of security, aid, money, the energy to run the country, the resettling of people.

Last week I felt that “What the world community does now, defines the dominant logic and emotion of “globalization.” At the very least “the world community response will be illustrative of the nature of the huge complex process of globalization.”

The affirmative burden of responsibility

In Haiti, I believe we are witnessing a full spectrum response, working across domains and layers of responsibility. We are prepared; but we come on the fly, as well, strategically self-organizing. Yet, as good as we do now, the questions are coming: Who should do what? And when? And how?

Going forward, What will be the dominant logic and emotion of mutually assured dependence? Where and with whom will we locate the affirmative burden of responsibility?

The following excerpts illustrate my observations of the last week. Each is linked to a full text post.

Thursday, January 14, 2010, at 5:40

Triage in Haiti

… What’s next?

To what will you commit?

For how long?

Just saying.

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Friday, January 15, 2010, at 9:30 pm

Layers

Perturbating the order of civilization

Doctors are on the way

After the aid rushes in

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Saturday, January 16, 2010, at 6:25 pm

Pocket Aces

Why why we make mistakes and the power of regret:

“If we are going to err at something, we would rather err by failing to act.”

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Sunday, January 17, 2010, at 3:06 pm

collaborate

The Crisis in Haiti

Initial Response

Sense and Structure

Global is Local, Strategically Speaking

Resilience, Revitalization

Social Networking: Enabling Resilience

Participate, React, Create, Connect

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Tuesday, January 19, 2010, at 4:04 am

Unintended Consequences by disownedlight

Earthquakes make bad laws

Immigrants and refugees: Who gets chosen?

A difficult question

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Tuesday, January 19, 2010, at 4:02 pm

Holocaust Memorial in Berlin

Let history show

When lessons are learned

The value of retrospect

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Tuesday, January 19, 2010, at 6:57 pm

Earthquake activity 13-19 January 2010

Who knew?

Earthquakes TW3: That was the week that was

Who you gonna call?

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Wednesday, January 20, 2010, at 10:40 pm

Disaster Accountability Project

Observers “R” Us

How to participate

Connect via Twitter and Facebook

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Thursday, January 21, 2010, at 9:53 am

An app for that

Regeneration

The poetic hymn

Underneath the hood

Code name: The Enterra

An app for that

The poetic hymn

“There’s an app for that.”

Underneath the hood

[black box matrix] + [secret sauce] = [recombinator], par excellence)

Code name: The Enterra

Prior art: An iPhone app, social networking recombinator.

Holocaust Memorial in Berlin

“It held the line against the bad, allowing for its deconstruction, and the universalization of our economic model, to be followed, through our continued success, by the universalization of our political model.”

via Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog.

When lessons are learned

“Germany was a country where horrible crimes were committed in the second world war, and at least on the surface of it the republic we are now has dealt with many of those crimes. There were Nuremburg trials, “Entnazifizierung”, the 60s revolts of young people looking at their parents’ generation and seeing the Nazi horrors again. And now things are…calm? When I was a teenager and learnt about what happened in Germany between 1933 and 1945, I remember feeling the guilt. It’s just hard to believe that all this happened where you now sleep and walk and laugh. Berlin is a city where the Germans have put up many memorials, and I guess one of the reasons why I think it’s a great country now: Because people have tried to put up reminders not to accuse, but to warn us from making the same mistakes again.”

via kersy83, Flickr

The value of retrospect

Lessons learned, from epic war, or humanitarian disaster: What do you see?

Layers of time

Your ecosystem is composed of layers.

Look to the layers:
there
you will find
time and responsibility,
the order of civilization.

I’ve come to think this way from my reading of Stewart Brand’s, Clock of the Long Now. Tell me what you see?

Order of Civilization

Beneath Nature’s ground, an earthquake in Haiti.
One so devastating, it shocks Culture into chaos;
local Governance has no assembly.
With its Infrastructure crushed,
there is no capacity for Commerce;
and Fashion has no market.

Doctors are on the way

As is food and water. But who will administer the system? Who will provide physical security so medics can perform, food can be distributed? Who will provide governance, transparent rules, influencing this society to be civil? Who will provide money, for emergency funding and what comes after? Who will put together an infrastructure, supporting all that it takes for Haiti to manage and sustain its resources?

After the aid rushes in

After the relief effort stabilizes, who will be the SysAdmin for Haiti, then? Time and responsibility: It’s so much more than the U.S. Marines and rinse, lather, repeat.