Emergency Management Solutions

 

Volume 6 No. 9                                                                              September 2014

In This Issue
Monthly Video
Blog Highlights
Leadership Coaching
Featured Article
Professional Development
Life Balance
From the Bookshelf
Speaker's Corner

Monthly Video 

Napa Earthquake 2014 Quadcopter Test Video
Napa Earthquake 2014 Quadcopter Test Video
Interesting test video of the potential use of drones as damage assessment tools. A friend of mine uses one in his photography business and they're relatively simple to operate and fairly cheap. I'm not sure if they can geocode the location they're viewing but for a local assessment, that might not be an issue.

Thanks to my friend and colleague George Whitney for bringing this to my attention. 
Blog Highlights  

The following are excerpts from my blog
Canton on Emergency Management. Please visit my blog to see the rest of my articles.   
09-11-2014

There is a common misconception that installing a solar power system on your home makes you independent of the energy grid. The reality is different....�

 

09-04-2014

Most homeowners are unaware that their biggest earthquake hazard is literally hanging over their heads....�

 

08-28-2014

Well meaning advice after an earthquake is sometimes based on bad information and can do more harm than good....�


 

 Visit my blog 

Leadership Coaching  

 

Coming In October! 

 

      

The Leadership Challenge is a research-based program that measures your leadership behaviors and makes practical suggestions for improvement. My program has recently been completed revamped to offer more options at a much lower investment.

 

We'll be launching in just a few days, so watch for the notice to get even bigger savings!

 

The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations
by James M. Kouzes  & Barry Posner 
 
 

The Leadership Challenge is a registered trademark of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. www.leadershipchallenge.com


Quick Links

Logo JPEG
My Website

EM Blog Masthead
     
Canton blog masthead

My Blogs 
  
Find me on Google+

Find me on Facebook

View my profile on LinkedIn
    
Follow me on Twitter

View my videos on YouTube

Follow Me
Emergency Management Solutions Newsletter
Newsletter Archive

Join My Mailing List
L. Canton Photo 2013  

Welcome to the September issue of Emergency Management Solutions.

  

I'm very pleased to announce that my revamped leadership coaching program is in the final stages of preparation and should be available in a few weeks. Among other things, it offers you an option to try the Leadership Challenge for a minimal investment and see if it's right for you. Watch for an announcement with all the details. 

 

Ever wanted to be a consultant? Not sure how to get started? My Consulting Transitions site will also be launching in a few weeks. This site will give you access to many of the tools and resources I use, answers to many of your questions, and the opportunity to connect with other new consultants. Watch for an announcement email that will offer you the opportunity to join at a special introductory rate.


Regards,

Lucien Canton  

_________________________________________________

Featured Article

The Principles of Emergency Management    

A practical application   


The development of the Principles of Emergency Management
in 2007 and their adoption by major emergency management professional organizations was a major step forward for our profession
 

However, a set of principles must be more than just nice sounding words. It should provide a guide to how we conduct business on a day-to-day basis, both ethically and practically. If the Principles of Emergency Management are to be of any use to our profession, we must be able to translate them into concrete action. The question is how can we make practical use of the Principles?

 

 

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE  

 

_______________________________

 

If you are having trouble viewing my featured article, try clicking on the link at the top of the page. You can always find my articles in the white paper section of my blog site, Canton on Emergency Management.

  

  Visit my blog

Professional Development 

 

How to conduct more exercises

Are you one of those who only does exercises when it's called for in your annual exercise plan? Do you limit yourself to one short exercise a year because of limited funding? Think tabletop exercises are only a precursor to functional exercises? You may be missing opportunities to greatly increase your number of exercises at little to no cost.

The answer is simple: short, frequent tabletop exercises, whenever the opportunity presents.

As part of our monthly emergency planners meeting in San Francisco, we always set aside 20 minutes for a short exercise based on a current situation. It took literally minutes to prepare: we selected an event, identified two or three objectives (e.g. who's in charge, what are our top three priorities, where would we get resources), and facilitated a brief group discussion on the issue.

Another opportunity for exercises is following an EOC activation in anticipation of an event that doesn't materialize. Instead of sending everyone home, take twenty minutes or a half hour to discuss a "what if" scenario had the incident actually occurred.

If you look around, you'll find numerous other opportunities. Never miss a chance to hold a brief exercise. The more you exercise, the more experienced your team becomes. It will pay off when it counts.
Life Balance  

  

Pacing yourself can help you exceed your goals

When I was a young lieutenant in Germany, I had considerable trouble with our three-times-a-week two mile run. If you've met me, you know that I am built for comfort not speed, with the stocky build and short legs of my mestizo ancestors. Unfortunately, I had a battalion commander who was part gazelle and falling out on runs was a major deficiency in his eyes.

So it was with great trepidation that I heard him say one fine Monday morning. "Pace yourselves, gentlemen. It's long one today." It didn't help that I was still dealing with the effects of a particularly fun weekend in Heidelberg or that we were running in combat boots on cobblestone streets.

To my surprise, increasing the length of the run to three miles slowed the pace to where I could keep up and I could see the surprise on my commander's face when I led my platoon back through the gates. I still would have to struggle to keep up on two mile runs but I owned distance running, eventually achieving a personal best of seven miles.

 Too often in both our personal and professional lives we focus way too much on the goal and forget that sometimes how we get there is of equal importance. Pacing ourselves can sometimes lead us to achieve even more than we thought possible.
From the Bookshelf  
 
Apocalypse: Earthquakes, Archaeology, and the Wrath of God
by Amos Nur

In this somewhat controversial book, Dr. Amos Nur, a professor of geophysics at Stanford, argues for nothing less than a rethinking of ancient history. Dr. Nur believes that many of the collapses of civilizations in the ancient world resulted not from conflict with invaders as is commonly believed  but from earthquakes.

Nur bases his theory on clues from both geophysics and archeology, making the case that subtle clues to actual destruction are often overlooked. For example, sites that were supposedly overrun by invaders still retain household goods that would have been looted and evidence of burning is ofter minimal or absent. Skeletons with crush injuries are found within structures from which one would have expected the occupants to have fled during invasion.

Dr. Nur goes a bit deeper, though. He also talks about the world of archeology and shows how those that propose alternate theories are often ostracized and ignored. New theories are not always welcome, despite the evidence when academic reputations rest on the status quo.

While not everyone agrees with Dr. Nur, his book is thought-provoking and well-written. If he is correct, earthquakes may have had a greater impact on human civilization than has been believed, making emergency management even more important.

 
 

____________________________________________


old-book-spines.jpg
Interested in more books on emergency management and related topics?
 


Check out my bookstore at:         
 
Speaker's Corner 
Looking for a Speaker?

 

Need a speaker for your next conference? I offer keynotes, seminars and workshops.
 
Why Should You Choose Me As Your Speaker?
Three Reasons Why I'm the Right Speaker for Your Conference 
 
You can find more details and sample videos on my website or on my SpeakerMatch page.  
  
Speaking Engagements  

October 7
The Future of Campus Safety and Security
, Emergency Management Magazine, Philadelphia, PA   

October 14
The Future of Campus Safety and Security, Emergency Management Magazine, College Station, TX 

�Lucien G. Canton 2014. All rights reserved.

 

You may reprint and excerpt this newsletter provided that you include my copyright, the source,
the author, and "reprinted with permission."

ISSN: 2334-590X