So now the head of Homeland Security says there was no practice plan for a disaster of the type of Katrina....even as the head of FEMA says yes, there was. But lest the head of FEMA look too knowledgeable, that worthy had said that he knew nothing of people in the Convention Center in New Orleans, and was waiting for word, even as it was being supplied by reporters actually there.
CNN has a nice summary.
Regardless of how it turns out (and my guess it, it'll just peter out for what's been called 'newer and fresher outrages'), it does kind of make you wonder how much 'everybody knows that' information doesn't make it it through the squelch filters in the bowels and toes of an organization and up to the organization's brain... Sure, that's the role of squelch filters, but they need to be tuned, too. And every so often, turned off entirely.
This isn't a new thought for me: here's something I was thinking about a couple of years ago, much along the same lines:
Tuesday, July 22, 2003
I take a while to learn things, sometimes.For years, I have seen articles that say that if you're trying to address the problems of an organization, you should talk with the people who actually deliver the service. They see the problems every day, and they can tell you all about them. Well, okay, I knew it couldn't possibly be that simple, but it wasn't until this week when I abruptly realized that it was true -- but that you have to listen to a hundred (or a thousand, or ten thousand) bogus comments before coming across the gem -- and even then, you have to know what the gem looks like in the rough, and polish it before it's worth something. And sometimes, you have to see the unpolished gem multiple times before it clicks that this is a gem, and not just another piece of rubble.
Can't believe it took me that long to figure that out.
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