Friday, July 13, 2007

What I learnt in New Orleans...Nuggets of wisdom to share


On the 24th June I packed my bags and flew 16 hours to New Orleans to attend the IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) conference.

This decision has affected me both professionally and personally.

More than 1400 professional business communicators from around the world came to the think-tank.

Highlights for me:
And last, but not least, having the priviledge to meet a man caught in the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, who with great dignity and grace, shared his story about what happened....you cannot imagine the warzone that existed afterwards and the resulting tide of death.
I admire the optimisim as they re-build, although it is interesting to find out 65% of the city is still without power nearly two years later...see police stations set-up in trailors with port-a-loos...but the superdome is rebuilt??? Priorities people!

One important person was left out of the IABC conference.

Why wasn't David Geilhufe, the brains behind Katrina.net and the PeopleFinder project (although these links are not live now) there to share how he pulled together a team of ad hoc volunteers to design one central source showing every message board and posting online of missing people - all in record time?

Interested? Read on...http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/blogspotting/archives/2005/09/katrinalistnet.html
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2 comments:

David Geilhufe said...

Wow, people remember PeopleFinder. That is pretty cool.

I think one of the reasons that our project never really hit the Zeitgeist is that it is really hard for people to get their head around 3,000 people spontaneously getting together and accomplishing something in a few days.

As for "officialdom", it begs the question of why it takes so long for organizations- corporations, governments, etc. to accomplish similar goals.

Sarah P Sparks said...

David,

The PeopleFinder was a great example of helping humanity in a crisis using the power of social media.

Such a shame IABC didn't organise to have you present all the lessons you learnt along the way.