Sometimes Dreams Give Me Good Ideas

I want to quickly tell you about the dream I had a few nights ago and then tell you how I think it is relevant.

Dream: In this dream, I was at Disneyland with my roommate and a few other friends. Instead of walking around the park, everyone had a transportation vehicle that flew. Everyone's vehicle was difficult--mine was shaped like a spaceship. Okay, now here's where the dream gets a little weird. If you didn't hold on to your transportation vehicle it flew up into the sky like a balloon does if you let go of the string. As you probably guessed, I accidentally let go of the spaceship and it flew into the sky. What goes up must come down, right? So after a few minutes the spaceship came plummeting back down and hit Disneyland. An announcement was made over a loud speaker that Disneyland was hit by a nuclear bomb and everyone needed to immediately follow evacuation procedures. No procedures were followed. CHAOS took place.

My Point: In the dream, I tried really hard to explain to security officials what had happened. It was not a nuclear bomb, just my spaceship transportation vehicle! Each security official that I sold slowly began to understand and believe me. However, Disneyland is a very large place with many security officials and the amount of time that simply relaying a message "through the grapevine" to all of the security officials across the park was completely inefficient. I consider Disneyland in my dream to be a microcosm for NYC. The procedures that could have been followed are similar to that of officials in NYC during a citywide disaster such as 9/11.

Handheld devices, as I have been speaking about in many previous posts, could have eliminated the hysteria. A simple officer wide text message via the handheld devices could have easily explained the situation and then calmed down the people. Although at Disneyland, the visitors have not signed up for a text message service, many residents of NYC do. If the first round of text messages went to public officials until they could validate the "all-clear" and then the second round of text messages went to all subscribers, CHAOS could be avoided (or at least limited).

So many dreams really do have meaning...?

Telematics & National 9-1-1 Education Month

Telematics: The integrated use of telecommunications and informatics, also known as ICT (Information and Communications Technology). More specifically it is the science of sending, receiving and storing information via telecommunication devices (Wikipedia.org)

Telematics is the key technology being used in the many of the initiatives I spoke about in my last posting. According to a letter from the National Emergency Number Association and COMCARE Emergency Response Alliance to the Department of Homeland Security, "telematics is the one area of this kind where a longstanding, multi-profession initiative has resulted in a current XML specification which is a de facto standard now being used by OnStar to share emergency data". Within the last couple of months the DHS has been incorporating telematics into its information systems used for security purposes in big cities such as New York City. The letter speaks mainly about the importance of standardizing emergency data so that it can be shared with all 911 emergency response centers. Types of data range from vehicle telematics to personal information including medical information.

911 Education Awareness Month: The COMCARE Emergency Response Alliance announced on March 10, 2008 that the month of April would be deemed as the National 911 Education Month. According to the public announcement: "They are calling upon public safety officials, schools, government officials, and industry leaders to engage in a national effort to educate children, seniors, and the general public about the importance of, and appropriate use of, 9-1-1". I think its really important that the general public be aware of the use of 911 especially in large cities such as NYC. Its important in cities where wireless communications can become congested that everyone know when the appropriate time to use 911 services. The education awareness month is seeking to educate the public of these times and uses.

2008 Technology Initiatives

There are a few noteworthy technology initiatives that Mayor Bloomberg of NYC introduced at the beginning of the year that I failed to recognize earlier:

• Require manufacturers of guns to use a microstamping technology that allows officials to connect crime scenes with the actual gun used.

• Use the latest technology to catch more criminals and exonerate the innocent. This will be achieved through a change in New York State legislature to expand DNA testing to cover all convicted felons and some misdemeanors. Hopefully this year they will begin taking fingerprints from all those arrested.

• Create a standardized information system that allows state agencies to share mental health records with federal officials. This initiative is in response to the tragic incident at Virginia Tech.

• Create an information system database that holds information (partial and complete) about firearms evidence. This database will allow multiple individuals to share the same information and use it to solve multiple crimes.

• Use automated license plat reader technology in officers cars that are paroling NYC

• Put GPS systems in school buses to measure on time performance as well as have an up-to-date location on all buses in case of a city-wide emergency.

I agree with each of these initiatives and hope that Mayor Bloomberg will follow through with all of them. I will post updates on each initiative when I find out more information.

I think the most important initiatives are the ones that involve information systems that allow multiple people to share the same information. This is important not only within an organization (i.e. a police department), but across multiple departments. For example, allowing medical records to be shared with public officials is important in preventing crimes such as the one at Virginia Tech. Further, multiple locations of police departments should have access to the same information to link multiple crimes. Finally, these databases should be able to be accessed remotely (and possibly on the handheld devices I wrote about in an earlier posting).

We have access to so many information system capabilities and yet so many departments are stuck in their old ways...

Just a Thought...

This is a slight digression. Its simply a comment about blogging in general, but was sparked by my last post. Today I was rereading what I wrote about ratemycop.com and decided I wanted to google the site to try to find out more information, as well as more about what other bloggers thought of it. The first blog I came across was this one. First I read through what the blogger had to say and then I came to the comments section. There were about 100 comments in response to this blog posting.

Who cares who this blogger is, who cares what he has to say about this topic, I just want MY opinion published online!

...And that is the mindset of most internet users, especially those who read blogs on a regular basis. Now I'm not trying to be hypocritical...I myself fall into this category. Sometimes I comment on others' blogs to simply state my mind. To make my opinion heard. But the reality is...who reads these comments? I surely didn't make a point to read these comments when I was finished reading the post. The only reason I even looked at them was because I noticed how many there actually were, which consequently made me curious about what they were saying.

We as human beings have an innate desire to be heard. And blogs and commenting on blogs is the "2000 dot com" outlet of our thoughts. So whats next? What will be the next letter to the editor?

Rate Your Police Officer

You're probably familiar with websites that enable you to rate your professors or doctors. However, there is now a website (ratemycop.com) that allows individuals to rate their local police officers. Does this use of technology increase, decrease, or not have an effect on public safety in big cities such as New York City?

Many argue that this is actually a website that puts the police officers (and their families) in harm. Their full names and agencies are listed on the website and are just waiting for unhappy citizens to lash out against them. However, the creators of the website argue that the information listed on the website is not any more than is listed on a traffic ticket (which is likely to be the reason for an individual to rate a cop).

The way I see it, these police officers have no way of defending themselves. Obviously Im against police brutality. Obviously I want police officers to act justly and ethically. However, I also want safe streets and I don't want police officers to not rightly do their jobs because they are worried about their reputations on a website. At what point has technology in this case counteracted its purpose in increasing public safety?

Small Businesses Bring Technical Expertise

On March 13, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it awarded 22 additional small businesses to receive funding through the department's Small Business Innovation Research program to further technology innovation for security purposes. Small businesses can be rewarded up to $100,000 each in Phase I and $750,000 each in Phase II. Research put out by these small businesses include chemical and biological sensors, biological analysis devices, unattended ground sensors, 3-D visualization systems, and simulation-based training systems. This is an example of how using advanced technology to further safety in New York City can further advance the technology used by all industries across the nation.

New York City Bomb

Unfortunately, on March 6th, an explosive device was set off in Times Square. This was an incident in which it would have been helpful to use handheld devices [that I mentioned in my posting about Vantage Point] between the local police department, the fire station, nearby hospitals, and the Joint Terrorism Task Force (the large Police Department and F.B.I. unit that investigates terrorism) to keep all departments in communication and current with the situation. Additionally, this was a good opportunity for them to use Notify NYC for a smaller, but still needed, situation. However, according to the Notify NYC website, no messages were issued on March 6. The following messages are the most recent notifications that the system sent:

10:01 am - TUE, March 11, 2008
Notify NYC - Notification--MN
Notification 2 on 03/11/08 at 10:00.
Due to a watermain break, the following street closures are in effect: Church Street and 6 Ave are both closed from Franklin Street to Walker Street.

1:17 am - TUE, Feb. 26, 2008
Notify NYC - Notification - Manhattan
Notification 2 issued 02/26/08, 0117 hrs.
The FDNY has placed the fire under control, and emergency activity at 47 West St.(at Rector St.) has concluded.

3:29 pm - WED, Feb. 20, 2008
Notify NYC Test
This is a monthly test of Notify NYC, the City of New York's emergency public messaging program. During an emergency, this system may be used to deliver important information. Thank you for your participation.

4:53 pm - SUN, Jan. 13, 2008
Notify NYC - Notification
National Weather Service has issued a heavy snow warning from 9 pm till noon Monday. 5 - 7 inches of snowfall possible.

While these are all very important messages, I think a message should have been sent out about the bomb. Although fortunately in this case it was an isolated instance, it very well could resulted in other implications. According to the NY Times article, "Although the damage today was relatively minor, the prominent location of the blast at a time of heightened concerns about terrorism attracted national attention". It seems to me that this would just as important, if not more important, to inform Notify NYC participants about.

Additionally, the bomb caused over a dozen subways to be temporarily shut down. Shouldn't the Notify NYC participants have been notified of this? What's the point of having advanced technology if we don't utilize its capabilities?

Like I said in an earlier posting about the steam pipe explosion, it is normal for people in NYC to panic and assume the worst. After all, having lived through 9/11 why wouldn't you? One woman in the NYT article solidifies my point: "I thought it was thunder at first, just one single huge bang. So I got up to look out the window, saw nothing, then spent the rest of the night worrying what it was. I thought it couldn’t be a terrorist attack in the middle of the night, right? But I was concerned.” A message from Notify NYC could have better informed NYC residents and quickly alleviated any concerns about terrorism as soon as updated information was available.