A few years ago I was watching a presidential press conference. At the time the press had been working hard to 'raise awareness' about potential biological warfare attacks. One reporter asked the president what his administration was doing to protect the American People from pandemic. Are there enough vaccines, is there a sufficiently robust contingency plan?
According to a few public health studies I've read over the years, over half the members of the press corps do not wash their hands after using the toilet. Americans in general do not generally wash their hands after using a public restroom, and those that do wash their hands do not use good practice.
So, the most effective deterrent against pandemic would seem to be for the press corps to wash their own hands in an effective and purposeful manner. What do they want the president to do, deploy the National Guard to enforce good bathroom procedures?
Don't get me wrong, it is very important for any modern government to have a well-thought-out plan for worst case scenarios, including engineered pandemics. But as always, effective government begins and ends with personal responsibility. You simply can't transfer the responsibility for your own actions to a central government.
This is a great analogy for collaborative vs. "top down" technical and business governance. You need centralized strategic governance and policy management, but you also need to provide and support tactical freedom amongst the information workers you support.
©Copyright Mark Ragar Schneider, 2009 All Rights Reserved
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