Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Disasters and the 21st Century
Gold
Friday, December 10, 2021 • Civic Design 2021
Share the love for this talk
Disasters and the 21st Century
Speakers: Alicia D. Johnson
Link:

Summary

Pick up a newspaper and every day you see an onslaught of headlines about disaster and crisis. It would seem that the 21st century is starting out as a perpetual crisis. The civic warrior in each of us asks this small question: "How might I make a change? What can I do to make a difference?" During this presentation we dig deeper into this idea—venture beyond the question with tactics to explore the design of a more resilient community.

Key Insights

  • The 1935 US Forest Service 10 am policy aimed to extinguish fires by 10 am the next day but unintentionally caused greater wildfire severity by preventing natural burns.

  • Long-term policies can have profound, cascading environmental and social impacts decades later, underscoring the need for forward-thinking decision making.

  • Disasters are exacerbated not just by natural forces but by human decisions around urban design, resource allocation, and infrastructure investment.

  • Marginalized and lower-resource communities are disproportionately affected by disasters due to historical redlining and lack of mitigation funding.

  • Mitigation investments save money and lives but are often underfunded because their benefits are invisible until disaster strikes.

  • Emergency management has become inherently political, no longer a neutral field, requiring active engagement with social justice and equity issues.

  • Designers have an emerging and critical role in emergency management, helping shape resilient infrastructure and policies with long-term social and ecological perspectives.

  • Current policies like the Stafford Act limit disaster recovery by mandating infrastructure repair only to previous states, discouraging needed systemic improvements.

  • Inclusive decision-making tables that represent diverse stakeholders improve disaster preparedness and response effectiveness.

  • The 21st century demands a shift towards humanitarian, equity-centered approaches in emergency management that address social divides and build resilient communities.

Notable Quotes

"Every emergency manager has an origin story, a first disaster, a first experience with disaster."

"The 10 am rule allowed grass, trees, and underbrush to grow unchecked for nearly 60 years, creating the circumstances necessary for Yellowstone to ignite like a tinderbox."

"Our choices make disasters more deadly, more costly, and more frequent."

"Emergency management is now political, not partisan, but political."

"How might we or rather how should we prepare for, react to, and heal from disasters?"

"It is not just about designing better infrastructure, but questioning what choices we are making today that will impact communities 10, 20, or 100 years down the road."

"Disaster response has been incredibly siloed, often excluding voices that represent vulnerable communities."

"The 21st century is about the imperative for equity — human equity — in emergency management and public safety."

"We are on the precipice of something culture changing in emergency management."

"Policies written on paper can have lasting impacts for decades, shaping who suffers the most during disasters."

Ask the Rosenbot
Rich Mironov
How Can Product Managers and UXers Help Each Other (and Why are Product Folks so Annoying Sometimes)?
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Shawna Hein
Create a Cohesive Civic Design Practice Across Agency, Vendors, and Contracts
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Dianne Que
Real Talk: Proving Value through a Scrappy Playbook
2019 • DesignOps Summit 2019
Gold
Emily Danielson
“I mean, I can lift a shovel”: Design Skills in Disaster Response
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Anne Mamaghani
How Your Organization's Generative Workshops Are Probably Going Wrong and How to Get Them Right
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Nick Cochran
Growing in Enterprise Design through Making Connections
2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Gold
Paul Pangaro, PhD
Systems Disciplines: Table Stakes for 21st Century Organizations
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Matt LeMay
You Don’t “Get” Anyone to Do Anything
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Gordon Ross
12 Months of COVID-19 Design and Digital Response with the British Columbia Government
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Lija Hogan
Doing more with more: Lessons from the Front Lines of Democratization
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Ellen Chisa
The Values of Design
2023 • Design in Product 2023
Gold
Barb Spanton
Doing Work That Matters: A Look Beyond The Idealistic Notion of 'Doing Meaningful Work'
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Gretchen Anderson
Scaling the Human Center
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Amber Knabl
Empowering innovation: The critical role of inclusive product development in the AI era
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Liwei Dai
The Heart and Brain of the AI Research
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Rachael Dietkus, LCSW
Trauma-Responsive Design: Reimagining the Future of Design Now
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold

More Videos

"This kind of reflective work can turn into therapy, so we have to be careful how we facilitate it."

Shaping design, designers and teams

November 8, 2018

Sabrina Mach

"Selling the design system’s value continuously, especially as new teams and components are added, is essential."

Sabrina Mach Nina Wainwright

How to Design Your Design Operating Model

September 29, 2021

Samuel Proulx

"Accessible experiences are for everyone; they make things better for all users."

Samuel Proulx

Invisible barriers: Why accessible service design can’t be an afterthought

December 3, 2024

Saara Kamppari-Miller

"Nothing about us without us is the mantra we are embracing when doing our inclusive design operations."

Saara Kamppari-Miller

DesignOps for Inclusive Design and Accessibility (Videoconference)

May 26, 2022

Briana Thomas

"As the delivery driver, my role was connecting the dots, getting briefs, and sometimes saying no to lofty requests."

Briana Thomas

The Quiet Force: Uncovering Hidden Leadership in High-Impact Design Teams

September 24, 2024

Adam Cutler

"If designers spend more time talking about titles than their work, we’re just gazing into our navels."

Adam Cutler Karen Pascoe Ian Swinson Susan Worthman

Discussion

June 8, 2016

"By building tools around the natural workflow and how work was being done, we moved faster and worked more productively."

Operationalizing DesignOps

November 7, 2018

Leah Buley

"Community is critical; solo practitioners must seek or create it to thrive and avoid isolation."

Leah Buley Joe Natoli

Ask Me Anything with Leah Buley and Joe Natoli, co-authors of The User Experience Team of One (2nd edition)

October 8, 2024

Nathan Shedroff

"Design researchers know customers better than almost anyone else in the organization, yet they are rarely invited into strategy processes."

Nathan Shedroff

Double Your Mileage: Use Your Research Strategically

March 31, 2020