September 2008 Archives

I have just arrived back from a conference on organizational resiliency where part of the focus was public  / private partnerships. The conference was presented by the Ontario Hospital Association and held in Toronto (OHA).

It's interesting in itself that the OHA had partnered with the Toronto Board of Trade, the Disaster Recovery Information Exchange (DRIE), the Ontario Association of Emergency Managers (OAEM) among others to host this event in their "Business of Health" series. 

I worked with the organizers of the conference to set it up and immediately one problem came to the fore: price.  In hindsight, as I watched the day progress it seemed this issue underscores one of the problems of engaging both sectors at the same time.  On the surface, the problem was that (in general terms) a municipal employee tends to be adverse to spending high dollars to attend conferences, workshops, etc. (or has to go through hoops, has limits, must apply months in advance, etc), whereas many in the private sector do not have these same controls or limits.  Further, many in the private sector will not attend a low cost event under the impression that low cost = low value.

The deeper problem is the entirely different way these two sectors view spending money, investment in people and projects, bottom line results, etc.  My own perspective is that private companies are more inclined to invest money into projects that ultimately improve their bottom line, whether directly through profits, or indirectly through improved customer satisfaction, greater competitive advantage, etc.  In the public sector, the improved 'bottom line' is only one of many considerations, along with perception of 'good fiscal management' (ie don't raise taxes), the 'need to succeed' (most of our work reflects well or poorly on someone else), timing (elections, budgets, re-orgs, etc.) and other non-monetary, barely tangible issues.  I know this is a crass oversimplification, but you get the point: these are two widely separate systems.

Pricing was our dilemma for this past event.  In the end, the initial price was dropped to be inclusive of the public sector, but not so much that it "cheapened" the day.  The mix of sectors was good, but the overall attendance was not as high as desired.  We are left wondering whether there can be a price point that is low enough for the public sector, yet high enough for the private sector and still (at least) break even.

And that's just the obvious.  Note the impact this would have on our: hydro rates, telephone bills, water bills, natural gas bills and tax rates (don't forget the parks path!).

What about the not-so-obvious? Lost business with downed telephone service, wasted (thawed) frozen food, possible potable water contamination, lost productivity due to an increase in commuting time... oh, and a lesser quality of life because the park cannot be accessed.

These are the real costs of disasters.  They are mostly hidden.  They are mostly borne by the municipality or the private sector.  Where do they recover their costs from?  I think we all know the answer to that.

An aside:  There's a couple of significant things happening in Canada that are relevant to this blog. 

First, a new report has been released by a Standing Committee of our Senate (basically the place where our politicians go to retire) entitled:

"Emergency Preparedness In Canada... Report of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence".  The reason for the elipses points is for the subtitle of the report:

"How the fine arts of bafflegab and procrastination hobble the people who will be trying to save you when things get really bad..."

I kid you not... actually, it's as entertaining a read as a Senate Report can be.

The other significant event is a Canadian federal election that was just called by our prime minister.  I wont even make fun of it (yet), however I will say the municipalities (especially in Ontario) are ramping up to make infrastructure, critical infrastructure and lack of funding for such big political issues for the election.

More on these to come...