Project Architecture: Certificate for Homeland Security
Professionals
 |
| Home page of the Introductory Exercise |
The centerpiece of the effort was
a program of certification for local first responders. I developed the Project Architecture for the program, outlining the client's and learners' needs and
describing how the proposed certificate program would meet those needs.
Although CRD did not adopt all elements of the project architecture, they
adopted the most critical elements.
In 2006, the program won a Brandon
Hall Excellence in Learning bronze medal. Teleologic's account manager for the
program commented:
The strength of this script lies
in linking learner Intro Exercise decisions into the theoretical constructs of
Collaboration, application of the overarching narrative, and developing a
logic-sense about collaboration. Thank you to the team and especially to John
for the bringing this thoughtful approach to bridging between the Introductory
and Advanced Exercises to production.
Hometown
Security Blog (
 |
| http://hometownsecurity.blogspot.com/ |
Because I designed and wrote homeland security training for
Teleologic, part of my job was to keep current on the developments in the
field, with an eye toward preventive efforts on the local level, since much of
Teleologic's homeland security training focused on prevention.
In 2006, on my own initiative, I started a blog that
chronicled my reading on homeland security issues and provided my own analysis
on these issues. Based on learner feedback from Teleologic's training programs,
I knew that practitioners in the field valued brief, non-partisan analysis and
discussion on these issues. (I had orginally developed the idea of hosting a
homeland security blog in my project architecture for the CRD Certificate
Program. When CRD chose not to adopt this piece of the architecture, I did it
on my own.)
My Hometown Security blog began as an individual pursuit,
but eventually it gained a regular readership. I was always proud of the high
quality of my readers' comments; these readers clearly valued respectful and careful analysis.
The most remarkable feedback I received on the blog was the
phone call of thanks I got from the Fire Department of New York, after I wrote
a blog post reviewing the FDNY's new strategic plan. The FDNY main office said
that they used my blog post to help explain the strategic plan to the New York
City Council.
When Teleologic changed its strategic direction away from
homeland security training in 2008, I had to let the blog stagnate. However,
the blog still gets pageviews – it received 540 of them in September 2012,
almost 4 years after I stopped posting to it.
U.S. Army North DSCA Newsletter
After Hurricane Katrina
ravaged the Gulf Coast in 2005, the federal government completely rewrote its
disaster response and recovery plans. Teleologic was hired by U.S. Army North
to develop training and support materials for military personnel who might be
called upon to assist civilian authorities – a process officially known as
Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA).
With others on my team, I
developed DSCA training that clarified the new disaster response system. But in
a rapidly changing environment, in which the plans were being adjusted regularly,
we needed a method of keeping learners up to date on the evolving system.
Part of my work was to
research, select and edit weekly news updates to help the learners understand
their evolving tasks. The updates had to be both concise and relevant.
The work was highly
analytical. I had to draw distinctions between information that was valuable to
the audience, and information that wasn't. This meant not only understanding
our military audience's DSCA responsibilities in a disaster situation, but also
the responsibilities of the civilian organizations that they might work with in
a disaster. Recipients regularly wrote to express how much they valued the
weekly updates.
Leadership Development
and Education for Sustained Peace
Similar to the DSCA program, I also created content and
provided support for the Leadership Development and Education for Sustained
Peace (LDESP). LDESP is a division of the Naval Postgraduate School that
provides cultural and geopolitical education for military and civilian leaders.
The program's intent is to provide U.S. personnel stationed
overseas with a thorough understanding of the environments in which they
operate. Creating LDESP courses required extensive research in the history,
culture, and politics of other regions of the world.
The LDESP program also provided its alumni with regular
updates on current events in specific countries and regions. To curate these
news updates, I needed to maintain a close understanding of the information
needs of LDESP alumni, as well as the current situation in these areas. A U.S.
Army officer expressed the value that alumni placed on these updates when he
wrote in 2010:
"I attended an LDESP seminar
in Monterey, California in Feb. 2010. I
am currently deployed in southern Iraq now.
I read your news updates and I circulate them to our Battalion staff and
company leadership. Keep them coming!"