Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 18th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview II. Working Group on e-Government Author(s) Pieter Wagenaar Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Amsterdam Netherlands Kees Boersma and Jeroen Wolbers Title Organizing emergent safety Organizations: The travelling of the concept ‘Netcentric Work’ in the Dutch safety sector File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Abstract Conference paper proposal for the 18th NISPAcee Annual Conference "Public Administration in Times of Crisis" 13-15 May 2010, Warsaw, Poland; Working Group II. on E-Government Organizing Emergent Organizations: The travelling of the concept ‘Netcentric Work’ in the Dutch Safety sector Kees Boersma, Pieter Wagenaar and, Jeroen Wolbers. VU University Amsterdam The Netherlands, fp.wagenaar@fsw.vu.nl Following Katrina evaluations showed that official, hierarchically organized, crisis organizations had failed spectacularly. Individual citizens, however, had managed to organize themselves, using cell phones. Their initiative had led to spontaneous, emergent, crisis organizations that filled the gap. Since Katrina official crisis organizations in The Netherlands and elsewhere have been busy to try and imitate this kind of self-organization. They have introduced ‘net-centric work’, a government 2.0 way of working - which was transferred from the military - centering around a complicated geographical information system. The idea is that emergency responders can use it the way they would use Wikipedia. Thus they use innovative ITs to help solve the paradox of rigid, hierarchical emergency response organizations that need to be able to be flexible and to cooperate with all kinds of partners in times of crisis. Paradoxically, again, this spontaneous and emergent way of self-organizing has been imposed on emergency response organizations from above. Does this example of government 2.0 – a solution to a paradox but paradoxical itself - indeed fulfill its promises?
