Stage 3: Connecting the Dots Stage
Do you remember what the 9-11 Commission Report said?
National intelligence is still organized around the collection disciplines of the home agencies, not the joint mission. The importance of integrated, all source analysis cannot be overstated. Without it, it is not possible to “connect the dots”. No one component holds all the relevant information. The biggest impediment to all source analysis – to a greater likelihood of connecting the dots – is the human or systemic resistance to sharing information.
The 9-11 terrorist attacks from nearly 20 years ago had more than enough indicators before the attacks, and the 9-11 Commission Report validated their existence and revealed why the federal government did not connect the dots. The report revealed how it is not possible to connect the dots without sharing and connecting all the dots in an all source analysis. In other words, a central, trusted, community-based, community-wide collection platform.
Unfortunately, nearly 20 years later we still hear leaders from government, communities, organizations, higher education, K12, and others say, “we failed to connect the dots”. It is one of the most common excuses after incidents and tragedies, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
Failures & challenges at this stage
The Connecting the Dots Stage can be difficult, especially with so many disconnected community resources, social media, law enforcement records, trusted adults, etc. Indicators and red flags are often scattered and no longer does claiming “we didn’t know” shelter schools, organizations, and communities from the liability of incidents and tragedies.
Leaders need to understand the 6 Stages of Preventing and the Pathway to Prevention to realize it could be working in their own school, organization, and community.
Eliminating and reducing the failures & challenges
Successes (and research) reveal how to eliminate and reduce these challenges and gaps that leave indicators scattered and not acted on by schools, universities, organizations, communities, military bases, and government agencies.
The key to all the above is connecting the right people to take action.
How does Awareity eliminate the scattered, disconnected, and siloed information to make your Connecting Stage successful?
It starts with having the right team members connected BEFORE incidents escalate.
The Awareity Platform allows assessment teams to proactively include various team members on a team before reports even come in. These team members can also be added and removed as the investigation process evolves. For example, teams may need to add individuals from legal on a report once it becomes apparent that litigation may be possible. Additionally, with certainly protections extended by FERPA, HIPAA, etc. the information provided by these team members is protected.
Getting the community involved.
After incidents and tragedies, law enforcement almost always asks the community to submit what they know to help their post-incident investigation, but what if you could get the community involved BEFORE an incident occurred? The Platform allows teams to connect with their community in order to learn what they know before tragedy strikes.