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Technology Preview for 2019

Six of the eight items struck a chord with me.

Government Technology magazine has an editor's point of view piece on 2019: Issues to Watch.

The one with perhaps the most "direct impact" to emergency managers is FirstNet. The others I'll highlight are:

5G: Should you be somewhere where the system is being fielded — you just won the lottery for connectivity.

Blockchain: The jury is still out, but when looking for solutions it seems to be the only tool for complex security needs.

Human-Centered Design: The item that comes to mind is how Amazon and other suppliers pre-position items for sale close to where they expect people who will purchase them — keeping the wait times down. We could use the same type of big data to help us.

Micromobility: The quote there, "Deploy first and apologize later" applies to scooters and electric bicycles, but the concept stands in the face of what we try to do as emergency managers, coordinate, coordinate. ...  The same would apply to any withdrawal plans from Syria.

Privacy: While data becomes more important to our disaster business, the privacy and security of that data becomes more important. Is blockchain a solution? 

I recall the old happy days when having a desktop computer and email, along with phone lines, a fax machine and a numeric pager, made us feel "connected." 

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.