BP's Deepwater Horizon Blowout -- Critical Thinking Failure-- Part II

"Stop, Think, Don't Do Something Stupid" is the advice that Dr. Robert Bea, Professor of Engineering at the University of California Berkeley, tries to reinforce to his engineering students.   This is the same advice that he would have suggested to BP and Transocean a few months ago.  Dr. Bea, who was interviewed on 60 Minutes this last May watch entire video, has investigated the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster for NASA, the Katrina disaster for the National Science Foundation, as well as investigating numerous other oil rig disasters.  He is currently investigating the Deepwater Horizon Blowout at the request of the White House.


Bea painted a picture of two managers having a discussion/argument on the deck of the Deepwater Horizon about the procedure to cap the well--before the disaster occurred.  The BP manager wanted to remove the heavier "mud" prior to capping the well, while the Transocean manager wanted to leave the "mud" in place.  The heavy "mud" could act to reinforce the cement plugs keeping the pressurized oil from gushing to the surface.   BP prevailed, and the "mud" was removed, even when they had the knowledge that the annular rubber rings in the BOP (Blow Out Preventer)  might have been damaged, AND that one of the two control pods was not properly functioning.  The rest is history.


Bea believes that BP took this shortcut in order to save time when it came time to activate the well.   Eventually the "mud" would have to be removed for actively using the well, and Bea felt that BP wanted to remove the "mud" as early as possible to save time--and money-- down the road.

Mechanical systems failed--but once again it was the human decision making process that was the ultimate, and preventable cause.  I will guarantee that BP and Transocean had volumes of safety procedures, as well as standard operating procedures.  Unfortunately it all boiled down to a human decision, made under time and money contrainsts, resulting in a gamble to take shortcuts.  When you gamble big, sometimes you lose big.  


Space Shuttle Columbia, Katrina, BP --- all underpinned by a huge technological database of information, all subverted by the human decision making process.   The result of BP's Deepwater Horizon Blowout will be the usual legislation, laws, standards, and regulations that always follow a disaster.   But the next black swan, random disaster will be brand new, and likely not covered by any newly enacted legislation.  Instead, I propose, that we need to start paying attention to the "humaness"  that makes future disasters inevitable.  The bad news is:  as our society becomes more complex, these disasters impact more people, impact more of the environment, and cost billions of dollars that could be spent on more important things.  The good news is: we each have the abilities within our reach to fine tune our mental models for decision making, and hopefully avoid future catastrophes.  We need to learn to control our hard wired humaness that encourages us to take these disastrous mental shortcuts in our thinking process.

The BP disaster was not a failure of technology--it was human thinking patterns.  
We can do better! 

Dr. Bea is an engineer that investigates the technical aspects of these disasters.   I am going to try to contact him, to see if I can spark some interest in him to investigate the "humaness"  aspect of disaster prevention.  Hopefully, by improving the technology systems along with our decision making skills, maybe we can start preventing future disasters.

The 3 R's + Retrieval = your new peripheral brain

Reading, Riting, and Rithmetic -- the classic 3 R's taught in our Industrial Age school system, are slowly starting to come to terms with the new digital age.  Lee Rainie proposed a new addition, the 4th R that he calls Retrieval.  I first heard of this a couple of weeks ago during his web cast for the World Future Society:  "Internet Evolution--Where Hyperconnectivity and Ambient Intimacy Take Us"

Google has totally changed how we think, learn, and remember.  In medical school in the 80's we had a 5x7 three ringed notebook crammed with medical "pearls" -- bits of priceless medical knowledge that, in theory, would be at our fingertips during a patient medical crisis -- when we didn't have time to run to the hospital medical library.  Along with this looseleaf binder, we also stuffed the pockets of our white coats with as many spiral bound 5x7 abridged textbooks as the coat would hold.  Google changed everything.  Nowadays, medical students don't really need to "learn" as much as they need know how to "retrieve" something from the web in a microsecond.  When you think about it--is there really big difference between "knowing" vs "retrieving"?   In med school we called these 5x7 life savers our "peripheral brains"--an attached brain that resided in our pocket instead of our cranium.   When will a body of knowledge, the field of medicine as just one example, become so large that it is unrealistic to expect any human to "know it all"?

Rainie proposes that Retrieval is now the new 4th R.  I totally agree, and it is not an optional skill -- it is mandatory.  Just as in the field of medicine, where it is IMPOSSIBLE  to know it all--these are fast becoming the days when being familiar with something, and knowing where to retrieve the details, will be considered the new "knowing". 

So if Retrieval is the new "knowing", how does one know which Google search results are to be true and trusted -- and which are not .   Taking this all one step further, the new "knowing" will be based on which web based answers you consider to be "true".  Finding the truth in a long list of search results will be the future challenge of "knowing".   

Your two future challenges will be:  
1--Creating a set of trusted sources to be the "files" in your web based peripheral  brain.
2--How do you or your company become a trusted source for others?  

The  "Information Age" will have to evolve to the "Trusted Source Age".

Upcoming Free brain food

I have been a member of the  World Future Society for years, and have attended many of their annual conferences, the next is scheduled for  July 8-10 at The Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts.  "A thousand of the world’s top minds and thought-leaders will collaborate and debate the major issues of the twenty-first century." They are offering 3 free webinars in advance of the conference.  I have no financial interest in promoting the webinars, but I am planning on watching.   If you want to "hang out on the fringe" of thought provoking ideas, I suggest you explore some of these:

The Virtualization of America (and the World) A Conversation with Michael Rogers Time: Tuesday, June 8, 2:00 PM EDT US (6:00 UTC) Register Now Here The Internet will change tremendously in the next 10 years. A more important question is, how will it change us? Children born this decade will have to learn what “offline” means, because being online will be the normal condition of life. It is an era of social reorganization equaled only by the rise of cities 6,000 years ago. But unlike urbanization, this enormous transition will take place in a matter of decades rather than centuries. At WorldFuture 2010, “practical futurist” Michael Rogers will describe what will be gained in this historic transition, what will be lost, and what challenges are ahead. Internet Evolution: Where Hyperconnectivity and Ambient Intimacy Take Us A Conversation with Lee Rainie Time: Thursday, June 17, 2:00 PM EDT (6:00 UTC) Register Now Here Imagine the implications of the future that most technology experts foresee: Wireless devices are embedded in everything including us; cameras record activity in all public spaces; databases catalogue our online moves; invisible, ambient networked computing makes us available to more people in more ways; software exhibits humanlike thinking; and a direct brain-to-computer interface is possible. These are just some of the future scenarios predicted by experts, as documented by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, directed by Lee Rainie. At WorldFuture 2010, Rainie will discuss the most recent, widely covered Future of the Internet Survey, which asked Internet experts from across the globe for their take on how the Web will evolve in the decade(s) ahead. The City Sustainable A Conversation with Jennifer Jarratt and John Mahaffie Time: Tuesday June 29, 2:00 PM EDT (6:00 UTC) Register Now Here What’s the future for the metropolis? Except for some experiments in planned communities, cities develop haphazardly over the ages. At WorldFuture 2010, leading futurists Jennifer Jarratt and John Mahaffie will introduce alternatives to the city of today, which are masses of people, buildings, and structures linked together chaotically. The tools for reinventing the city in the twenty-first century include new building technologies that bring sustainability and greater efficiency into construction and changes in the very concept of “city” from urban concrete to green communities.