In the course of 30 years of writing for Smithsonian, Air & Space, Popular Science, Invention & Technology, Harvard, and other magazines, James R. Chiles has visited oil rigs, a nitroglycerin factory, electricians who maintain high-voltage power lines while hovering in helicopters, tunnels deep under New York, air traffic control centers, firefighters in training exercises, and many other industrial locations. His research on technology in action led him to the concept of the “system fracture,” one of the central ideas in his book Inviting Disaster: Lessons from the Edge of Technology.
In his multimedia “Inviting Disaster” lecture program, Chiles helps organizations assess risk and avoid catastrophe by examining the repeating patterns of past disasters, and applying the lessons learned to not only to the operation of complex, high-energy systems, but also to the daily processes that keep any workplace running smoothly and safely.
Program Description
Inviting Disaster: Lessons from the Edge of Technology –
Innovative Solutions for a Safe and Productive Workplace
To understand a fundamental pattern behind the huge variety of technological disasters, and the much greater number of close calls, consider how a piece of metal breaks over time. Under stress, cracks begin to grow out of tiny manufacturing flaws and damage during use; then at a critical point a crack spreads like a gunshot and the piece fails completely. As with metal, weak points appear in all systems. These weak points are human errors and machine malfunctions — or, “system fractures”. A good system is one in which people catch weak points early, before a string of them link up to a system fracture and catastrophe.
Chiles illustrates how the causes of disasters fall into repeating patterns, and nearly all technological disasters have been preceded by early warning signs, occurring days or weeks ahead — indications that serious flaws existed and were starting to link up. The grid that supplies us with food, energy, transportation, and water is getting stretched tighter with economic troubles. That means we need to adopt new and better ways of catching system fractures early.
Using well-known historical examples, and proposing innovative solutions, Chiles not only demonstrates how noticing and acting on these precursors can help avert certain disaster, but he also provides organizations with the tools to improve their own internal processes and controls, enabling them to engender a forward-looking culture of efficiency and safety.
Companies and agencies that deal in high-energy, complex machines need to be aware that techno-disasters have a high and long-lasting cost. Aside from the obvious costs of deaths, damage, hikes in insurance costs, and months of business interruption, in some cases so much public mistrust follows that an entire segment of industry may be wiped out if the public comes to see it as both risky and optional.
Chiles brings the discussion current, highlighting the critical reality of our reliance upon technology, and reminding organizations of the fact that machine frontier contains complex and high-energy systems – some of which are subject to catastrophic, cascading failure – has not been lost on terrorists. Their research shows strong interest in methods of technologically-boosted mass destruction. These are locations where large numbers of people would be at risk, where the system already holds energy that can be unleashed, and where a protracted crisis would attract intense media coverage over an extended time period.
Technological crises are inevitable in the course of all major projects. How well leaders handle unwanted crises is a very powerful determinant of whether a project ultimately succeeds or fails. Distilling lessons from those times of crisis, and having the lessons periodically refreshed, is critical. Even as computers take over routine operations that people do now, many important and unique tasks still will remain for people to carry out. This includes innovation, the exercise of judgment in the handling of problem reports, and above all, troubleshooting.
Bio
James R. Chiles, author of the acclaimed book Inviting Disaster: Lessons from the Edge of Technology (HarperCollins), writes chiefly on technology and history. He has published over fifty features and columns in magazines including Smithsonian, Aviation Week, Texas Monthly, Audubon, Harvard, Air & Space, and Popular Science.
Chiles was the featured commentator for the History Channel television series based on his book, Inviting Disaster. And, he has subsequently appeared on six other History Channel programs, including “Katrina: American Catastrophe,” “Engineering Disasters,” and “Megadisasters.” He has also appeared on National Geographic Channel’s “Seconds From Disaster” and on numerous TV and radio outlets, including NPR, CNBC and elsewhere. His second nonfiction book, The God Machine: From Boomerangs to Black Hawks, The Story of the Helicopter (Random House), was named by Library Journal as one of the best science books of the year 2007, and Scientific American named it as a holiday book pick for 2007 as well.
