Dan Stoneking is the Vice President and Founder of the Emergency Management External Affairs Association with more than 35 years of private and public external affairs and crisis communications experience. He held the position of Regional External Affairs Director at FEMA and preceding that role, he served as Director of Private Sector and Deputy and Acting Director within FEMA’s Office of Public Affairs.

Dan’s experience includes his pivotal roles during crises including the 9/11 attack at the Pentagon; serving as lead spokesperson for the National Guard in Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina; establishing the first-ever international joint information center in response to the catastrophic 2010 earthquake in Haiti, as spokesperson during response and recovery efforts after Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, and creating a coalition with the private sector to implement the first national business emergency operations center.

Dan is the owner and principal of Dan Stoneking Strategic Communications LLC, author of Cultivate Your Garden: Crisis Communications From 30,000 Feet to Three Feet, a Columnist for Homeland Security Today, and an Adjunct Professor at West Chester University, PA.

Dan recently joined the Disaster Discourse book club where we engage emergency management authors with their readers. Click here to join the conversation with over 190 international emergency managers.

Enhanced show notes, references, and links will be sent directly to State of Disaster premium subscribers.

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Welcome to the second Emergency Management Roundtable hosted through a partnership with Aspiring Emergency Managers Online, the Emergency Management External Affairs Association, me, your Friendly Neighborhood Emergency Manager and State of Disaster show host, and Pierce College.

The Emergency Management Roundtable series is an awesome way for us to bring your questions and comments to leaders and innovators in the field about the current and future state of emergency and disaster management.

When you register, you can submit your questions, and you can also participate in the live Q&A. These are all opportunities for you to claim your seat at the roundtable. Claim your seat at the next event here.

Kate Starbird is a Professor at the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington (UW). Kate’s research sits within the fields of human-computer interaction (HCI) and computer supported cooperative work (CSCW). Extending from early work in crisis informatics, her research program has followed the phenomenon of online rumoring down the rabbit hole and into some of the toxic online spaces that are increasingly (re)shaping discourse, values, and politics around the world. In particular, Kate’s team has developed and deployed methods for conducting rapid research to help resolve rumors as they unfold. Another major contribution of her work has been to demonstrate that online disinformation — i.e. the intentional manipulation of discourse for political gain — is inherently participatory, taking shape through collaborations between witting agents and unwitting (though willing) crowds. Most recently, her research has converged on a conceptualization of right-wing media as effectively leveraging partisan, participatory dynamics through improvisational performances.

Dr. Starbird received her BS in Computer Science from Stanford (1997) and her PhD in Technology, Media and Society from the University of Colorado (2012). She has received several awards for her research, including the ACM SIGCHI Societal Impact Award and a Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) award. She is a co-founder and formerly served as director of the UW Center for an Informed Public, which works through research, education, and policy recommendations to strengthen democratic discourse by building resilience to online misinformation, propaganda, and manipulation.

I love calling this "The Definitive* Episode" because any conversation about AI is outdated nearly the moment it wraps recording, let alone the time it takes to edit and publish. I'm looking forward to releasing the next "definitive" AI episode, but in the meantime this interview is NOT what you may be expecting.

This was recorded a few weeks ago with my friends, the good doctors, Sarah Miller and Ryan Rockabrand, who are both emergency management practitioners with PhDs in artificial intelligence. And wow this was not a conversation that I thought we were going to have. This is not the AI episode that you’re expecting. I promise. We blasted right past generative AI and landed on humanoids, nuclear reactors being built in your backyard, and the liability of not using AI for our work in the near future.

The premium version episode is the length of a feature film, and it’s been live, ad-free, with video on stateofdisaster.com for about a week for premium subscribers. If you head over there, you’ll hear the bonus content about Ethics and laws about using AI to emulate someone or create a bot using their likeness. Like Sarah may or may not have done with Ryan. We also talk about the criminal use of AI and how malicious human engineering is evolving and escalating rapidly. Premium subscribers also get to ask my guests questions before and after their episodes air, and that’s how you can get your questions asked on the show, maybe even with a recording of your voice. Head over to stateofdisaster.com and enjoy all the cool stuff I’ve published along with extras from some of the awesome people you’ve heard on the show.