Capturing Engineering Lessons from the Canterbury Earthquakes

Dear Colleague;

The Earthquake Engineering profession has learned an enormous amount since we were first shaken awake early on 4 September 2010. We have a strong desire to record the knowledge that we have all gained in order to improve our recovery processes, improve our resilience to future events and record what we have learned for others to benefit from.

How do we best capture this expanding body of knowledge? We would your help to capture and share what you have learnt from your own perspective as well as what you have gleaned from discussions with colleagues.

Please take a few minutes to record your thoughts in the space below before you leave tonight. We will post the questions and a summary of the responses in a web forum for you to read and (hopefully) elaborate upon further when you have had a chance for reflection while sitting on the beach over summer.

Any information you can record will be most helpful. You have learned a lot and what may seem trivial now may be a complete eye-opener to somebody who has not shared your experiences. Please record it from your perspective (start again on the back of the page if you often ‘wear more than one hat’) and don’t omit something because it is obvious or because you expect many others could say the same thing; twenty provide different perspectives and ensure the knowledge is recorded.

Thank you very much for your assistance,
Rod Cameron, Greg Preston and Bruce Deam
  1. Please list the types of information that you needed initially, still need or expect to need in the future? An indication of the importance would be helpful.
  2. What new ways have you found of doing what you do, what needs improving and what do others need to improve?
  3. What else have you learned that you would like to share with others?
  4. What has caused you the most frustration in getting your job done?
  5. How does your organisation collate and distribute this type of information? If it does, what have you found to be the most successful and/or how you think that it could be improved?