Despite the feeling that we live in a predominantly technological society, and that consequently technology drives society (and of course decision making within societies) many crucial decisions that lead to the adoption of certain technologies, and to our adaptation to certain technologies, are not based purely on technology, but much more on internal politics, social and psychological variables. This is very much the case with respect to interoperable communications, a seemingly technological exercise, that actually tries to bring together sometimes wildly differing organizational, even national cultures. An examination of the global interoperability landscape shows that many decisions leading to the evolution of this area have little to do with pure technology and economy, but much to do with local, social, political and in many cases psychological processes.

It turns out that communications interoperability is primarily a cultural phenomenon, and only secondarily a technological one. The lack of “intuitive” interoperability If that is the case, it stands to reason that in the quest for good communications interoperability we will pay attention to cultural, psychological, sociological and political aspects no less, and maybe even more than the attention given to the specific technologies that offer themselves as “solutions”.

Not surprisingly, it is possible to show that psychology and economic considerations, drive many choices of technological solutions, without allowing proportional reflection on specific technologies’ functional and/or economic superiority. Rather, these decisions reflect balance-of-power realities at the time the choices were made (e.g., a dominant professional group within a region dictates a pattern of technological adoption that reflects its own perception and experience, rather than an overall consideration of the needs of the greater whole; or a large corporation developing a technology, and leveraging it into the marketplace in a way that does not necessarily reflects its functional, cultural and/or economic superiority).

In fact, communications interoperability has much to do with traditional negotiations and dispute resolution, as it has to do with technology. The success or failures in this area, worldwide, reflect the ability of various groups to negotiate cross-functional, cross-organizational, and even cross-cultural cooperation and collaboration agreements in a way that highlights the common (and in most cases, compromised) interest, as opposed to the individual (or in this case, the uni-organizational) perspective.

What can be done to increase the chances that evolving interoperable communications reflect more the needs of the whole and less the power of the few?

1. Involve non-partisan expertise in the evolution and determination of standards.
2. Bring negotiations and dispute resolution “mediators” into the discussions between functional organizations (e.g., different first responders), in an attempt to help better identify common needs, interests and threads).
3. Integrate organizational culture experts into the earliest stages of an interoperability experiment, in an attempt to identify and if possible deal with potentially show-stopping organizational differences.
4. Try to analyze, recognize and integrate an understanding of the limits and limitations of technologies, to avoid attempts to “force” a technological solution on a human infrastructure that is unable or unwilling to adopt it and/or adapt to it.

Since we are talking about investments of billions of dollars, years of efforts and ultimately the ability to bring all this to bear in the service of saving lives, it makes sense to pay attention to the non-technological aspects of communications interoperability. Doing so may increase the chance of our getting it right the first time, and that is something that I am sure we can all agree on.