Even though the Boston Marathon 2013 bombing event happened less than 24 hours ago at the time of writing, there are already numerous accounts of the role social media played during the horrific aftermath. Here are four great articles:
In an effort not to repeat the good work done by these individuals, I would like to focus on the use of social networks, particularly Twitter, by the Boston Police Department. I have three main observations, however, I’m sure there are many lessons that can, and most likely will, be teased out of this event.
1. Valuable time does not have to be spent word-smithing updates to social networks; it is more important to get the message out the door as quickly as possible and to make sure your point is clearly understood.
This specific Tweet was ReTweeted (or repeated) almost 8,000 times. Providing straightforward information is especially important if your organization is countering misinformation such as this:
UPDATE: Reports of at least 12 dead, dozens more injured in Boston Marathon explosions nyp.st/ZlWY9t— New York Post (@nypost) April 15, 2013
This NY Post update was regarded quite skeptically by the public as evidenced by the number of times is was repeated, only 1,700. Although that seems like a large amount, the difference in the number of ReTweets between this update and the Tweet from BPD is telling: people were leery of the information. In fact, many people challenged the Post by directing messages to them questioning the content. After it was determined that the information was false, some urged them to issue a retraction.
2. In a fast moving situation, it isn’t that difficult to understand how incomplete or incorrect content can get posted. However, if that does happen, it may be necessary to repeat the correction.
This content was picked up by news organizations, such as Reuters, and the “not certain” was scrubbed out in the process. The Reuters post was ReTweeted by 8,000 of their followers. It was also repeated on broadcast television stations as well.
Boston police confirms another explosion at JFK Library #breaking— Reuters US News (@ReutersUS) April 15, 2013
Boston PD corrected the information in two Tweets:
Commissioner Davis, “The preliminary investigation indicates JFK incident may not have been an explosion. It may have been a fire."— Boston Police Dept. (@Boston_Police) April 15, 2013
3. Situational awareness information can often be found from the social accounts of other city agencies or organizations.
Fire in building is out, appears to have started in the mechanical room of new building. All staff and visitors are accounted for and safe.— JFK Library (@JFKLibrary) April 15, 2013
Interestingly, the JFK Library posted the all-clear status of the building, but BPD still repeated the possibility of a third incident at the library a full thirty minutes later. However, although thirty minutes seems like a long time during the height of an incident response, in the larger scheme of things, they corrected the information very quickly.
I’m sure in the coming weeks the #SMEM community will find even more lessons and observations, I look forward to learning more about how information was provided to the public and how social networks were monitored during the event. Let me know your thoughts.
I recently saw a presentation about GeoFeedia, a social media monitoring software system, at an SMEM-type event sponsored by the Metropolitan College of NY’s Emergency and Disaster Management MPA program. Their presentation, along with the ensuing conversation, inspired me to take a closer look. GeoFeedia’s monitoring tool is unique among all of its competitors: it allows the user to include location searches for content versus only searching by keyword. Timo Luge’s blog post about the service describes why this feature is so important:
If someone uploads and photo a writes “Here is a photo of my house after the #earthquake in #Alphaville” it’ll be easy to find, but if someone simply writes “My house – so sad!“ you won’t find it using standard tools. And while you can use services like Hootsuite to show you all tweets in certain area, doing this is quite tricky and too complicated for most users.
Watch their video for a great one-minute description.
I encourage you to explore their website for details about what the tool can do, but below I briefly describe its 6 main features, including location monitoring:
It enables “advanced location monitoring” which will gather–as well as archive—social communications based on the location determined by the user. For instance, if there was an explosion in an area, law enforcement could hone in on people posting about the incident who are in close proximity. In contrast, if only a keyword search were used, then the collected content would include everyonediscussing the event.
Keyword searches are not eliminated from GeoFeedia. The ability to filter social content and refine searches using keywords as well as timeframe, media type, author “and more” is included.
Data is exportable in a feature they call “data portability.”
Content from GeoFeedia can easily be published to your own social networks.
Analytical tools are embedded that can help the user identify such things as the most active or influential poster, as well as trends, etc.
The content of the geo-feed is shareable to people “inside or outside your organization. You can even share a live Geofeed stream with users that don’t have a Geofeedia account.” In contrast, other software tools, including Radian 6, have very restrictive sharing policies and explicitly do NOT allow sharing of content with non-account holders.
Do Geo-location Tools Invade Privacy?
Following their presentation in New York, the question of privacy was raised, which I thought was interesting. Do people expect some privacy when posting content to social networks? If you are quick to answer “no” then consider this statement by one of the participants: “Ask any teenager if posting to Twitter and Instagram allows everyone to see their content and they will answer ‘yes.’ Then ask them if they would be OK with their parents viewing whatever they are posting and they will emphatically answer ‘NO!’” I know this to be a fact since I happen to live with two teenagers.
Nonetheless, during a crisis situation it would seem that folks would desire government officials to see their posts in order to receive assistance. But in the world of law enforcement, this type of monitoring tool takes on an entirely different connotation. I can image that a law enforcement agency could use GeoFeedia, or something like it, to draw a virtual circle around a park where a festival is happening and look for information about illegal activity. Would people posting images and Tweeting at the event, for instance, realize they were being “watched” virtually?
Based on current law, it seems that these types of searches are legal and possibly even expected by citizens. Law professor Jonathon Turely wrote a couple of years ago about our evolving societal privacy expectations in a Washington Post article about the then upcoming Supreme Court case Jones v. United States. The case involved a conviction of man based on his activities that were tracked with a GPS devise:
“This surveillance continued after a warrant had expired. But the Obama administration insists that no warrant should be required for the government to track the movements of citizens with such devices. The administration says that the new technology merely captures what can be observed, albeit in far greater detail. But the technology could allow the government to follow an almost limitless number of citizens in real time, all the time.”
Professor Turely asks: ”As we come to expect less privacy, are we entitled to less of it?” The court did eventually hold that “the Government’s installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search’” under the Fourth Amendment.” However, the broader privacy issue was left unsettled.
How does that case relate to social media? Stephen E. Henderson’s in his journal article Expectations of Privacy in Social Media, cites the Jones case and many others in his argument that the public really can’t expect privacy when posting publicly on social networks, however, they probably can expect privacy when an effort is made to keep the communication out of the public view, for instance with protected Tweets and Facebook messages. The notion of control of the information is the key. “If the government obtains information that was previously in one’s exclusive control, then it has violated the person’s rights.” However, if the information is publicly available, then there is no interference with a “possessory interest.” This passage sums up his argument:
Whatever the precise definitions of search and seizure, the Court has articulated this general principle:
[T]he Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected.
This limitation makes eminent sense, in that police should not have to be the only ones to avert their eyes. If you tape a message on a window visible from the street, or place a pie to cool or a plant to grow there, a police officer driving or walking by is free to give it a look. According to the control theory of information privacy, you have chosen to share that information. Whereas if you carry any of those items on your person in public, but in an opaque container, the item remains private, and police must act accordingly.
Some social media is exposed to the public, such as an open-to-the world blog. It is not reasonable to expect privacy when one publishes something to all comers. So there would be no Fourth Amendment restraint on police obtaining the content of such a blog, either by bringing up the site themselves or via the third party hosting that content. The same holds true for a Facebook wall which the user leaves open to the public, YouTube videos left open to the public, and flickr pictures left open to the public. And the same holds true for tweets from a public account, meaning one for which the user does not restrict followers. Since any private person can obtain these things without restraint, the police can as well. (page 238)
Do you have an expectation of privacy? Does your law enforcement agency worry about this topic? My treatment of this issue is admittedly very superficial–there are many different facets to explore. For a much lengthier treatment of the topic, I encourage you to read Mr. Henderson’s entire article, you can also see sites such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
For another review and more information about GeoFeedia find a comprehensive post by Patrick Meier on iRevolution here. Despite the debate over privacy, I think GeoFeedia is a great tool and probably represents the future of how emergency response organizations will monitor social content in order to gain the best situational awareness. Let me know what you think.
Maryland Emergency Management Agency (Photo credit: Maryland National Guard)
The Maryland Emergency Management Agency (@MDMEMA on Twitter) has recently taken their social media communication’s strategy to new heights–even incorporating a module about the tools into their Public Information Officer training.
I had the opportunity to meet the MEMA Social Media Coordinator, Kasey Parr, when we both served on a panel at the Social Media Week in Washington DC (a big thank you to Michael Clarke of International Media Solutions for organizing our session). I asked Kasey in a written follow up for a little more detail about their social media plans and current processes. Below is the result of the Q&A with both Kasey and Ed McDonough, the MEMA PIO.
Q1. What type of Social Media content is included in the PIO training?
A1: Kasey: The first training we conducted on “Social Media in the JIC” was right before Hurricane Sandy, forcing me to cut down on my slides because of time constraints on Ed and myself. The presentation given before Hurricane Sandy included:
Why do we use social media during emergencies?
What are the benefits?- This will now include a case study of the Derecho/Hurricane Sandy
Our level of engagement/How we use SM
VOST concept and how we can create a model with MD social media managers
Procedures during an event- 12 hour shift roles and responsibilities
Monitoring/responding (what it is, how we do it, etc)-
A1: Ed — I would add that we have been teaching about the use of social media as part of our instruction of FEMA‘s Basic PIO (G290) and JIC/JIS (G291) training for several years. We discuss the various platforms for SM, how to get buy in from supervisors and/or elected officials, stress the differences and similarities between SM and the traditional media, and emphasize that it is a two-way information flow that also can help operations folks with tactical decisions. (You may be familiar with some of the ways Bill Humphries of LAFD has used Twitter to gain operational information.)
Maryland Emergency Management Agency (Photo credit: Maryland National Guard)
Q2. How is SM incorporated into “normal” communications and messaging processes?
A2: Ed — During our “sunny day” periods, we regularly use social media to engage the public about preparedness information, regularly monitor Facebook and twitter for information about weather, traffic and other information in and around Maryland and from emergency management agencies around the country. Unlike traditional media, where we are usually just pushing out information, we use social media to actually engage the public with contests and such to get immediate feedback. We also are in the process of making sure that our social media policies are incorporated into our public information SOPs, so any state public information officer working in our Joint Information Center will understand the role of social media in emergency management.
Q3. Do you talk (in your training) specifically about the transfer of the intelligence gathered from monitoring social networks to decision-makers?
A3: Kasey–We do address social media monitoring in our training. As a part of the procedures in the JIC the roles and responsibilities of the monitor are outlined. These responsibilities include alerting the team of any relevant trends that may need to be addressed and by whom these issues need to be addressed according to the urgency of the matter. Some issues can be easily solved with the PIO, relevant state agency reps, or they [may] require the attention of the Senior Policy Group.
Depending on the nature of the information that has come through, we may need to get the Governor to address it in his next press briefing, have the PIO construct a press release, or create a social media messaging strategy centered on the intelligence or trend to eliminate confusion. After Hurricane Sandy, we walked away with a lot of lessons learned as far as media monitoring is concerned. In my opinion, the social media monitor has the most important role during a disaster. This is one part of our social media program that I would like to build out for a disaster or emergency situation.
A3: Ed — I would add that we are exploring the use of crowdsourcing programs that could work in conjunction with our GIS staff to give operational staff in the state EOC better situational awareness during an activation. This will become even more important for counties and cities, as they are on the front lines of response.
Thank you so much Ed and Kasey! Let me know what types of questions you might have for them or other agencies.
Mary Jo Flynn, the Assistant Director of the Emergency Management Division in Anaheim California, consistently surprises me with her creative use of social media and new technologies to engage CERT members. For instance, just a couple of months ago she Tweeted about how she integrated the use of QR codes into a CERT exercise.
Conduct a CERT exercise using QR codes posted around a facility. Dubbed a "choose your own adventur pinterest.com/pin/6628742573…— Anaheim CERT (@AnaheimCERT) May 09, 2012
Ms Flynn promoted the idea on her “CERT Exercise Idea” Pinterest page and indicated that the QR code exercise was played by adding images, descriptions and/or video to the links in a type of scavenger hunt where each decision got volunteers to the next QR Code Station. What a great way to add a layer of interest!
Social Media Exercise
This month she is taking the concept of adding game-type elements into training to a new level. Intuitively we all know that the best way to learn something is by actually doing it. For this exercise, the learning objectives Ms Flynn would like to accomplish are for CERT members to not only understand social media but also to increase their competency in the use of the tools. In order for team members to learn how to use social networking in a real-world, face-paced environment she has created a game of sorts for them to participate in during the California State CERT conference. The game/exercise requires participants to use social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Instragram, and points will be awarded based on activity level, measured by their use of live-Tweeting, Facebook posting, Retweeting, and getting ReTweed, for example. Additionally, a team element has been incorporated–which is important, people tend to participate more if they feel they are a part of a group. She created this video (embedded below) in order to prepare CERT members to participate as soon as they arrive at the conference.
I asked Ms Flynn for more information about the “how and why” of the exercise and she provided me the written answers below. I wanted to post her responses in full so that others could emulate this great example.
Nature of the exercise:
This is a dynamic exercise in which conference participants will utilize social media to generate live social web data. Their entries simulate making contact with family members or posting pictures as neighborhood situation status updates. A second part of the exercise includes the identification and analysis of the web data simulating a virtual EOC environment. While the exercise may seem like nothing more than a scavenger hunt or silly networking game, it is an intricately layered opportunity to build team work, practice technical skills, collect and share information and be that much closer and ready to deploy for an actual event.
Why I pursued this exercise:
I’ve been looking to plan small exercises locally for my team that utilized live data but without the fear of sparking controversy or panic when using simulated data in a public forum and I believe as emergency managers we must first do no harm in social media. I’ve not been satisfied in adding “Exercise” or “Drill” to a live tweet for fear it would be eliminated on re-tweet and lose effectiveness and potentially lose trust from my audience.
Why Now, how this came about:
I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. My colleagues using the #smemchat have been talking about exercising using events like the Inauguration or Superbowl to practice safely with live data. I wanted something smaller scale. When approached by California Volunteers to speak at the conference, I inquired as to whether or not they would promote live tweeting. Once we agreed on using live tweeting and a scavenger hunt as a mechanism to encourage networking, the rest of the exercise fell into place. Since then I’ve just been having fun refining some of the “injects” like the video.
Why this exercise is important to me:
Lately I’ve become concerned that the Social Media Emergency Management community has only encouraged adoption of social media without providing enough detail in training, exercising and strategic planning. I believe we will continue to face challenges from opponents [people who don't believe social media is important] if we don’t also demonstrate the ability to train and exercise in such a manner as to build community trust.
I’m happy that we can accommodate so many pieces of the puzzle and pull together such a strong national VOST [Virtual Operations Support Team] along with local volunteers and conference attendees to hopefully see success through this exercise.
What to expect after the conference:
I’m a very big believer in capturing lessons learned and I’ll be incorporating feedback into an After Action Report and sharing with Lessons Learned Information Sharing (LLIS).
Thank you Mary Jo! If you have any questions for her, she is on Twitter @AnaheimCERT or @MaryJoFly.
The blizzard of 2013 is still causing problems from New Jersey to Maine at the time of writing. Although recovery from the storm is far from over, I’d like to look at Massachusetts specifically and make some observations about the role social media and web-based communications played (and continues to play) during this event.
1. Public organizations, as well as elected officials, provided great service announcements to encourage people to help one another. My favorite was a Tweet from the Mayor of Boston asking people to be a snow angel, not just make one.
They even took it a step further by asking “How are you being a Snow Angel today? Use#BOSnowAngel to share a photo of your good deed.”
2. Sometimes the message was simple: “I don’t know.” This post on Facebook was from Mass 2-1-1 who defines themselves as “an easy to remember, toll-free telephone number that connects callers to information about critical health and human services available in their community, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”
One thing Mass 2-1-1 might have done is linked to the private utility company’s Facebook page, which brings me to #3.
3. Utility companies definitely bear the brunt of much of the public’s ire in the aftermath of disaster events, and this one is proving to be no exception. This storm also provides an age-old lesson in how to handle some of that anger: no comment. One look at the Nstar’s page will give you an idea of some of the vitriol that can be spewed when the power is out, even for a day or two. This simple statement on their page elicited over 200 responses, quite a lot of them angry.
“We expect to have all customers restored by Thursday night and will have community by community restoration times available tomorrow. Our crews will continue to work around the clock until all affected customers are restored. Please stay away from downed power lines and assume all lines are live. Thanks for your patience as we repair the damage from this devastating blizzard“
Although this post seems innocuous, people felt that the restoration rate was way too slow. One person started a fire storm by stating the following:
“I just observed TWENTY SEVEN trucks parked at Dunkin donuts in Falmouth. I have an infant and no power for 48 hours with no end in sight. Some sort of estimate would be extremely appreciated. I am a healthcare worker that’s been working for 30 of the past 48 hours I’m cold, hungry and cranky. My patience is wearing very thin…”
I think they handled it well, however, by letting the public defend them versus jumping into the argument. Often it is a worker’s family member that is the most animated with statements along the lines of “Hey–they are working hard, I haven’t seen my husband in three days!” An example of someone coming to their defense is provided below. This somewhat inelegant statement both defends the company but also points out what everyone would like…more information.
4. If you build it, they will come…and maybe crash your site. The International Business Times reported before the storm that Boston was promoting their snowplow tracking website called SnowOps Viewer that would allow citizens to track snow removal by location by zooming in on the map as well as by inputting an address. This is possible because all city plows are equipped with GPS devices. Other major cities including New York (PlowNYC) and Washington DC have similar systems. The problem, however, was that so many people went to the site it crashed under the weight. This is the message even today, Feb. 11: We are experiencing significant traffic and the site is currently unavailable. We are working to resolve these issues. Please check back later. Thank you for your patience.
Every disaster seems to teach us that sending large amounts of people to your website is not a great idea, unless you have done significant load testing beforehand. I hope they sort out what went wrong soon!
5. Boston has operationalized Twitter. Twitter, unlike their snowplow website, remains up with no problem and Bostonians have been encouraged to send a Tweet to @NotifyBoston to report problems such as unshoveled sidewalks or disabled vehicles. One look at the exchanges taking place there shows that it is obvious the city is taking the citizen-reported information very seriously and wants to hear about problems (see an example below). The @NotifyBoston feed also includes information for citizens as well, including advisories, closures, and storm updates. (I wonder if or how Mass 2-1-1 and @NotifyBoston are coordinating their efforts and sharing information? That will be a question for future posts.)
A Twitter chat occurred yesterday (1/25/2013) about the role of social media during the ongoing bushfires in Australia. The chat was organized and facilitated by Robert Dunne @Academy911, Joanna Lane @joannalane and Joanne White @joannewhite. Although I haven’t had time to read through the complete archive of hundreds of Tweets, some resources stood out to me that I’d like to share.
One of the items mentioned was this great presentation available on YouTube by CFA (Country Fire Authority) Digital Media Manager, Martin Anderson who discusses the integration of social media into emergency service procedures in Victoria, Australia. Mr. Anderson points out that the full adoption of social media had to come with three main changes in mindset:
From: “We hold the info the community needs and we expect them to come to us.” To: “We realize we need to go to the community.”
From: “We will decide what the community needs.” To: “The community will tell us what they need.”
From: “The public is a liability.” To: “The public is a resource.” See the full video below:
Some great examples of the many ways the Australian public can stay informed during this crisis were also shared during the discussion on Twitter. One emerging theme is the move toward providing aggregated information from many different agencies and organizations along with a visualization of that content.
1. A great resource page by HardenUp.org has been established for the bushfires that provides an aggregation of official social media channels as well as images posted by the public. HardenUp is a project by Green Cross Australia who’s mission is to prepare the public for a changing climate “in ways that embrace sustainability and community resilience.” The resource page was inspired by the Queensland Public Alerts page, sponsored by the Queensland government.
2. The Country Fire Authority has a similar aggregated social media site aptly called “Social Media Updates.” The page lists official social posts from the CFA Facebook and Twitter account, as well as from other relevant official accounts including for instance, the Melbourne Fire Bureau or MFB and traffic information from VicRoads, just to name a few.
CFA: Fire Ready Smartphone Application
3. The CFA also has a FireReady mobile app. This app was mentioned during the chat, and I blogged about its features here.
4. The ABC Emergency website is a great resource that provides an aggregated list of all current alerts and warnings. The site was set up in the wake of the Black Saturday Fires and Brisbane Floods by the Australian Broadcasting Company. I like that they don’t just provide information about the hazard, but also what the public can do to prepare themselves. The preparedness pages also include links to official agencies. For instance, the “Plan for a Bushfire” page has hyperlinks to each of the Fire Emergency Services. The ABC’s stated purpose for the site:
The caption states: ABC Emergency only publishes warnings from official sources. This is a list of official warnings currently available to the ABC. You should check with other sources for more warnings relevant to your area.
Google Crisis Response Map: Current Fires and Incidents
5. The Google Crisis Response team is also active in this disaster. Their NSW Crisis Map has current bushfire information. They call this “…a mirror of the NSW Rural Fire Service Current Fires and Incidents map.”
This list represents just a few of the interesting resources made available to the public during this event. I hope these agencies will share their lessons learned: I look forward to hearing more about the role social media continues to play in the land “down-under.” What are you learning?
Thanks to Nathan Hunderwald or @smem911 for ReTweeting some of the best links.
I live in the DC corridor and therefore I follow the WMATA (Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority) social media accounts. The authority has great social presence and I find their Twitter feed especially useful. I look to them to see, for example, why I’m standing on a platform with no train for 20 minutes. More often than not, they will have posted the problem(s) that caused the delay.
Shady Grove-bound Red Line train offloading at Gallery Place, door problem. Next RL train directly behind, and at Judiciary Sq. 8:23a #wmata— @wmata (@wmata) January 14, 2013
Watching a conversation that took place with WMATA the other day, however, made me re-evaluate some of my own advice. I have often stated that it is important to communicate with the public how you will be using social networks in order to manage their expectations. For example, “This account is not monitored 24/7.” The public, however, pushed back to WMATA for saying almost this exact statement. I captured the conversation below. They simply stated:
.@wmata if people are reporting emergencies then the police might want to monitor it.— Aaron Tobler (@aarontobler) January 08, 2013
I’m not sure why WMATA said to report emergencies to that long number versus 911. Whatever the case, the idea that the account was not being monitored 24/7 was astounding to some:
@mrjohner our account does get monitored, just not 24/7. Have a good night!— @wmata (@wmata) January 08, 2013
The last exchange reminds me that exclamation points can demonstrate that someone is excited, enthusiast or sarcastic…I’m going with the last choice. Nonetheless, this exchange makes me a bit nervous. Is a 24/7 monitored social media presence now something the public will demand, especially for public safety organizations? If not today, will this be a demand in the near future? What are your thoughts?
Update: @WMATA responded to this post via Twitter. I really appreciate their replies!
@kim26stephens use of "!" is for pleasure & enthusiasm. You may dial 911, however you won't directly get MTPD as if you used 202.962.2121.— @wmata (@wmata) January 14, 2013
@kim26stephens 911 controlled by the municipalities, not us. We understand calling would be easier, but it would not direct dial MTPD— @wmata (@wmata) January 14, 2013
For those readers that do not live in the DC area, the MTPD is the Metro Transit Police and they ”have tri-state jurisdiction with responsibility for a variety of law enforcement and public safety functions in transit facilities throughout the Washington, DC Metropolitan area… MTPD police officers have jurisdiction and arrest powers throughout the 1,500 square mile Transit Zone that includes Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia for crimes that occur in or against Transit Authority facilities. It is the only tri-jurisdictional police agency in the country and serves a population of 3.2 million.”
The Boston Mayor has declared a public health emergency due to the deadly flu outbreak that has killed 18 people to date. Public Health organizations are pulling out the stops to communicate protective action information to the public and social media is just one of the tools in the toolbox. The public, however, is also using social media to talk about the flu. They state such things as whether or not they are sick; whether or not they had a shot; and “Google” what they should do after they become ill, just to name a few of the topics of conversation. People can even download a new Facebook app titled “Help, My Friend Gave me the Flu” to figure out who they need to blame for feeling miserable. (As an aside the app is actually quite cool. After you give it permission to access your newsfeed it looks for key words from friends that have posted content related to feeling sick. From a public health standpoint, if people know some of their friends are ill they might be spurred to get a flu shot, or at a minimum keep their distance. I’m happy to report all of my friends are healthy!)
All of this web and social data, in turn, is being “mined” by public health organizations and researchers in order to determine both the geographic spread of the virus, as well as the rate of infection. Some organizations are also asking the public to self-report how they are feeling. Below I outline five tools that are interesting aggregators of social flu data.
1. FluNearYou is a tool that allows the public to participate in tracking the spread of flu by filling out a survey each week. The survey is quite simple and asks the respondent if they have had any symptoms during the past week and whether or not they have had the flu shot either this year or last year. Respondents can include family members and the questions are asked about each person individually. This user contributed data is then aggregated and displayed on a map with pins that are either green for no symptoms, yellow for some and red for “at least one person with Influenza-like” symptoms. The pins are clickable and display the number of users in that zipcode that have reported their condition, but no personal information whatsoever. The number of participants in the state is displayed (1294 in Massachusetts) as well as locations and addresses where people can get vaccinated. Links to local public health agencies are also provided. People can also sign up to receive location-based disease alerts via email. Social sharing of the site and its content is encouraged by the addition of prominently placed social media buttons.
2. Google Flu Trends is another site that provides geographically based information about the spread of the influenza virus. Their data is aggregated from the search terms people are using versus self-reporting. In fact, the graph of the tracked searches (see below) related to the flu compared to the actual reported cases of the virus is so close that they almost overlap.
Google explains how this works:
Each week, millions of users around the world search for health information online. As you might expect, there are more flu-related searches during flu season… You can explore all of these phenomena using Google Insights for Search. But can search query trends provide the basis for an accurate, reliable model of real-world phenomena?
We have found a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. Of course, not every person who searches for “flu” is actually sick, but a pattern emerges when all the flu-related search queries are added together. We compared our query counts with traditional flu surveillance systems and found that many search queries tend to be popular exactly when flu season is happening. By counting how often we see these search queries, we can estimate how much flu is circulating in different countries and regions around the world. Our results have been published in the journal Nature.
In fact, the current flu trend data for Massachusetts reflects the declared state of emergency. (See also this article: Widespread Flu has public logging online.)
3. MappyHealth is another tool that tracks keywords related to health but instead of using data from searches in Google, this system utilizes the Twitter data stream. Their stated reason for the site: “It is hypothesized that social data could be a predictor to outbreaks of disease. We track disease terms and associated qualifiers to present these social trends.” Although this blog post is focused on influenza, the MappyHealth site tracks 27 different categories of illness. They explain how all of this is done on their FAQ page.
The graph below displays Tweets by the hour and day that are related to influenza. The last full day on the chart is January 9, which shows a significant spike in the number of Tweets on the topic.
What is everyone talking about? The user can actually see the individual Tweets by clicking on any point on the graph. The associated Tweets then populate a table beneath the graph (profanity and all). The table includes the time, tweeter, complete text of the tweet, location (if available) condition match and qualifier match. The last two terms need a little bit of explanation. If someone states “I don’t have the flu” the condition match will state “flu” but the qualifier will state “don’t.” Location data is not included in all Tweets, however, MappyHealth does provide a sorting mechanism by location for those that do, and this content is displayed on a map.
Another feature on the site includes a link to a “Realtime Twitter Search.” This link takes the user to an advanced search MappyHealth has already created that includes many different keywords Tweeters might use when talking about influenza, including: flu, influenza, h1n1, h5n1, H3N2, adenovirus, etc. This search is available for every illness category. This feature alone is worthy of a bookmark.
4. Not to be outdone, the Center for Disease Control has released a Influenza smartphone application. The intended audience is clinicians and other health care professionals, with a stated purpose of making it easier to find CDC’s latest recommendations and influenza activity updates. Some of the reviews, however, point to a few problems, such as dated information on flu activity.
5. HealthMap.org was involved in the design and development of “FluNearYou” and therefore has a similar look and feel to it. However, the site does have a very different process for gathering data. HealthMap states that they
“…bring together disparate data sources, including online news aggregators, eyewitness reports, expert-curated discussions and validated official reports, to achieve a unified and comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health. Through an automated process, updating 24/7/365, the system monitors, organizes, integrates, filters, visualizes and disseminates online information about emerging diseases in nine languages, facilitating early detection of global public health threats.”
HealthMap.org also has a mobile application that includes all of the features found on their website, but I actually find the app easier to use. Using the smartphone’s touch-screen-zooming capability makes it is easy to hone in on specific locations and view all of the associated alerts. The alert content, however, is a bit heavy with information from traditional media.
+1. #FluChat: News organizations are not only providing the public with information about the effects of the influenza virus this year, some are also providing a public health awareness function via their presence on social networks. On Thursday, January 10th, for example, a #FluChat was sponsored by @USATodayHealth.
Have questions about the flu? Tweet them using #fluchat and we’ll get you answers at 3 p.m. ET today.— USA TODAY Health (@USATODAYhealth) January 10, 2013
Health based Twitter chats offer the public the opportunity to post questions that are addressed by healthcare professionals or researchers. The CDC, for instance, has conducted many chats on a wide variety of topics. Watching the questions that are posted in these chats offers local public health organizations an opportunity to “hear” the concerns of the public. Knowing this information can help with message formulation and coordination. Here are a few questions posted to the #fluchat:
Bonus: Reviewing the #fluchat stream I found “A Flu With a View” from Sickweather.com. This visualization of flu data comes from a process they use to filter Tweets, Facebook updates as well as self-reporting on their website. They state: “This amount of real-time data, combined with historical data from the CDC and Google Flu Trends, is what gave us a crystal-ball-like view of the flu this year. In fact, our data of flu season to date shows that we are still near the peak of flu season, but possibly (hopefully) starting to level off.”
See this visualization:
None of these tools will help people feel better once they are already stricken with the virus, but they might alert the public to how prevalent the virus is in their community and possibly persuade folks to take preventive measures. Tell me what you think. How could your agency put this information to use?
This post was also placed on the WMASMEM.wordpress.com blog.
One thing we are hearing loud and clear from the January, 2013 Australian bushfire disaster is that people are turning to social media for information. This is demonstrated by a quote from Stuart Howie of “The Border Mail” in an article titled “Opinion: Social media a life saver.”
Indeed yesterday, as bushfires swept across large tracts of land in New South Wales and destroyed properties in Victoria, social media helped save lives. Just as it is hard to predict what the winds of change will do during these infernos, it may be dangerous to hazard a guess at how many lives. A few? Dozens? Perhaps many more. However, I have no doubt that the ability of social media in conjunction with established media outlets to spread emergency information to scattered communities meant residents were, in many circumstances, kept as well informed as the fire crews battling the constantly changing circumstances. And they got out of the path of annihilation.
But believe it or not, I don’t think the lesson to be learned from this event will be that social media can help spread information. Numerous disasters, including SuperStorm Sandy, have made this use of social networking almost self-evident. One thing we might learn, however, is the increasing power and usefulness of mobile applications, provided they are done well. The private sector is also learning this lesson, see the article “Forget social media, smartphone apps are the new customer service tool.”
The Need to Provide Mobile-Ready Information
During a crisis, organizations are increasingly comfortable with providing critical information and emergency updates via social media. However, one of the lessons we have learned as an SMEM community, is that the people who most need the information are also the least likely to be viewing it on a computer screen. Therefore, when a hyperlink is included in a Tweet or a Facebook post it should link to information that is mobile ready. Some would even argue that in low bandwidth situations, a link shouldn’t be included at all.
The Country Fire Authority (CFA) of Victoria, Australia or @CFA_Updates on Twitter, seems to have learned the mobile-ready lesson. According to their Facebook page, the CFA is one of the largest volunteer-based emergency management organizations in the world and are one of the main agencies involved in bushfire fighting. Via their social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, during this recent disaster, they have been providing a constant stream of official emergency warnings, incident updates and media releases.
Why? I clicked on the link in the Tweet on my smartphone, because the Tweet itself made no sense to me, and I expected a long delay for a website to download. Instead, I was directed to their mobile-ready content. Furthermore, once there I had the choice of downloading their mobile app, which I did.
The content of the App is very impressive, even though, as they state on their website, some people have experienced problems with the latest version–which is really unfortunate timing. An article titled “CFA website can’t handle the heat” noted how the CFA website and phone app had to be placed on separate servers after both had problems during the worst of the heatwave due to extremely high user demand. There’s a lesson learned–or re-learned–there are well! Nonetheless, I was able to navigate through the most of the app without too many issues.
There are many things I found useful, but I’d like to highlight 5 items.
The application has a very handy map interface that allows users to quickly see where fires are located as well as the fire’s current status. People can even sign up to get alerts of warnings when fires are within a specified radius of the user-defined “Watch Zone.”
Each fire symbol is clickable which takes the user to a screen that provides detailed information about that event, including how many trucks are on scene and the percent contained.
One thing I LOVE about the “Incident Detail” screen is that users can share the details of an incident to their social networks straight from the app. Providing an easy way for citizens to share your content should be a goal of every organization: the more information is shared the more it is seen.
The app does not squelch the sharing of user-generated content, in fact it encourages it. A tab for “photos” reveals contributions from citizens who have uploaded images to the app. The purpose is to provide situational awareness content from the perspective of the community, but the unstated purpose is more psychological. People like to feel that they are contributing in emergency situations, even if it is a small act such as uploading a picture. This feature sends a huge signal to the community that says: “We are all in this together.”
Their social media streams are embedded in the app. This means that the user does not have to leave the environment of the app in order to view this content. This makes for a handy one-stop shop for all of their streams of communication. I noticed, however, that this feature seems to be where some of their current bugs are occurring.
What’s Next?
Despite the little hiccups with the app during this current disaster, I see it as the future. What I also see, however, are other issues that will need to be resolved. For example, during a crisis whose app will the community be encouraged to use?The one from the American Red Cross, FEMA, the local Fire Service, Emergency Management Office, or the local City or County Government? Or will citizens be forced to download all of them and then go from app to app to gain all of the particulars they need, from protective action measures to recovery information. Open data is probably they answer, but that’s another post!
Let me know what you think? Is your organization developing a mobile app?
This is a very short post to alert my readers to a great resource: “Social Media Use During Disasters: A Review of the Knowledge Base and Gaps” published December 12, 2012. Interestingly, despite this recent publishing date, the authors were even able to include some findings on the use of social media during Hurricane Sandy.
The report was done by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism: A Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Center of Excellence, based at the University of Maryland with support from the Science and Technology Directorate of DHS. The authors are Julia Daisy Fraustino, Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland; Brooke Liu, Associate Professor and START Affiliated Faculty Member at the University of Maryland; and Yan Jin, Associate Professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University.
In an interview with the authors, published on START’S website, they explain their overarching goal for writing the report:
“We hope this report can serve as a map for policy makers and emergency managers as they navigate disaster communication decisions,” said Brooke Fisher Liu, START researcher and Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland. “We sought to provide a summary of what is currently known so decision makers don’t have to risk relying on intuition alone or inaccurate information.”
For those of you who are developing training materials, the content could provide very good sourced and referenced background information. Let me know what you found the most interesting.
What’s in the App?
