Image by OregonDOT

Lisa Ann St. Denis, Leysia Palen, and Amanda Hughes all of the University of Colorado’s Project EPIC have recently released a new case study of the use of a Virtual Operations Support Team or (VOST). The VOST was described in this guest post by Scott Reuter, one of the VOST members. The creator of the VOST concept, Jeff Phillips, defines it as an integration of “trusted agents”

…into Emergency Managment operations by creating a virtual team whose focus is to establish and monitor social media communication, manage communication channels with the public, and handle matters that can be executed remotely through digital means such as the management of donations or volunteers. In times of need, the support of a VOST can be enlisted to extend communication capacities and provide operational support.”

The study details the actions of the VOST during the Oregon Shadow Lake Fire in 2011 and discusses every aspect of their deployment: the team’s relationship with the requesting agency point of contact (which was the National Incident Management Organization PIO, Kris Eriksen); the tasks assigned to the team; the relationships in and amongst team members; team leadership; the processes and tools used to conduct, record and report their work back to the requestor; and the ability for volunteers to sustain their contributions.

It should be noted that this VOST was not created for the  purposes of responding to the fire. This is a team that was already formed and had worked together in real world instances (although somewhat smaller) on numerous occasions. The team members are also in almost daily contact with each other via social networks, even when they are not asked to work an incident.

This case study is quite timely. Emergency managers have started to realize the vital role social media can play in communicating with citizens in an emergency or disaster. Using social networks to disseminate information is not necessarily a huge stretch for most organizations (although some changes to traditional processes are necessary–such as releasing information more often). However,  the concept of monitoring, and then interacting, with citizens via social media–especially to gain situational awareness or even to gauge sentiment, is still quite unsettling for some. Most of the concerns revolve around simply the human-power required to monitor and aggregate the steady stream of information from the public, only some which is valuable.  Picking the needle of important info from the virtual haystack takes considerable effort.

I won’t rehash the exact nature of their work here–I recommend you take 15 minutes to read the 10 page report, but I do want to explore why they were successful. What stood out to me where five key ingredients that allowed this team to operate remotely–outside the walls of an Emergency Operation Center, and deliver a service that provided tangible support to not only the agency requesting their assistance, but almost more importantly, to the communities impacted by the fire. Five “key ingredients” were apparent (some of which I’ve augmented with my own observations from interacting with this group).

Key Ingredients:

1. Leadership. A virtual team cannot operate without a strong team leader that makes the success of the team his or her mission on an almost daily basis–even when the team is not operational. This is true of Jeff Phillips, not only the person who imagined the concept, but who works tirelessly to make it a reality. The authors of the study suggest that the team leader could be either a volunteer, such as Jeff, or a paid response agency staff member. He also served as the “cheerleader in chief” offering high praise to team members and constantly thanking them and exalting them for their efforts. Although Jeff did not often play the role decision-maker, without one, the team could devolve into disagreements with no way to resolve them.

2. Team building A group of volunteers that will be working towards a common goal need to understand and trust the other members. Team building for this VOST was done by the constant contact mentioned above which created an atmosphere of camaraderie by the members. In addition, membership is limited, which stoked a feeling of belonging as well as a sense of being a part of something bigger than their own individual efforts.

3. A clear mission: The VOST is designed specifically to be activated by, and work directly for, the ground incident/event management on specific tasks. The success demonstrated during the Shadow Lake Fire can be attributed to the team understanding exactly what they needed to accomplish and then given the latitude to complete the tasks at hand.

4. A virtual flagpole: The study mentions the social networking tools the team employed to complete their work during the three weeks they were active. Having a virtual location (in this case it was Skype) to record their work, as well as read what had transpired the shift before, seemed to be absolutely critical. This was especially true since members were geo-graphically dispersed in three different time zones.  Skype kept them all on the same page, both literally and figuratively.

5. Feedback The role of Kris Ericsen can not be underestimated. After requesting the services of the VOST she did not simply walk away. She interacted with the team on a daily basis to coordinate their efforts with her own, as well as to provide the vital information they needed to further their work. Furthermore she displayed trust, for example, by giving them details they couldn’t release to the public until a designated time, as well as gratitude for their efforts throughout the period they were activated.

I would be interested to hear from any organizations that are considering starting a virtual support team of their own. I believe some EMAs are weighing the option of using CERT members in this capacity. If you, or your local EMA falls in this category let me know.

Related articles

• What is a Virtual Operations Support Team? (idisaster.wordpress.com)
• The World’s Your Oyster (if your virtual team is solid!) (looseends.net)
• Is anybody there? Social Media are more than message distribution platforms. (idisaster.wordpress.com)

Image via CrunchBase

I want to bring attention today to a fantastic resource. This is not a blog post per se, but rather a link to GovDelivery’s Social Media Visionary Kit. The “kit” includes video’s of presentations  from Adam Connor, Steve Ressler, and David Kirkpatrick. Adam is the Associate Manager of Public Policy for Facebook and he provides 10 great tips for using social media for government. He addresses many topics including the “L” word–liability. The other two videos are from Steve Ressler, the co-founder of GovLoop and David Kirkpatrick, the author of “The Facebook Effect”.

Here is another article about the 10 tips Mr. Connor addresses: “Facebook’s Top 10 for Government“. My favorite tip is actually a resource list for government agencies.

Resources for Government:

• “State & Local governments. Facebook provides an amended set of terms for State & Local government pages. View them here.
• Security with DTM-09-026. The Department of Defense (DoD) outlines their policy and guidelines for the effective use of social networking. This DTM applies to all agencies within the DoD. If Facebook is blocked for your agency, this will [give you ammunition to get it unblocked. If the USArmy allows access, why not our agency?] .
• Archiving capabilities. There isn’t an archiving tool within Facebook, but Adam offered up two options:Backupify, which backs up and restores data from popular online services (Google Apps, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), and Nextpoint, which develops “cloud-based technology for legal and compliance needs.”
• Interagency cooperation. Government agencies and organizations should remember that interagency cooperation on social networks can reap great rewards. Like with the unique GovDelivery Network, which allows different agencies and organizations to cross-promote their content and subscriptions to broaden their reach, interagency cooperation on social networks can help your agency increase its effectiveness.”

Here is the presentation from slideshare:

It seems almost everyday now I’m seeing tweets about apps being built by one emergency management agency or another. Today I’d like to highlight the two that were mentioned just this morning.

Tennessee Emergency Management Agency has released a “ReadyTN” application for Andriod. This application has all of the preparedness information that citizens would find on Ready.gov, but with the added benefit of being location aware.  The GPS feature  presumably can help people locate services, such as shelter locations and recovery operations, near them after a disaster. It also has a stream of data intended to increase risk awareness on the part of the citizen, but it seems for now the risks are limited to weather and roadway hazards. I’m sure this was a function of available data streams.

The other App is not a traditional “preparedness app” or even an app designed to help you locate city services, rather this application allows citizens to help each other. It’s genius, really. It’s called “Pulse Point” and it works by allowing citizens who are trained in CPR to sign up for notifications they receive on their cell phone when someone near them requires CPR. Here’s their description of how it works:

Notifications are made simultaneously with the dispatch of paramedics to anyone within the area that is CPR-trained and has indicated their willingness and ability to assist during an SCA emergency. These notifications are only made if the victim is in a public place and only to potential rescuers that are in the immediate vicinity of the emergency. When notifications do occur they intend to target potential citizen rescuers that are primarily within walking distance of the event.

PulsePoint App – PSA from Fire Department on Vimeo.

The app also has other features which allows citizens to see select “emergency communication centers worldwide. Mobile users have real-time access to emergency activity as it’s occurring in these communities.” I’m guessing this would appeal to people that enjoy listening to fire scanners. In fact: “Users can also choose to be notified of incidents by type when they are dispatched and listen in on live emergency radio traffic via the modern version of the traditional fire scanner.” Interesting.

Guest Post: Scott Reuter

I’m fortunate to be working with a group of #SMEM*  friends who like to help each other during disasters. We train on real disasters as well as live non-disaster events, such as conferences and fast-moving popular events, so that we can test new social media tools and techniques. We do this to learn for our own varied emergency needs, and to share what we learn with others in order to contribute to the development of social media disaster operations in all phases of disasters. We call ourselves the “Virtual Operations Support Team“, or VOST for those who prefer acronyms.**

We are a diverse mix of professional emergency managers and disaster volunteers of varying skill levels with one major thing in common: an enthusiasm for learning how to use social media in disasters, and for developing ways to operate that will make things easier for ourselves and others in future disasters. We like to share what we learn with others.

Here’s a quick definition of the VOST concept:

• Virtual Operations Support (VOS) as applied to emergency management and disaster recovery is an effort to make use of new communication technologies and social media tools so that a team of trusted agents can lend support via the internet to those on-site who may otherwise be overwhelmed by the volume of data generated during a disaster.
• VOS Teams (VOST) are activated to perform specific functions in support of affected organizations & jurisdictions. Each VOST has a Team Leader that reports directly to the affected organization/jursidiction.
• As additional VOSTs are established, a VOS Group (VOSG) may be established to coordinate the work of the VOSTs to maintain an effective span of control. The VOSG has a Group Supervisor that reports to the affected organization/jurisdiction. The VOST Leaders report to the Group Supervisor.

VOST History

While many of us already knew each other and/or had worked other disasters together, we were first assembled  as a group by Jeff Phillips (@losranchosEM 0r @_JSPhillips) as a team of “trusted agents” in March of 2011. The idea is that in a disaster, anyone trying to monitor and respond using social media will be quickly overwhelmed by the amount of data that needs to be examined and sorted into useful information. In a catastrophic disaster this need is only amplified and there will also probably be a need for a predetermined, trusted person or group to search, proritize and forward crisis data from outside of the disaster location if the internet is not functioning or bandwidth is limited, or again, if the on-site personnel are overwhelmed by the amount of crisis data incoming.

Proof of Concept

1. SMEM Camp

SMEM Camp: Our first “proof of concept” effort (from now on I’ll call them instances) was set up in March 2011 by Jeff Phillips to support the “#SMEMCamp” panel at the NEMA Annual Conference.  I won’t spend a lot of time discussing this instance, as Jeff did a great explanation of it here. I will say , however, that in my view it was a great success in demonstrating that a group of volunteers well-versed in SMEM could be of great asistance to each other if they coordinate their efforts, and plan in advance to do so.

2. 140 Conference Northwest

Our next effort was in support of the 140 Conference Northwest, aka #140confNW, which was held in May in Vancouver, Washington. We were led in this instance by Cheryl Bledsoe (@CherylBle) of Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency (@CRESA). The VOST members that were on-site worked to live-tweet the conference, communicate problems to the internet audience,  and help answer questions that were being asked via twitter as best we could. Some of our team were also helping from various locations around the country by monitoring the live stream and live tweets of the event, as well as search for relative material available on the internet. For example, if a conference speaker mentioned a website and one the on-site VOST members tweeted the info without a link, the off-site members found the URL, and then retweeted the info with the URL attached. The VOST also tweeted links to other supporting materials.

3. National VOAD, or Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster conference 

Our third VOST effort was for the social media panels at the National VOAD, or Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster conference in Kansas City, MO.  Once again the team helped to find and share helpful information using twitter and facebook. Short-Term Disaster Recovery expert Bill Driscoll, Jr. of AllHands Volunteers  – now at NECHAMA – joined in the effort, video streaming the morning panel session on U-stream using his iPad. The VOST actually had a chance to help relay info as we were under tornado warning and had to go to the hotel basement to shelter-in place between the morning and afternoon social media panels!   Some VOAD conference attendees that had expressed uncertainty at the morning session saw us using social media to gather data in the basement, and came back to the afternoon session to learn more and get help setting up an account!

4. Hurricane Irene

Image via Wikipedia

The fourth major #VOST instance was Hurricane Irene. While VOST has helped informally on smaller earthquakes, floods, wildfires and misc. smaller disasters, this was the first large instance where we operated as a VOST on a large scale disaster, combining efforts with other individuals and organizations who were assisting on the disaster. We helped to populate maps and lists with contacts and social media accounts for Emergency Managers and disaster authorities in areas that were expected to be affected that were in the projected path of the hurricane. We helped to amplify warnings and vital communications. One of our VOST members was in New York in the path of the Hurricane, and we stayed in contact with her and supported her local social media emergency effort.

5. Shadow Lake wildfire in Oregon

The fifth VOST instance was the Shadow Lake wildfire in Oregon. Jeff Phillips was contacted by Kris Eriksen of the National Incident Management Organization (NIMO) who wanted to test the use of social media as part of informational support during the wildfire response. (there is a paper due out on that particular VOST effort soon, and I’ll get a link up for that as soon as it’s available.) VOST member Pascal Schuback set up the ORfireInfo blog,  I set up twitter & gmail accounts,  a shared dropbox file, a facebook account and a Keepstream social media curation account for saving relevant media articles. We did all of this for in order to keep the NIMO staff informed of what the media and citizens on twitter & Facebook were saying and asking in regards to the fire, and were able to respond to the public.

Jeff Phillips again organized and led the effort, put together the operational ICS204 document in which to seek instructions, log actions in support of the effort, and save useful information and resources where all VOST members could access them. The “#ORfire” Shadow Lake Fire VOST was 19 days of sustained operations working directly with NIMO staff. (I was travelling during this one and was able to test what it would be like to assist in VOST operations while traveling – even posting some fire updates via iPhone while on a crab expedition in Portland, Maine!) This was a long effort and many assisted on it including Jerry Koenig, Joel Arnwine, and many others (apologies to all not mentioned – luckily there will be more papers on this VOST instance coming out shortly.)

6. January 2012 northwest floods 

The sixth VOST instance was in support of the January 2012 northwest floods and severe weather that affected Oregon. (Recovery efforts are ongoing.) In this instance, while we operated and shared crisis data during the flood event, the goal was to support not only response phase efforts, but also to assemble information that would support and streamline both short and long-term recovery phases of the disaster. VOST members located social media and conventional contacts for affected counties, started a map for locating hard hit areas as seen in media accounts, started a Storify media curation/archive, and saved useful info and resources so that Oregon VOAD***** could develop a plan for dealing with a multi-county flood recovery effort. (ongoing at the time of this writing.). This really has turned in to two efforts; one was the initial collection of all data by the VOST – and the subsequent attempt to engage ORVOAD members in the use of this collaborative tool for sharing information amongst themselves. One VOST member (@TheRedElm) even helped me with note-taking during a complex ORVOAD conference call with lots of attendees. We both worked on the notes in a collaborative Google doc.

Conclusion

Each of the above VOST instances really needs to have its own unique story told, but I wanted to get this out there before we get too far away from the early efforts to get the discussion started. People on the #SMEM hashtag have been wondering what #VOST is about, so I hope that provides a little of the background.

Applying the VOST concept to a disaster of catastrophic scale is not difficult to imagine. I see myself getting on site to my county EOC after a major earthquake, where I know I will only be able to process so much crisis data by myself or with a couple of helpers. But, if I am able to utilize a VOST  I could contact my trusted agents and ask for help in processing this data. (Some of us are discussing MOUs so that the VOST can self-deploy in case contact is not immediately possible.) Perhaps some people are trapped in their home, unable to make a voice call, but they can get a text message out via twitter, or a text message to someone who then posts it to facebook.  VOST members can search for these cries for help on twitter, and help to sift that data out and pass it on so that I can relay it to those who can help.

FOOTNOTES & LINKS

* We follow each other on twitter and gather on twitter; “#SMEM” is the hashtag for Social Media in Emergency Management – we also hold regular twitter chats on the #SMEMchat hashtag at 12:30EST every Friday – all are welcome!

** you will also occasionally see VOSG being used; this stands for “Virtual Operations Support Group” and is used when an “instance” – or operation – becomes big enough to require more people than can be managed; at that point one or more additional VOS Teams will be created, and the Teams will all be part of a VOSG, Or VOS Group, and will be managed following standard ICS guidelines.

*** I want to mention that I’ve been only been heavily engaged in social media use in disasters for about a year and a half now. That was about the time that I realized (by viewing the Red Cross Crisis Data Summit) how important social media was becoming in all phases of disaster. I’m sure that there are others that need to be acknowledged as innovators and originators in this work, but I’m basing this piece on what I know, so please feel free to fill in the back story in comments. I want to acknowledge both Jeff Phillips, and Heather Blanchard of Crisis Commons as the people that I first heard use the terms Virtual Operations Support” as applied to Emergency Management, and “DOC or digital operations center”.

**** a much more thorough academic study will soon be available on the Shadow Lake Fire “VIOS” (virtual information operations support) instance, and I also hope that others including Jeff Phillips, Cheryl Bledsoe and others will share their views on this and other VOST efforts.

***** ORVOAD is Oregon Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, a group of faith-based and community service groups who assist those affected by disasters with long-term recovery.

LINKS to VOST Info & Resources:

• Great definition of VOST and post about the first VOST at VOSG.us Website
• VOSG/T Concept Report by Jeff Phillips
• VOST/VOSG Real World Applications by Cheryl Bledsoe
• The VOS Forum at VOSG.us (Thanks to VOST member Joanna Lanefor her work creating & maintaining VOSG.us!)

Alice Johnson of Zawya.com recently posted an interview with retired Admiral Thad Allen about disaster response. She uses a quote from his as the title or her article: “It’s a leadership challenge, it’s a legal challenge, it’s a policy challenge, it’s a resource challenge”. Most readers will remember him for his role in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as the Principal Federal Official, he’s now a VP at a consulting firm. I have pulled out the section of the interview where she asks him about emerging technologies, and he specifically addresses the role of social media. I love his answer to the question about what government thinks about this new environment we live in. He basically says it doesn’t matter what government thinks,  people will use social media to report what’s happening to them in a disaster (and “participate in these events”) whether we like it or not. Love it!

Q: Are there any new forms of technology or processes that have ensured more effective responses to large-scale catastrophes?

A: I think there are technologies that allow crowd-sourcing, allow us to try to understand where the need is for a response. On the other hand, you’re automatically going to be graded by the public and it will be announced publicly immediately through social media. I think that is something that’s dramatically new in the last five or six years.

Q: So how have responses changed in light of the social media phenomenon?

A: Well, it can help you mobilize resources, it can help you communicate, it can help you explain a level of complexity to the public. On the other hand, you need to be able to get that information out in a timely manner because if you aren’t, there’s generally a perception that there’s information being withheld or you’re not being open and honest about it.

Q: Do governments and other agencies agree with you on that?

A: That’s a very good question. Here’s what I tell people: it really doesn’t matter what you think. It really doesn’t matter what your position or your policy is in government or a company. The public can participate in these events because there’s no barrier to entry on the internet.

If you’re not out there and you’re not interacting and you’re not providing information, then the public is only going to hear what is said from people who are trying to observe it from where they are, and they may not have complete information. Each government has a responsibility to put the entire picture out there.

This isn’t the first time the Admiral has spoken about social media. Here is a video of him addressing the topic before he retired.

JAROSLAV VALUCH / Standby Task Force (Photo credit: SHAREconference)

Post by: Kim Stephens

It seems there has been a lot of conversations on the #SMEM (or Social Media and Emergency Management) twitter hashtag about using volunteers to help response organizations deal with the huge volume of information that comes from social networks during a crisis. (One conversation was this recent chat.)  Organizing those volunteers into a group with set expectations of what they will provide, and then integrating their work into the response effort,  are the logical next steps.

One organization doing just that is the Standby Task Force (SBTF).  They have set out to “…[turn] the adhoc groups of tech-savy mapping volunteers that emerge around crises into a flexible, trained and prepared network ready to deploy. The SBTF is a volunteer-based network that represents the first wave in Online Community Emergency Response Teams.”

The SBTF  was tasked by the United Nations in March-April, 2011 to provide sense-making to social media data during the ongoing crisis in Libya. Jen Ziemke posted this video to the Crisis Mapper’s blog of Helena Puig from SBTF discussing the  deployment during the ICCM conference .  I thought it really provided some great insights into what went well and what could be improved.

Another great resource, for those interested in the topic, is this google doc: Standby Task Force UN OCHA.  It is their After Action Report of the Libyan effort.

I have been in the field of emergency management for more than 40 years and have studied hazards and threats of all kinds; natural and manmade. I lived through the Civil Defense Era with the looming threat of strategic nuclear attack and the doctrine of mutually assured destruction. I fear the power of nature as well and its destructive forces. And an emergency manager at the national level for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a career senior executive at FEMA, I have witnessed first-hand 4 decades of incidents of all types . And as a consultant to government, I have dedicated the last 12 years to imagining catastrophic future threats and their consequences. So you might conclude that there aren’t many things that I haven’t considered possible in the realm of hazards. That would be wrong.

The use of nano-technology for terrorism has recently become one of my biggest interests and concerns. I have been aware of the field for many years. Who hasn’t read Popular Science articles or Sci-fi novels where self replicating swarms of nano-bots threaten our very existence. “Prey” and the recently released “Micro” by Michael Crichton fascinate us with descriptions of nanotechnology gone awry. I have often read books such as these and pondered the timeline for emergence of these threats. I believe that the time for concern is now.

While paging through Flipboard recently, I stumbled upon a YouTube video that shocked me. The General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Laboratory at University of Pennsylvania researchers are building autonomous vehicles and robots, developing self-configuring humanoids, and making robot swarms a reality. The video that I viewed was of a swarm of 20 flying “nanno quadrotors” executing precision maneuvers that would make any human pilot envious. These tiny remote controlled and self controlled devices acted in unison to execute complex tasks flawlessly, including the ability to act in unison to lift and construct structures, fly in formation through open windows and small openings, perch and remain on vertical and horizon surfaces in surveillance mode, and re-launch on command, or autonomously. As I watched the video, my fascination turned to paranoia as the realization that the capability to execute nano-terrorism is now a practical reality. Although the potential for aerially deployed agents is only limited by ones imagination, terrestrial and subsurface (land and water) nano-robotic threats are similarly endless.

The same Penn GRASP website shows videos of very small seemingly unstoppable 6 legged all terrain robots in action. Again, in large numbers, this is a frightening capability that could be employed with relatively low cost and potentially high consequence. A quick check on the Google revealed that the latest, smallest remote controlled helicopter can be purchased on line for less than $50. Clearly the GRASP quadrotors cost much more, for now. But a larger retail version of a quadrotor called a Parrot AR.Drone Quadricopter is available for around $300 at your local Brookstone store or on line. It comes ready to fly and can be controlled by a IPhone app! ( I plan to buy one)

I don’t mean to mislead you. Robotics is just a small sliver of what might be called nanotechnology. Definitions abound and most would assert that nanotechnology begins at a much smaller size. The official definition of the US National Nanotechnology Initiative is that nanotechnology involves research and technology development at the atomic, molecular or macromolecular levels in the length scale of 1 to 100 nm range. And there are differences of opinion about how the term applies to science and engineering versus outcomes or applications. So, I do not intend to go there, at least for now. Imagine an ant, a human hair, a blood cell, a virus, DNA and downward as the range of concern. But, if I can buy a miniature helicopter today for $15, I will be able to buy a nano-ATV in the near future.
The Yin Yang of technology has always existed and will continue to challenge and excite our imaginations. As an engineer and an emergency management consultant, I will include nanotech threats in my next hazard identification and risk assessment (HIRA) for clients as they seek to look over the horizon. I will also explore their positive application in combating and responding to current and future threats such as in detection, monitoring, surveillance, countermeasures and response missions in hostile environments.
Meanwhile remember, what you can’t see can hurt you.

Meteorologist are fast becoming some of the most ardent proponents of social media. I love this video from The Weather Channel on why social media is important. I’m posting this so that I have it in my arsenal next time I present!

I noticed it doesn’t want to show from the blog site so I’ve included the link below.
http://www.weather.com/weather/videos/news-41/top-stories-169/education-of-disaster-being-connected-25892

Image by P Shanks via Flickr

How do you create resilient communities?  It’s a tough question. Just yesterday I sent out a tweet about preparedness and the ubiquitous fact sheets that government agencies produce. Does anyone read them? If someone does read them, do they take action, e.g. prepare a  ”go-kit,” or purchase insurance, etc.? Maybe, I mused, images of disasters would help encourage people to prepare. One of my colleagues @Cherylble (Cheryl Bledsoe)  answered “@Kim26stephens, you presume a natural interest in emergency management and I would tender ppl only interested if hazard is imminent #smem”.

An imminent hazard is certainly something that spurs action. Therefore, it would seem that if the public only knew and understood their risks (e.g. the frequency of hurricanes)  then they would take the necessary steps to mitigate those risks. But the research study “Communicating Actionable Risk for Terrorism and Other Hazards” – Michele M.Wood,1,∗ ,† Dennis S. Mileti et. al., published 10 June 2011,  found that it is much more important “… to emphasize the communication of preparedness actions (what to do about risk) rather than the risk itself.” They call this type of activity “communicating actionable risk“.  Another key finding, which is highly relevant in today’s connected world, was that “households in American are most likely to take steps to prepare themselves if they observe the preparations taken by others…”. I’m effectively boiling down an entire article to one paragraph so I suggest you read it,  however, it is interesting to note their conclusion:

“Communicating preparedness actions to motivate people to act is more direct than communicating risk and hoping that people will infer that they should take actions, and then, based on their inferences, act. This is a substantial departure from theoretical perspectivies and program practices that seek primarily to communicate risks so that people might, then, infer that action-taking is warranted.”

This research has been put into direct practice in Queensland Australia, an area of the world I seem to write about weekly. I am seriously in awe of the new website put together by Green Cross Australia in partnership with a veritable alphabet soup of government agencies, volunteer organizations, research institutions and even private industry called: “HardenUp: Protecting Queensland“. They do about a million things right here, but most importantly they do communicate actionable risk and then, from within the framework of the site, encourage people to share and promote their preparedness activities in a seamless manner.  As an aside, Green Cross Australia has a focus on climate change and helping people adapt to the potential changes that could occur, such as increased natural disasters and changing sea-level.

It’s not surprising that people will react if they see others preparing. If a storm is coming and I see my neighbor nailing up plywood on windows, I’m likely to think, “Hey, that looks like a good idea.”  However, how can we make more subtle preparedness activities visible and essentially social when there’s not a storm?  You guessed it: social media.  HardenUp offers multiple chances for citizens to share how they are preparing. When users create their plan (in a really nice interface, by they way) they are asked to post what they have done to their social network.

The “tips” section is also designed for sharing. It was envisioned, in part, as a way for people who lived through major disasters to communicate what they learned. In order to get the survivors input, however, some clarifying had to be done about the name of the site.

In a message to survivors, Jelenko Dragisic, CEO of Volunteering Qld and a HardenUp partner, stated that their intention for the website was definitely not to tell people who suffered losses from last year’s major flooding events to “Harden Up,” rather their intention was simply to communicate to the segment of the population that is not prepared. He also implored these survivors, who know the dangers all too well, to share their experiences.

 Many people think they can leave it up to insurance and government bodies and emergency organisations to come to their rescue, both literally and financially. Or they believe there’s nothing individuals can do when faces with a natural disaster. But those people are wrong…being prepared can make a hell of a difference. Knowing how to get out, having emergency supplies, being informed, really can be the difference between life and death…As people who’ve had direct experience of this, I invite you to share your stories with other Queenslanders.”

User-generated tips are also linked to social media to encourage peer engagement: visitors can view all of the tips and then click the “Like” button to instantly post their favorites it to their facebook page. Peer pressure is also subtly applied throughout their site, for example,  a “ticker” runs at the bottom of every page that states  the number of preparedness actions that have been taken to date: 10,530. I love the tag “What about you?” next to the number. In other words, according to a Green Cross representative, Jeremy Mansfield: ”Harden-up is not about vulnerability, but a call to action to build self-resilience.”

Although preparedness is the goal, risk awareness is one of the objectives. The site designers have incorporated a database of over 150 years worth of community-based historical disaster data.  According to Jeremy:

One of the key differences of the site we feel is the “ Information asymmetry” providing people links to knowledge that contextualise  risks, preparedness/resilience and longer term issues around adaptation etc. We think it’s the first time a site has attempted to integrate 150 years of weather history along with regional climate history & trends served up at a suburb level.

I also really like how  ”HardenUp” has been built to eventually become a one-stop shop for all emergency information. For example, the “In the event” Hub is turned on if there is a crisis and will house community and authority feeds and real-time maps. There is also a tab to search for volunteer opportunities.

I covet this site. I want one in my community, and I want to help build one for every state in the US. Am I being overly effusive?

Related Links

Image via Wikipedia

Post by: Kim Stephens

Yes, I know that the time of writing this post is Pre-Super Bowl, but this Mashable article about the social media command center organized for the event has me thinking. I found  four key lessons the emergency management community can take away from their effort, before the event has even happened.

What can we learn?

1. Understand that there will be a huge amount of social media interaction. The Super Bowl is an event that draws eyes from all around the world, and if history can predict the future, then they know people will be using social networks to communicate everything from how they feel about the teams, to how they feel about the parking. In an interview with CNN for a follow on article to the Mashable one mentioned above, the company hired to monitor social networks stated:

“Social media is just how people interact now,” said Taulbee Jackson, CEO of Raidious, the digital marketing agency that the Super Bowl’s host committee tapped to manage the communications hub. “We felt it was critical to have some horsepower behind that aspect of the Super Bowl here, versus what you might have seen from other Super Bowls.”

How does this relate to the EM community? A big disaster will draw just as much, if not more, attention from the world and social media will clearly play a role in the way people communicate about every aspect of the response and recovery effort.

2. Use computer tools to help monitor. According to the various articles written on the Super Bowl effort they will be using “advanced search tool and analytics…to identify fans in need of help by indexing key words and phrases”.  If you are responsible for monitoring social media for your organization, do you have these kinds of tools ready to go? Have you gotten a chance to practice using them with a large volume of information? If you haven’t gotten a chance to exercise your social media monitoring efforts one idea might be to follow the Super Bowl tweets and test your skills. Read this article “11 Minutes” by Cheryl Bledsoe about how overwhelming monitoring by hand can be.

3. Plan for the necessary infrastructure. The social media “war room” planned for the Super Bowl is being outfitted with “a mile of Ethernet cable and more than 150 square feet of networked screen space”. I understand that almost no local EOCs (except mabye NYC) will have this capability, but is there a company in your community, or maybe a University, that does?

4. Plan for a big monitoring team, even if you have computer analytics. For an event with 150,000 attendees, the Super Bowl social media communications team will consists of more than 20 people manning the center for 15 hours per day. How many people are in your community? How many people do you have “at the ready” to help you monitor social media? I’m guessing it’s not 20. How do you fill in the gap? There are groups such as Humanity Road, the Standby Task Force and the Virtual Operations Support Team or (VOST) that can help. These groups consist of people experienced in monitoring social media during crises and can be given specific tasks or objectives to accomplish. They can also do this work remotely (there’s really no reason people all have to be in the same room). This also distributes the necessary screen space and infrastructure which could also potentially alleviate the need for a communications “war room”.  You could also set up your own VOST. Does your local University offer a communications major? If so, I’m guessing they have students that are being trained in social media communications that would be more than willing to help. The trick is to set up this relationship now, before you have a crisis.

People are talking about the Super Bowl’s social media war room because they see it as a precedent for future sporting or major events. We in the emergency management community should take notice as well. After all, major disasters really are the equivalent of Super Bowls in our world. Are you ready?