#SMEM Challenge for 2013: “I don’t get it.”

Post by: Kim Stephens

Image by: nglcc.org

An interesting dilemma for social media and emergency management advocates is how to convince the inconvincible. Inevitably at in-person meetings, forums as well as on-line, there is always someone in the crowd that raises their hand and states “I just don’t get it.”  These doubting Thomases are typically folks who do not use these tools for personal communication and have only  heard (or care to listen to) negative information about social networking.

• “The only thing on social media is rumors.”
• “It’s not appropriate for public health organizations to be on social media because of HIPPA.”
• “Why should I  learn these tools? After a disaster the communications infrastructure will be destroyed rendering social media useless.”

and my all time favorite…

• “The only thing on social media is what people had for lunch. Why would I care about that?” (Although, I have to admit, my sister-in-law does tend to post a lot of pictures on Facebook of her cooking.)

This type of sentiment was recently brought to my attention while helping promote the new Accessibility Toolkit. The online wiki “…was developed to empower people with disabilities to use social media for disaster preparedness, response and recovery. This toolkit was developed in response to the fact that not all people with a disability are able to access life saving messages delivered through social media due to the accessibility challenges that the tools currently pose for people with disabilities.”

The promotion of this toolkit was placed on many different blogs, including this one, and in an online forum on LinkedIn.  A first responder, who also stated that he was a long-time time ham radio operator, provided a comment that perplexed me. The comment does, however,  encapsulate the attitude I described above.

I would think that these people with disabilities want to be taken to a safe place and not bother with U tube, twitter, etc. We live in a push button world and now people are lost when the buttons don’t work. My work is SAR (Search and Rescue) and to be honest with you in the last few days I spent to much time on this lap top when I should getting my winter SAR pack together. You have SAR teams, EMT’s, fire rescue, water rescue and even volunteers helping. I think it’s sad to see real people turn to an electronic device for helping them. When everything goes out you have us and I don’t think that will ever change.

I honestly would not have even of known where to start in terms of crafting a response to this gentleman. He obviously cares about people and helping them, but didn’t see how social media could play any sort of role in that effort whatsoever. However,  Eileen Culleton, the Founder and CEO (Voluntary) of the Emergency 2.0 Wiki,  was able to craft a beautiful response. And although her reply mostly points out the benefits of the wiki, I plan to borrow heavily from her statements next time I encounter someone that says: “Social media? I don’t get it.”

Hi, firstly, I’d like to introduce myself. I am the Founder and CEO (voluntary) of the Emergency 2.0 Wiki, which was established by Gov2qld (a community of practice of professionals working in the Gov 2.0 space) after the devastating floods of Queensland and Cyclone Yasi in Australia last year.

I’m not a first responder or CERT or SAR volunteer, or a tech guru. My background is marketing and communications for not for profits, business and government, as well as more recently working in ICT change management for local government and helping them to setup and engage in social media (including for emergencies).

But I do know how it feels to be a disaster survivor. As a child I survived the most devastating hurricane to hit Australia – Cyclone Tracy that struck Darwin, in the Northern Territory, on Christmas Eve in 1974. My family lost everything… our home and contents including our precious pets and family photos.

That was before social media existed, but ham radio did… and I will never forget that when the communications infrastructure was destroyed, due to Darwin’s isolation from the rest of the country, for hours no one knew the cyclone had struck and that a city needed help.

Photo: Australian EM Institute

But, it was a ham radio operator, like yourself, that sent out the SOS call to the world. This was one of the factors that sparked my inspiration for the Wiki. That example of community resilience, in which a member of the public, aided by technology (ham radio) and his networks got help for a city that was so devastated its women and children were evacuated in the biggest airlift that Australia has ever seen.

And now today, thanks to the instant, amplifying power of social media and our networks, we all have that power to save lives… our own lives, and the lives of others. And that includes people with a disability, if we can help them overcome the accessibility challenges that social media currently poses. That is why the Emergency 2.0 Wiki Accessibility Reference Group, of professionals from a diverse range of industry sectors, have joined together across the globe, as volunteers to create an online toolkit and post it on the Wiki to share with the world. They are committed to building resilient communities, wherever we are.

First responders can’t be everywhere. Search and rescue volunteers can’t be everywhere. We, as a community need to use technology to empower ourselves so that we can get out of danger… and that includes people with a disability.

Once they overcome the accessibility challenges of social media, (with help from the tips on the Wiki), people with a disability, like the rest of the public, will be able to receive emergency alerts in real time and take action. And they can also, like the rest of the public, reach out and warn others of danger…

And they can reach out, locally, and globally, to help others impacted by disasters, by using social media. I encourage everyone to take the time to read this blog post by a woman in a wheel chair in Boston, who helped keep a man alive, who was on a ventilator in New York, impacted by power outages from Hurricane Sandy… by using social media to reach people to help. [You can also listen to some of this story which was broadcast on Talk of the Nation on NPR, November 1, 2012: "Sandy Especially Tough on Vulnerable Populations."]

Photo of Nick Dupre. Source: http://littlefreeradical.com/2012/11/04/unconventional-aid-helping-nick-dupree-part-ii/

I respect the contribution you’re making helping others through your volunteer work with SAR. I ask that you please respect the contribution the Emergency 2.0 Wiki volunteer community is making to help empower people, including with disabilities, to use social media to help themselves and others better prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies. If you want to learn how social media can help your SAR volunteer work, the Wiki can help. If things are missing, please let us know. But remember, we are volunteers, just like you. We need you to help us, help you, to help others.

Best regards, Eileen

Well said Eileen!

Related articles

• Top #SMEM Challenges for 2013: I Don’t Have Time! (idisaster.wordpress.com)
• Social Media Accessibility Toolkit: New from Emergency 2.0 Wiki (idisaster.wordpress.com)
• Social media changes disaster response (brucehensler.typepad.com)

Top #SMEM Challenges for 2013: I Don’t Have Time!

Post by: Kim Stephens

Patrice Cloutier, James Garrow and I have colluded a bit to reflect on SMEM in 2012: James is writing up his top five social media lessons learned during the year; Patrice is taking note of the SMEM great events of 2012 (including disaster events where social media played a pivotal role in providing both situational awareness to first responders as well as vital information to the public); and my self-assigned task is to write about the challenges we face in the year to come. The three of us are equally passionate about  social media, and share the mindset evident in statement from Garrow’s post “Top 5 SMEM Lessons: The Public Uses Social Media”

The public has integrated social media into their lives. The fruits of that integration are demonstrated during every disaster… Ignoring the state of the world is, for an emergency manager, tantamount to malfeasance. Our greatest lesson learned this year is that we can no longer ignore social media or keep it out of our planning.

Nonetheless, I think there is a “but.” Although I agree that emergency managers should no longer ignore social media, there are many challenges that come with getting emergency management professionals proficient with these tools. In this and subsequent posts I will outline some of these challenges and link them to emerging solutions. (I have adapted some of the post below from something I wrote for Western  Regional Homeland Security Council in Massachusetts.)

Challenge #1: “I don’t have time.”

The Passage of Time (Photo credit: ToniVC)

Although there are an increasing number of emergency managers swimming in the social media tide, some folks remain firmly on the beach. They might even know how to swim (for instance use Facebook for personal reasons) but are reluctant to jump in wearing their emergency management  suit.  The explanation these professionals often give is that they don’t have time. Although the statement “I don’t have time” could be code for “I don’t think this is important”  it also could mean a multitude other things. For instance, I don’t have time…

•  to devote to learn the tools;
•  to devote to developing a meaningful social presence;
•  to update social networks during a crisis;
• to answer all of the questions from the public posted to our pages.

These folks also understand that if they build a presence on social media people will come to these sites during an event and expect timely content. This is not a comforting thought. They know that will have set up an expectation for information dissemination that they cannot meet.

Honestly, I completely understand the predicament. Although some organizations have a full-time staff person devoted to social media, most do not. Only bigger cities have a full-time PIO and increasingly, small communities don’t even have a full-time Emergency Manager. Often these part-time EMs are dual hatted, so if they had a couple of hours a week to write and post a few preparedness tips to their Twitter account and Facebook page, during a crisis, they might literally be the same person on the other end of the fire-hose.

Help! Can I Outsource this?

Supplementing staff during a crisis is not new; it is new, however, in terms of social media. The idea of handing over the reigns of these accounts is very difficult concept for some. Who would you trust to be the voice of your organization?  Although this concept  may initially seem like a stretch–I would never allow someone else to be our voice!–there is a perfect example of how outsourcing can work: Incident Management Teams. When an IMT comes into your community you do trust them to do what is required/asked.  However, this arrangement is not without strings attached–a  ”Delegation of Authority” agreement is signed between the two parties detailing expectations. Below is an excerpt from a sample DoA:

You have full authority and responsibility for managing incident operations within the framework of legal statute, current policy, and the broad direction provided in both your verbal and written briefing materials. You are accountable to me. A formal evaluation of your performance will be conducted prior to your departure. This formal evaluation may be followed up within sixty days after your departure once the Agency has had the opportunity to review accountability, claims, financial matters, and other items, which require time to evaluate.

Although IMTs often do include public information officers, it is not realistic to assume that communities will have the opportunity to use an IMT every time there is an incident. But even small, localized events can stretch resources and limit an organization’s ability to “deal” with social media. This is why the concept of a Virtual Operations Support Team is increasingly gaining in popularity. For just a bit of background, repeating content from previous posts, a VOST (a concept developed by Jeff Phillips) can be defined as a team that accomplishes some or all of the following:

• Establishes a social media presence for an organization that previously did not use social networking tools to communicate with the public;
• Monitors social media communications;
• Handles matters that can be executed remotely through digital means such as assisting with the management of donations or volunteers;
• Follows social media and traditional media trends and reports back to the organization what is being seen;
• Communicates issues and concerns being expressed by the public (e.g. represents the citizen’s perspective;
• Identifies misinformation or angry postings that need to be corrected or dealt with;
• Provides a supportive voice for the organization and its efforts;
• Amplifies the organization’s message by repeating content  (via personal and/or official social media accounts);
• Compiles media coverage (traditional and non-traditional) by date;
• Documents social media conversations.

Who serves on the VOST?

Unlike IMTs, VOSTs are not pre-formed, nationally trained teams. One current misperception is that the “VOST”  will swoop into your community after a disaster.  Although there are people who work on VOSTs for specific communities or organizations, those folks have been pre-identified by the community  (I cannot emphasize that enough).

In other words, if you are interested in having a group (or even just one person) ready help with social media after a disaster, you have to take responsibility to foster that relationship and come to a terms of agreement before the disaster. Communities have done this in several different ways (explained in more detail below). Some have turned to CERT members (e.g. Anaheim California’s Office of Emergency Management); others have tapped  savvy social media community members (e.g. Cecil County, Maryland); and still others, including the NYC Public Health Department, have developed a VOST from within their agency by training their own employees–e.g. people willing to add additional duties for the opportunity to do something unique during a disaster response.

Like an IMT, VOST members can supplement resources and potentially even bring in a new set of skills.

VOST Models 

From my perspective, three models have emerged for the use and structure of VOSTs. Interestingly, the model or category an organization falls into seems to be a reflection of the both the level of trust with VOST members as well as the level of trust and knowledge/comfort with social media in general. The models I have identified are

1. External Support (Amplify and Monitor Only)
2. Hybrid Support (Amplify, Monitor, and Respond on behalf of the organization, but with specific limits)
3. Internal/Embedded (Full range of social media duties and support)

1. External VOST Support:

Organizations that are both new to social media and the concept of a “VOST” might consider using support from team members in a more conservative manner. In this model the following support might be provided:

• Follow social media and traditional media trends and reports back to the organization what is being seen;
• Communicate issues and concerns being expressed by the public (e.g. represents the citizen’s perspective);
• Identify misinformation or angry postings that need to be corrected or dealt with;
• Provide a supportive voice for the organization and its efforts;
• Amplify the organization’s message by repeating content  (via personal and/or established community VOST social accounts).

Team members could provide this support from afar–in fact, getting this type of assistance from folks outside of your community might be a great option since they would be out of the impacted area and would therefore have power in their home, or office, etc. Remember, monitoring social media does not have to happen in your EOC.

• But who? Team members could be emergency managers from the other side of the state,  for instance.
• But how? It is important to note that with any of these models, communication between the team members and the organization is vital for success. For example, if the team identifies a potential issue that needs to be addressed quickly (e.g. people posting angry comments on Mayor’s Facebook page about conditions in the shelters) they need assurance that the customer/organization has seen this red flag.

2. Hybrid Support

In this model, the team does everything identified in the external support model, but also responds to questions from community members and posts content on behalf of the organization.  Unlike the model above, these individuals would be made administrators of those accounts. In this approach, however, there are specific limitations placed on the team members. For instance, they are allowed to post on behalf of the organization, but only information that has already been cleared by their organization’s PIO or posted on other official government accounts.

• But who? I have seen this model used with CERT volunteers.
• But how? Similar to the way 311 employees use pre-scripted responses to citizen’s questions, the social media volunteers are provided answers to frequently asked questions that they can type into the Facebook page, or post to the Twitter account. They would be responsible for monitoring these accounts and flagging any out-of-ordinary questions and obtaining quick answers: e.g. Is Elkton Road flooded?

3. Internal/Embedded

In this model, the VOST team leader  is given the full range of social media duties. This model is often utilized by small communities that do not have a full-time (or even part-time PIO) and the Agency’s staff person responsible for social media communication has many other duties during the response to a crisis or disaster.

• But who? Often this type of arrangement is made with people very familiar with the organization and maybe even retired PIOs. The organization has an established, trusted relationship with the person or team members.
• But how? In order to provide this type of support, it is often best to have the team, or a least the team leader, embedded at the Emergency Operations Center.

There are many examples of what VOST members have accomplished during the past two years. Click on the links below to see some of the social media pages they have built. Sorry for the extra-long post. I hope you have made it to the end! If you have any questions about this concept please let me know.

http://barrypointorfire.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/barrypoint-orfire-814-morning-briefing-pics-jp/
www.twitter.com/barrypointfire
http://www.facebook.com/BarryPointOrFire

http://longdrawfire.wordpress.com/2012/07/14/photos-from-longdraw-orfire-jp/
https://twitter.com/LongDrawORFire
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Long-Draw-ORFire/123506971124484?ref=hl

http://tablemountainwafire.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/tablemountain-wafire-photo-mop-up-at-table-mountain-fire-st/
https://twitter.com/TableMtnWAFire
http://www.facebook.com/TableMountainWAFire?ref=hl

http://trinityridgefire.wordpress.com/2012/09/08/trinityridge-idfire-public-information-map-nh/
https://twitter.com/TrinityRidgeID
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Trinity-Ridge-IDFire/355697117846919?ref=hl

http://wenatcheecomplexfire.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/wenatcheecomplex-wafire-information-station-photo-marh/https://twitter.com/WenatcheeWAFire
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wenatchee-Complex-WAFire/522867564394287?ref=hl

http://wildlandfires.wordpress.com/rma/
https://twitter.com/#!/WildlandFires
http://www.facebook.com/WildlandFiresinfo?ref=hl

http://nyvost.vosg.us/about/
https://twitter.com/nyvost
http://www.facebook.com/NYVOST?fref=ts

 

Five SMEM Observations and Recommendations From Hurricane Sandy

Post by: Kim Stephens

The documentation of social media’s use and impact during Hurricane Sandy has already begun. Patrice Cloutier wrote a great summary post “10 reasons why there’ll now be a before Sandy and post-Sandy in SMEM,” which is an excellent starting point. Not only are his 10 reasons dead-on, but he also links to quite a few articles about Sandy written by others in the social media and emergency management community. I have also been mulling over what occurred.  Below I’ve have my top five observations/lessons learned and some humble recommendations for local first response organizations. Spoiler alert: all the recommendation relate to planning.

1. Observation: Citizens will use social media to ask for emergency assistance during large-scale disasters. I often tell Emergency Management organizations not to be too concerned about citizens posting 911-type “calls” of assistance to their Facebook page or Twitter account. From my perspective this is not something you see very often. However, there is one huge caveat: if people can’t get through to 911 they will ask for assistance anywhere they think their voice will be heard–especially during a major crisis event. This exact scenario happened to the New York Fire Department, specifically the Twitter account @FDNY.  (See also the CNN story about @FDNY.)

@RSindh Please keep trying to call 911. I will try to reach dispatchers now.—
  (@FDNY) October 30, 2012

PLEASE NOTE: *Do not* tweet emergency calls. Please call 911. If it is not an emergency, please call 311. #NYC #Sandy—
  (@FDNY) October 30, 2012

It should be noted that time and again the woman managing the account reminded people to call 911. Nonetheless, she did pass the information on to dispatch and told people as much, versus abruptly dismissing distressed citizens.

What lessons can other emergency management or response organizations learn from this example:

1. Whomever is interacting with the public needs to be able to handle pressure well–training and/or experience is necessary.
2. Social media managers need to be aware of what to do if people ask for assistance and, if need be, should be empowered to pass along that information.
3. A close connection from the social media manager to Ops is required– they need to have a good understanding of the situation in order to answer questions (see also the story about @ConEdison). This, in turn, will keep the call volume to 911 down–freeing up capacity for true emergency calls. The @FDNY account manager was well informed and when she didn’t know the answer she simply stated: “I’ll find out.”

@hunters1977 I don't have detailed info right now, sorry. Will try to update when I can.—
  (@FDNY) October 30, 2012

Recommendation: Organizations should not assume that the statement on their Facebook and Twitter accounts “Please do not post the need for emergency assistance to this site. Call 911” will stop this from happening during a large-scale crisis. Standard operating procedures should be written for how this will be handled and the SOPs should be tested in exercises.

2. Observation: People want hyper-local information.

Impacted citizens are not interested in what is happening in the next State or even the next town–they want to know what roads they can use to get home, where they can buy milk and ice or get a hot meal, and when the power will be back on. This kind of content is best delivered by the local community for the local community. However, once your public safety organization starts posting that kind of vital “hyper-local” content it can result in popularity (as many as 800 new likes in one day can be expected during an event). A consequence of this new-found popularity:  maintenance.

Quite a few small-community emergency management organizations only have one person dedicated to posting content to social media.  This is usually more than enough when there isn’t a major crisis, however,  large-scale events require ’round-the-clock staffing.

Recommendation: Organizations need to build capacity for participating in social networks. If it is determined that they cannot provide their own back-up support in order to staff a social media “desk” for 18-24 hours, then they should plan ahead for assistance. For example, the emergency management organization in Suffolk County, NY developed a relationship with social media volunteers, known as “Virtual Operations Support Teams,”  before this disaster. This was due to the persistence and excellent leadership of one of their community members,  JoAnna Lane (@Joannalane). But even if your community doesn’t have a “Jo” to get the ball rolling,  the concept of a VOST is one every emergency management organization should explore.

3. Observation: Citizens WILL BE viewing your content on mobile devices. I was also an impacted citizen. Once we lost power I turned to my smart phone for information and what I found was a little frustrating. (I’m using my own local county as an example, but I’m sure they are not alone.) One of the great things about social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, is that they are designed to be viewed on smart phones, your local emergency management website, however, is probably NOT.  Therefore, organizations should take advantage of these mobile-ready sites and post as much information as possible to them (this does not mean you can’t also place the same information on your website). Furthermore, Facebook now allows for posts that are quite long, so listing road closures, for example, could easily be accomplished either as an update or as a “Note.” Furthermore, posting content that requires a lot of bandwidth to view should also be avoided.

Recommendation: Standard “social media” operating procedures should take into account the devices people will be using, especially during power outages. Effort should be made to plan for how to provide as much information as possible in small “digestible” bite sizes.

Photo Credit: BioLiteStove.com

4. Observation:  People need to be able to charge their phones! The fact that emergency response organizations can now provide information directly to citizens via their cell phones is a great new reality…but those phones have to have power. Images of NYer’s going to great lengths charge their cell phones are everywhere. I even read something yesterday on the Canadian Red Cross blog about how people were charging their phones with a jerry-rigged system based on fire. The author stated: “BioLite‘s CampStoves use the fire from burning wood to charge mobile devices and cook at the same time.” The need to charge phones is simple: information is the vital to survival and recovery.

Recommendation: All communities (large or small) should plan for how they will help citizens get information via mobile devices. This might mean figuring out how to set up charging stations in shelters or other central locations (possibly in partnership with the private sector) as well as how to provide free wifi.

5. Observation: Social Media works during disasters. As Patrice Cloutier stated:

“Many governments, at all levels, used social media to communicate with their constituents before, during and after the passage of Sandy. Again, social networks (particularly Twitter) proved to be effective emergency information tools.”

I’ve heard the argument for years from various emergency response officials that they do not think social media is important because it won’t “work” during a large-scale disaster. They base this on the notion that during a catastrophic event all communication systems will fail. It might be true that someday we may experience a disaster of catastrophic proportions where every system fails, everywhere. What is more likely, though, is the occurrence of events such Sandy. Yes, there were some system failures, but cellular networks, once again, proved to be resilient.  By choosing not to plan for the use of  social media or text communications based on this “catastrophic” assumption seems to be throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water.

Recommendation: Emergency management and response organizations should plan for the use of multiple communication tools to reach the public before, during and after disasters.

Of course these are broad-based observations that  in no-way address every aspect of social media’s use, or problems of use, during Sandy, specifically I did not delve into the open-data or mapping debate. I’m sure we will all be dissecting this event for months to come. If you have an interesting observation, please let me know.

Related articles

• Social media a news source and tool during Superstorm Sandy (cbsnews.com)
• FEMA debunks Hurricane Sandy rumors with new Snopes-like page (betanews.com)

Should Your Public Safety Organization be Blogging?

Post by: Kim Stephens

With Hurricane Sandy quickly approaching, I thought it might be interesting to discuss why a blog is an important platform for communicating information to your community. Even though I use this blogging site, I have never written explicitly about how public safety organizations are using or could use this powerful tool.

Why Blog?

Blogging has been around for a long time, relatively speaking in the social media world. With the rise of Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, YouTube etc. some people thought blogging would fade away, however, other social networks have actually increased the amount of traffic to blogs, not vice-versa. Why?  Blogs are part of the social ecosystem. If your organization has an “integrated social ecosystem” it means that all of the content posted on each platform points to and supports the other. For example, if you write a blog post, some people may find the article by clicking a link you provided in a Tweet–in turn, other people may realize you have a Twitter account by seeing the Twitter feed on your blog; folks found your blog by clicking on a link from your website; they found the website by watching a video you produced on YouTube.

Does all of this seem a bit redundant? Couldn’t you simply post everything to one platform? I am not suggesting that your organization should participate on each of these social sites, however, each one does bring unique ways to provide information to your community and increases the chance that people who need the content will see it. Nonetheless, deciding to blog should start, at a minimum, by answering these three questions:

1. What are the benefits to our organization for using this form of outreach?
2. Do we have clear goals and objectives for this tool?
3. Do we have the resources to support the use of this platform–e.g. who will write the content?

Top Five Reasons to use a Blog

Standing up a blog site to disseminate public health and safety information can provide several distinct benefits:

1. A blog provides a place to discuss a topic that may be too complex for other channels and to give your topic or program a more personal and engaging presence than a website allows. (Source CDC)
2. Since comments can be reviewed before being posted it can be considered a less risky platform;
3. You can choose a free blog site with easy-to-use/easy-to-learn user interfaces (free attractive themes as well).
4. It is easier to update a blog versus a website–which is an important consideration for crisis communications. Furthermore, some blogging platforms (such as WordPress.com) are mobile ready, meaning you can  post from your iPad or iPhone, Android or Blackberry.  The blog also looks quite nice to viewers via these same devices.
5.  Analytics are included–allowing you to understand if you are reaching your audience.

Public Safety Example

 WildLandFires.Wordpress.com

This wordpress.com blog “Wild Land Fires” was stood up by the USDA Forest Service  and cooperating agencies during the summer of 2012 to provide information from the incident managers in charge of each fire in the region, which includes South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado and Kansas. The site also included statewide and region-wide content. The purpose of the blog was to offer citizens a comprehensive, interagency look at wildland fires.

WYOMING FIRE MAP JUNE 6 -JULY 9

The content included maps (an example from the site has been embedded on the right), updates, and links for detailed information about individual fires. Each listed state had at least one active fire, most had more than three.  For example, by clicking on South Dakota, the user could choose between the White Draw Fire, the Highlands Fire or the Crow Peak Fire.

This was a bit of an experiment by all involved since no interagency “social networking/collaborative” project of this nature had been tried before. I interviewed the project lead, Kris Ericksen, PIO for the Portland National Incident Management Team (a full time Incident Management Team), and she provided some great insights to how and why they decided to use these tools. She indicated that the blog, as well as all of the associated social media sites (Google+, a Twitter account, as well as a Facebook page) were stood up for the response because it is now an expectation of the citizen. She said “We are living in a refresh button world. People expect you to be listening and to answer their questions.”  She acknowledged that this is difficult for some public safety professionals who are used to message control and sometimes fear what the public might say.

Why did they use a blog and other social sites when they already had inciweb? Answer, because these sites allow you to post and host things that inciweb cannot, for example, high resolution maps and podcasts, to name two. Furthermore, inciweb does not have a feedback mechanism–by using social media, you are building interactions, and hopefully, trust and credibility, with the community.

There were a few limitations, however, with the free blog site. For one, although the maps could be loaded and viewed, the ability to provide interactive maps was restricted with the .com versus the non-free .org version. They also learned from this effort about best practices regarding how to organize the blog and what templates to choose (there were some complaints, for example, about the black background).

Of note, they did place the blog in a social ecosystem–as mentioned, all of the other social sites they were using were linked to the blog (which they highlight on the “Welcome” landing page) and when a new blog post went up it was Tweeted out, linked to on Google+ and mentioned on Facebook.

What platform is best?

There are several blogging platforms:

• www.blogger.com 
• www.livejournal.com 
• www.wordpress.com 
• www.tumblr.com 

The two I would recommend are: Blogger.com ( a Google product) or WordPress.com (the site you are currently viewing is on wordpress.com). Each one has pros and cons, but the technology is quite similar. Ultimately it is your organization’s decision, but HowTo.gov (a federal site) recommends following these guidelines when choosing a tool:

• What are your overall goals, budget, and technical capabilities?
• Decide whether a particular tool is affordable, fits into your current infrastructure, and gives you what you need to meet the goals of your blog.
• Do you need a hosted or stand-alone blog?
  • Hosted blog: a company provides the space to store (host) your blog. Blog hosting may be free or fee-based, and each company may offer a different array of services.
  • Stand-alone blog: you host your blog on your own network. It allows great freedom to customize your blog, and gives you full control of the design; however, it is more complicated and costly than a hosted blog.
• Will your blog be written by one person, or multiple authors?
  • Multiple-author blogging might have different requirements, such as separate accounts for each blogger.
• Where will you post?( e.g. Do you need a tool that allows remote posting, from mobile devices, etc.?)
• Does the tool comply with government policy–such as Section 508 accessibility guidelines, to ensure it’s accessible for people with disabilities or  security policy–to ensure it’s in a securely hosted environment?

Resources:

• Follow this link to see features of WordPress: “Getting Started Support.”
• The video below, How to start a Blogger.com site, gives you a quick overview their platform:

More resources:

• HowTo.gov–blogs
• CDC Social Media Toolkit
• IACP Center for Social Media–Blogs
• IACP: Blogging Guide

(This content was originally posted on WMASMEM.wordpress.com as part of a project I was involved with sponsored by the Western Region Homeland Security Council.)

Canadian Red Cross Social Media Survey

Post by: Kim Stephens

Texting on a qwerty keypad phone (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Below is the press release from the Canadian Red Cross that details the survey they conducted of citizen use (or desired use) of social networking in a disaster.  You can download the entire report here: CRC Factum 10 03 12

“The survey, Social Media in Emergencies, is the first of its kind in Canada to look at habits and trends around the use of social media in disasters. Key findings include:

• 64 per cent of Canadians use social media sites, 62 per cent of whom participate nearly every day
• 63 per cent think disaster and emergency response agencies, including fire and police, should be prepared to respond to calls for help that are posted on social media networks
• About one third of respondents (35 per cent) think emergency services would respond to a request for help posted on social media, 74 per cent of whom believe help would arrive within one hour
• 54 per cent of Canadians say they would use social media to let loved ones know they are safe in an emergency
•   Although television (39 per cent) and radio (26 per cent) are the preferred ways of receiving news about an emergency, one third (31 per cent) of Canadians say they would prefer various electronic methods, such as web sites, social media or cell phones
• While the majority of Canadians say they have personally experienced disasters, 66 per cent have not taken steps to prepare themselves for an emergency
• The main reasons cited for not taking steps to prepare include: perception that a disaster is unlikely to occur in their area (27 per cent); never thought about it (21 per cent); and no time/never got around to it (12 per cent)

“Information is key to keeping people safe in an emergency,” says Conrad Sauvé, secretary general of the Canadian Red Cross. “With the majority of Canadians already engaged on social networking sites, these platforms can be used to get more information on local emergencies and inform people how they can give or receive help.”

In emergencies, the Canadian Red Cross uses social networks to share important updates, provide preparedness information and respond to questions from affected communities.

Across Canada, there have been many disasters in the last year, including wildfires, flooding, hurricanes and tornadoes. In addition, the Red Cross helps thousands of families each year affected by house fires.

With so many Canadians reporting they are unprepared for emergencies, the Canadian Red Cross is stressing that families prepare for disasters by having enough food, water and provisions to sustain themselves for 72 hours.”

  Contact info: www.redcross.ca;  Facebook (facebook.com/canadianredcross) or  Twitter (@redcrosscanada).

Lessons Learned: Handling an Angry Facebook Comment

Post by: Kim Stephens

Photo by: InernetMonk.com

I recently wrote a post titled “What happens when people make insensitive comments on your Facebook Page?” This post was about an angry/rude/obnoxious (insert descriptor here) person who made some ugly comments on the Barry Point Oregon Fire Facebook page this summer. The page, as well as other social media sites including a blog, a Twitter account, and a Google+ profile, was set up by the National Incident Management Organization (NIMO) with the aid of a Volunteer Operations Support Team (VOST) after the NIMO team assumed command of the  fire on August 13, 2012.

The objective of using social networking was to provide information to local residents on numerous platforms and to foster engagement. Although the Incident Information System website called Inciweb was in place with up-to-date content, Inciweb does not have a mechanism  to receive feedback from the community. Furthermore, the site is a little “crashy” as the warning implies: “Due to high demand this Web site may become unresponsive.”

Within 3 days of putting up the Facebook page, they got a little more engagement than they bargained for. So much so, in fact, that it led to not only my blog post about the incendiary comments, but a “lessons learned” report. You can download that paper written by Kris Eriksen, lead PIO, here: Barry Point SM Lessons learned.

The Story

What happened, in sum, was one woman decided to use the Facebook page to rant against the Forest Service  by posting the comment below. This comment was her idea of inserting a caption to a picture of the Incident Commander addressing people with the aid of a  megaphone at a shift change.

Hi Hater (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I can hear it now….. “THIS IS BIG DOLLARS MEN AND WOMEN” Your paychecks depend on this fire burning up as much as possible. The longer we can Let’er burn the bigger ALL of our pockets get! So be careful out there, eat a good lunch, be sure you all take your government mandated breaks… Every 15mins whether you need it or not! Ooh and don’t forget hacky sac play offs are tonite following directly after dinner, so be sure to practice on that while your standing around watching the fire today!

The reaction from the public was swift and in full support of the Forest Service and the firefighters. Other community members essentially ended up “shouting down” the woman and all of her subsequent comments: the quote above was just her first foray. As one of the PIOs is quoted as saying: “I don’t think we have to do anything. These people are totally trashing her!”

Keeping it Cool

What is interesting to me, however, is not what was happening on the page, but what was happening behind the scenes. By reading through the stream of comments it seems as if the PIOs were playing it completely cool–fully aware that the community would find her comments repulsive, or at least ill-informed, and come to their defense. But what the lessons-learned document, as well as my converstations with Ms. Eriksen, demonstrates is that a much more complicated story was unfolding, one full of hand-wringing.

Ms. Eriksen reflects:

“It’s funny, but in the heat of the moment it didn’t seem as simple as it does looking back!!  I remember when the first comment appeared from Theresa and Brie Magee, another PIO, read it to me.  We all sort of said “Wow, that was nasty.” and we talked about answering, but didn’t. Many more comments came.”

In a situation such as this, the nature reaction is to defend yourself–”Hey-that’s not true!” As Ms Eriksen states:

“You want to respond.  You worry about where it will go and what damage letting it go might do.  Then there is the damage from stamping it out.  So you try to juggle it, knowing that the decision will have a long-term effect and is important, and realizing you only have one shot to get it right.”

But on a public page, administrators should understand that by arguing with someone they can diminish their own stature and add legitimacy to the person commenting. Kris says in the report

 ”After one, I don’t remember which one, but it was factually wrong about how we fight fire, so I thought it was an opportunity to at least answer and say something, so I drafted a sort of generic answer about how we manage large fires and worked in a few things that referred to her earlier comments but didn’t address her directly, but still, we didn’t send it. We were still thinking about it. Some of the PIO’s were getting a bit worried about where this would go, were unhappy that it was happening and thought we should respond.” 

Mr. Eriksen writes that they didn’t have to talk about how they fought fires because citizens posted correct information. She also states that they determined that the woman shouldn’t be blocked  or her comments deleted because she never  violated the policy. But what they did want to do was let everyone visiting the page know they were watching what was happening and that they would draw act if things got out of hand (e.g. threatening comments were posted). This is why they decided to prominently re-post the comment policy. They also knew that these comments weren’t the first thing people saw when they visited the page–on Facebook,  comments are not featured prominently.

3 Great Lessons from a Public Relations Professional

Upon review of this case, a public relations expert sent Ms. Eriksen 3 reasons why ignoring the comments and leaving them on the page was the right thing to do:

“If you were to have deleted the post, you would have inflamed the situation by:

1. Enforcing what negative poster said in her initial post and reiterated in several subsequent posts — that the system was at fault as was less than responsive;
2. Encouraging her to keep posting thereby putting you in a situation of worrying more about her posts and whether to delete them again and again versus worrying about the things on which you should be focused;
3. Deterring your defenders from posting all of that great information about the tasks and issues at hand.”

One thing the public relations expert didn’t relay is that deleting comments on a page representing a public agency–especially if they are just critical of the organization versus racist or threatening, could be considered a violation of the person’s first amendment rights and they might sue you…great.

A Happy Ending

I love Ms. Ericksen’s summation:

“In the end, I think the whole exchange was actually beneficial. I think the community came together over her comments and once the positive thank you’s started flowing, it’s was all really good stuff.  I think we reached a tipping point – on the page at least, where it became positive for us and the firefighter, despite the continued growth of the fire. We learned a lot about what could happen and I got my belief reaffirmed that the community would balance things out.  I think it will be a very powerful tool for agency leaders and others who hesitate because they worry about exchanges like this.

…There is additional pressure from knowing this will affect the future relationship between the agency you’ve been hired to work for and their community;  compounded by the fact that they didn’t ask for the social media to be done -  we just did it.  And they would likely (if it went badly) blame it on SM and our team, potentially harming every team’s ability to ever engage with social media again, anywhere.  The repercussions were enormous.  That load felt a bit heavy.”

Thank you so much, Kris, for passing this along for me to share. There are some truly great lessons here.

Related articles

• What happens when people make insensitive comments on your Facebook page? (idisaster.wordpress.com)
• Washington Smoke Blogspot: A Truly Collaborative Effort (idisaster.wordpress.com) 

Posting Strategy: Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide

Post by: Kim Stephens

When looking for a Brimfield, Massachusetts Facebook page I came across the Brimfield, Ohio Police Department’s page. That little mistake has turned into quite a happy accident since the Ohio page is filled with many interesting examples to draw upon. You don’t have to look any further than their comment policy for some idea of what I mean. Here’s an excerpt:

“For those of you just joining us….Our legal people said we need some type of rules for our FB site; so we avoid fussing, I guess. They suggested a “take down” or “removal” policy. I declined both. I  told them I would handle relaying the message…

This is a police department Facebook page. If you have reached it by mistake or you are overly self righteous or are offended easily, you will hate it here and you will certainly dislike me greatly. We tell the truth, from the the field. We deal in realities. We post stories some may find funny, sad or other touchy feely stuff. We do not post names or mugshots, because we are not the National Enquirer. If you know the people involved in crashes, driving drunk, selling drugs or committing other criminal offenses, I would not get on this page and announce it.

If I make you angry, email me at doliver@brimfieldpolice.com or call —. If you attack me or my officers in this public FB forum, expect me to take you to the woodshed in the same forum…right before you are removed from the site. I believe in public praise and private criticism.”

When I spoke to Chief Oliver about his page over a month ago he told me that he had a content strategy that was exactly 3 words long: “Tell the truth.” Talking to him was really enjoyable since he didn’t mince words about how and why he was using the page and social media in general. He said for one, he is the head of a public service agency and therefore information should be released to the public in a consumable format–and Facebook happens to be a great way to reach the local audience. For two, the content they post is not secret, so why not? What he said exactly was “We’re not freakin’ James Bond here.”  Another thing that he said that stuck with me was “It’s made us human.”

I “Liked” the page (of course–this is one to watch) and in my news feed this week one of their posts intrigued me. The Chief had a long explanation about an item they would NOT be posting. I’ve never seen anything quite like this so I wanted to share it with my readers.

Remember when I told you if I made a mistake, I would own it and apologize for it? Stand-by for that…

We have warrants for over 250 people. These are people who have failed to show up for court on a variety of charges. Heroin possession, identity theft, OVI, robbery….we have a bunch of people who need to be seen by the judge…and they won’t show up for court. So, in my infinite wisdom, I got the idea to post pictures of some of these individuals on our page in order to generate some leads and clear up some of these warrants. I am not the kind of person who posts pictures or names on our page. We will NOT be a tabloid style page. I get enough grief for being outspoken; I don’t need more for something I really don’t want to do anyway.

So, with bright idea in mind, I posted the first (and last) three wanted persons last week. The normal amount of insults and opinions flowed through…we did get some leads; but then something else happened….A juvenile child of one the “wanted people” contacted me. In posting those pictures I overlooked the one thing I stand for the most….the children. You see, even though the adults are wanted and may be in the mope stage of their life, they may have children. Those children are likely on Facebook. I can imagine no worse feeling as a child than seeing mom or dad listed on a police department Facebook page, under “wanted persons”.

So, although it is perfectly legal to post pictures of people wanted by police, because it is all public record…it may not be the right thing to do. In this case, while I am in charge…it is most definitely NOT the right course to be on and we won’t go that direction. Absolutely regardless of the conduct of a parent- the child should not pay the bill. Children should not suffer because their parents cannot act like adults. Alienating these children from police and other authorities drives them further towards a life which will lead to trouble. I cannot do that. I am supposed to look out for them….and I will. “I am sorry” goes to the children who saw those posts. Look at the example of the life you have been exposed to and break that cycle…you can do it.

We do not have to be a product of our environment if we choose not to be……Chief.

What are your thoughts?  What would you do or do you do? How do you balance the need to release information versus the need to be a part of the broader community and not embarrass someone’s children–and potentially cause them to become scorned? Let me know what you think.

What happens when people make insensitive comments on your Facebook page?

Post by: Kim Stephens

Having the ability for people to post comments to your Facebook page can be an invaluable opportunity to get direct feedback from the community. In the past, people were really only able to talk openly about  your response effort by sending a letter to the editor of the local newspaper. Now, they can tell you exactly how they feel on your Facebook page. This ability, however, has a lot of folks in the emergency response business a little nervous. What if we get people commenting who say foul things about our organization or how we are handling the incident? How do you respond to irrational comments, untruthful information about what your organization is doing or hurtful remarks? One lesson that we in the social media and emergency management realm have always preached…don’t worry–other, rational citizens will respond for you.

The Facebook page for the Barry Point OR Fire can serve as a case in point. A seemingly innocuous post simply providing a picture with a caption “New Incident Commander..talks to crews…” elicited this comment:

The adminstrators of the page, however, didn’t have to argue with this woman or even acknowledge her terribly insensitive, irrational comment. Why? Citizens responded for them with statements such as:

• Seriously, I cannot belive you had the nerve to post that.
  A few days ago a young girl lost her life protecting your towns, your forests from complete destruction. I know crews who have been on this fire from the flare up working 16 hour days in the heat lugging 50 pound packs and chainsaws trying to keep it from destroying everything in its path. They are getting 4 hour rest periods to sleep.
• Shame on you. And to all of the hard working men and women who are putting your own safety and well-being on the line for the communities, thank you, thank you, thank you. Be safe!
• ..not only is what you said disrespectful, untruthful and condescending, but I can’t even take it seriously as your post is riddled with misspellings and grammatical errors.
• AMAZING! Our children, my child, is out there everyday protecting the homes, families and land in that area and you have the nerve to post something like that. They work theirs tails off! If they play a little hacky sac they probably deserve a break! You have balls lady.

It goes on and on. The naysayer tried to argue back, but her voice was drowned out. The only response required from the page administrators was this acknowledgement and reminder of their comment policy:

The reminder of the comment policy is important. People might wonder why the administrators didn’t simply delete her comment. Deleting it, however, would be completely counterproductive. She would most likely start a rant on her own Facebook page or even go so far as to produce a blog that was solely designed to rant about the response. Although she still might do those things, by leaving the comment for all to see, as well as the responses from the community, her stature  is diminished and she is not able to elevate herself to a martyr status, e.g. “I am the one whose voice was stifled!”

If you have an example of this happening to you, I’d love to hear about it. And good luck to all the firefighters out there this summer. You all are in our thoughts.

QPS Media Story Never Gets Old!

Post by: Kim Stephens

Special Emergency Response Team (Queensland) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

July 12, 2012 ZDNET posted a story recounting the amazing experience of Queensland Police Service and their use of social media during the January 2011 floods in Australia. Reading it reminded me of why I find the cause of social media and emergency/crisis communications so compelling. There are numerous quotes from Kym Charlton- executive director of the Queensland Police Service’s (QPS) media and public affairs branch, that could headline a social media and emergency management conference. Each of her statements seem to address the question “Why should I use social media to communicate with the public during a crisis?”

Here’s what they learned:

• Bypass the Media as the message filter and provide hyper-local information:

“We were able to pump out a whole lot of information that we knew wouldn’t make the mainstream media; they just wouldn’t have picked up that volume of information. It was quite low level, but it was really important if it was about your area,” she said.

• Get information out in a timely fashion:

“Rather than me sitting in a disaster-management meeting, listening to the premier being briefed, taking notes, going out and giving it to someone to write a media release, then spending the rest of the day chasing around incredibly busy people to clear the information, I started to post status updates as I heard the premier being briefed,” she said.

• Expect to work long days:

“For example, the day that the Lockyer Valley flooded was the same day that Brisbane and Ipswich realised there was going to be a major flood. All of a sudden, you had the entire population of both cities desperately trying to work out if their houses were going to flood. A lot of people weren’t here in 1974; also, there are way more houses [now] than there used to be. We saw a huge jump of people coming to the page to find that information.” On that particular day, 10 January, Charlton sent her first and last tweets at 4.45am and 11.45pm, respectively.

• Expect a huge increase in the amount of people accessing your social pages. 

“The numbers surrounding 10 January are astonishing. The QPS Facebook page received 39 million individual story views — the equivalent of 450 page impressions per second — while being updated by staff every 10 minutes or so. (“That amount of traffic would have crashed both our public website and our operational website,” Charlton noted.)

Their Facebook audience grew from 16,500 on 9 January to 165,000 within a fortnight; many of those joined the page during the 24-hour period following the Lockyer Valley torrent. Overnight, the QPS social-media accounts had become a lifejacket to which many Queenslanders clung.

• Establish your social presence before an event occurs.

“We were in that wonderful position where we knew enough to be able to use it [during the floods],” she said. “It wasn’t a decision where anyone said, OK, we’re going to focus on social media’. We just started doing it because it worked.”

• Don’t advertise the goods, just deliver them.

“…QPS is just one shining star within a tight-knit constellation of Australian police departments that live and breathe social media each day. None of them have spent a single cent on advertising or promoting these channels; fittingly, they’ve all developed organically through networked word of mouth.”

End result: “…connect humans with one another, and to share meaningful information immediately.”

Thank you QPS Media and ZDNet for reminding us all of this amazing story and example to live up to!

Related articles

• The digital beat: policing social media – ZDNet (zdnet.com)
• Police and the place of social media (blogs.abc.net.au)

I Don’t Have Time! Facebook “How-to” Resource

Post by: Kim Stephens

Every time I talk with public employees about social media the one complaint I hear is how limited they are in terms of resources. The first problem with limited resources is that people are unable to invest the time required into learning how to use social tools–even though they do (or might) believe they are important. I recently called a fire department to talk to their social media “coordinator.” The  chief answered the phone and he said,

“That would be me. I’ve only been in this job for a month and I’ve been told I’m also the administrator of the Facebook page.” Then he added with zero enthusiasm, “Great.”

Taking on this responsibility can be daunting. I understand. This is why quite a few public sector Facebook pages look a little bit like ghost towns–especially during the summer months when the one person who actually enjoys updating the page is on leave. Help, however, is available. Facebook has produced a great resource for public employees: “Building your presence with Facebook pages: A Guide for Governments.” (Download the 10 pages here: Facebook Guide for Governments).

This attractive guide provides pictures and key points to users on exactly how to:

• Set your strategy
• Create your page
• Develop your posting plan, including:
  • Finding your voice
  • Creating a conversation
  • Offering a rich experience
  • Sharing exclusive content
• Grow your Audience
• Measure and Refine
• Resource Links (all internal Facebook links)
• Top 5 Tips (These tips, by the way, are great. I love #1 “Don’t be boring!”) the other four:
  • Offer historical content
  • Thank supporters and engagers
  • Be timely
  • Post bi-lingual content

Of course this content really only applies to the emergency management and first response community during the preparedness phase: there is no mention of what happens to social networks during a crisis. However, this is a great start for organizations looking for “how to’s”.

Take the 10-20 minutes to read this! It could help your page go from ghost town to boom town!