Project HEROIC–which stands for Hazards, Emergency Response, and Online Informal Communications (see footnote)–took a close look at the online activity of official organizations during the recent domestic terrorist event in Boston and the ensuing suspect chase–that seemed like a marathon in itself. They released a report today (May 10) titled “Following the Bombing” which I have summarize below.
Their Methodology and Findings
In order to understand what types of information was provided to the public and how broadly it was distributed, the project team reviewed 29 different government agency or related Twitter accounts. The first question might be: why only Twitter? Researchers like Twitter–the data is easy to grab and analyze.
The project team reviewed two main items: 1. Rate of posting by the selected organizations and elected officials; and 2. The percent change in followers (spoiler alert: Boston PD had a 500% increase and the Boston PD PIO Cheryl Fiandaca had a 2291% increase). The rate that these organizations posted was tied to their increase in followers, which is no surprise, however, there was a notable exception–Boston Fire Department.
Boston FD gained a 25% increase in followers without posting once the day of the attack. Their absence was not lost on the Twittersphere, and the Boston FD even felt it necessary to defend their decision the next day. They Tweeted that they deliberately did not post any Tweets from the scene because it is their policy not to “…show any injured person or discuss our treatment.” Quite a few people, however, thought their decision was unfortunate; at a minimum they could have simply ReTweeted the Boston PD account. As the researchers pointed out: ”…organizations that have increased their network size must provide information of value and to be aware that the public is watching.” Honestly, its about trust. People who follow official accounts do so because they know they can trust the content. The public followers also have a notion that they will provided information in timely manner-especially during incidents such as this one where everyone was looking for any tidbit they could find in order to make sense out of the chaos. It is not a stretch to see why people were upset.
Read the whole report here. I like some of their questions they pose at the end: What can organizations do to ensure their newfound followers stick around? and What educational preparedness-type information should organizations provide to take advantage of the narrow window of attention they have? Let me know your thoughts.
Footnote: “Project HEROIC is a collaborative, NSF funded effort by researchers at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and the University of California-Irvine to better understand the dynamics of informal online communication in response to extreme events. Through a combination of data collection and modeling of conversation dynamics, the project team aims to understand the relationship between hazard events, informal communication and emergency response.” (via: http://heroicproject.org/)
Academics from IBM Research Labs in India; Indraprastha Institute for Information Technology, Delhi, India; and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County collaborated on an article titled: “Faking Sandy: Characterizing and Identifying Fake Images on Twitter during Hurricane Sandy.” This article is interesting in light of the events in Boston and the debate about the veracity of content on social media. Although there hasn’t been time to do complete quantitative data analyses of the Marathon bombing social media feeds, this research adds to the increasing collection of academic studies that can help us better understand how misinformation is distributed on social platforms, specifically Twitter, and how it can be easily and quickly identified as false.
Abstract:
In today’s world, online social media plays a vital role during real world events, especially crisis events. There are both positive and negative effects of social media coverage of events, it can be used by authorities for effective disaster management or by malicious entities to spread rumors and fake news.
The aim of this paper, is to highlight the role of Twitter, during Hurricane Sandy (2012) to spread fake images about the disaster. We identified 10,350 unique tweets containing fake images that were circulated on Twitter, during Hurricane Sandy. We performed a characterization analysis, to understand the temporal, social reputation and influence patterns for the spread of fake images. Eighty-six percent of tweets spreading the fake images were retweets, hence very few were original tweets. Our results showed that top thirty users out of 10,215 users (0.3%) resulted in 90% of the retweets of fake images; also network links such as follower relationships of Twitter, contributed very less (only 11%) to the spread of these fake photos URLs. Next, we used classification models, to distinguish fake images from real images of Hurricane Sandy. Best results were obtained from Decision Tree classifier, we got 97% accuracy in predicting fake images from real. Also, tweet based features were very effective in distinguishing fake images tweets from real, while the performance of user based features was very poor. Our results, showed that, automated techniques can be used in identifying real images from fake images posted on Twitter.
The last sentence is the most important: “Our results, showed that, automated techniques can be used in identifying real images from fake images posted on Twitter.” Hopefully, those automated approaches will be available to use quickly and intuitively without needing to know how to write an algorithm on the fly. There are people working with that goal in mind. See this great post “Automatically Extracting Disaster-Relevant Information from Social Media” by Patrick Meier–where he describes his efforts ”to develop open source and freely available next generation humanitarian technologies to better manage Big (Crisis) Data.” A software solution is on the horizon.
Why do people post false information? That interesting psychological question was not addressed in this study. Maybe people think an image of a shark swimming the street is funny; maybe they are out for a minute or more of fame. I, for one, am increasingly leery to ReTweet any photo when an event is unfolding unless I see it on several sources (e.g. on Twitter and also streamed live from a “traditional” local news station). Tell me, how comfortable do you have to be with a source before you hit “ReTweet?”
Thank you @janehenrici for the title! I had posted “Are those photos for real?” I hear the phrase “Is that for real” in my house full of teenagers and was just trying to be “witty.” I like Jane’s title much better though. Let’s call this crowdsourced blogging!
I recently saw a presentation about GeoFeedia, a social media monitoring software system, at an SMEM-type event sponsored by the Metropolitan College of NY’s Emergency and Disaster Management MPA program. Their presentation, along with the ensuing conversation, inspired me to take a closer look. GeoFeedia’s monitoring tool is unique among all of its competitors: it allows the user to include location searches for content versus only searching by keyword. Timo Luge’s blog post about the service describes why this feature is so important:
If someone uploads and photo a writes “Here is a photo of my house after the #earthquake in #Alphaville” it’ll be easy to find, but if someone simply writes “My house – so sad!“ you won’t find it using standard tools. And while you can use services like Hootsuite to show you all tweets in certain area, doing this is quite tricky and too complicated for most users.
Watch their video for a great one-minute description.
I encourage you to explore their website for details about what the tool can do, but below I briefly describe its 6 main features, including location monitoring:
It enables “advanced location monitoring” which will gather–as well as archive—social communications based on the location determined by the user. For instance, if there was an explosion in an area, law enforcement could hone in on people posting about the incident who are in close proximity. In contrast, if only a keyword search were used, then the collected content would include everyonediscussing the event.
Keyword searches are not eliminated from GeoFeedia. The ability to filter social content and refine searches using keywords as well as timeframe, media type, author “and more” is included.
Data is exportable in a feature they call “data portability.”
Content from GeoFeedia can easily be published to your own social networks.
Analytical tools are embedded that can help the user identify such things as the most active or influential poster, as well as trends, etc.
The content of the geo-feed is shareable to people “inside or outside your organization. You can even share a live Geofeed stream with users that don’t have a Geofeedia account.” In contrast, other software tools, including Radian 6, have very restrictive sharing policies and explicitly do NOT allow sharing of content with non-account holders.
Do Geo-location Tools Invade Privacy?
Following their presentation in New York, the question of privacy was raised, which I thought was interesting. Do people expect some privacy when posting content to social networks? If you are quick to answer “no” then consider this statement by one of the participants: “Ask any teenager if posting to Twitter and Instagram allows everyone to see their content and they will answer ‘yes.’ Then ask them if they would be OK with their parents viewing whatever they are posting and they will emphatically answer ‘NO!’” I know this to be a fact since I happen to live with two teenagers.
Nonetheless, during a crisis situation it would seem that folks would desire government officials to see their posts in order to receive assistance. But in the world of law enforcement, this type of monitoring tool takes on an entirely different connotation. I can image that a law enforcement agency could use GeoFeedia, or something like it, to draw a virtual circle around a park where a festival is happening and look for information about illegal activity. Would people posting images and Tweeting at the event, for instance, realize they were being “watched” virtually?
Based on current law, it seems that these types of searches are legal and possibly even expected by citizens. Law professor Jonathon Turely wrote a couple of years ago about our evolving societal privacy expectations in a Washington Post article about the then upcoming Supreme Court case Jones v. United States. The case involved a conviction of man based on his activities that were tracked with a GPS devise:
“This surveillance continued after a warrant had expired. But the Obama administration insists that no warrant should be required for the government to track the movements of citizens with such devices. The administration says that the new technology merely captures what can be observed, albeit in far greater detail. But the technology could allow the government to follow an almost limitless number of citizens in real time, all the time.”
Professor Turely asks: ”As we come to expect less privacy, are we entitled to less of it?” The court did eventually hold that “the Government’s installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search’” under the Fourth Amendment.” However, the broader privacy issue was left unsettled.
How does that case relate to social media? Stephen E. Henderson’s in his journal article Expectations of Privacy in Social Media, cites the Jones case and many others in his argument that the public really can’t expect privacy when posting publicly on social networks, however, they probably can expect privacy when an effort is made to keep the communication out of the public view, for instance with protected Tweets and Facebook messages. The notion of control of the information is the key. “If the government obtains information that was previously in one’s exclusive control, then it has violated the person’s rights.” However, if the information is publicly available, then there is no interference with a “possessory interest.” This passage sums up his argument:
Whatever the precise definitions of search and seizure, the Court has articulated this general principle:
[T]he Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected.
This limitation makes eminent sense, in that police should not have to be the only ones to avert their eyes. If you tape a message on a window visible from the street, or place a pie to cool or a plant to grow there, a police officer driving or walking by is free to give it a look. According to the control theory of information privacy, you have chosen to share that information. Whereas if you carry any of those items on your person in public, but in an opaque container, the item remains private, and police must act accordingly.
Some social media is exposed to the public, such as an open-to-the world blog. It is not reasonable to expect privacy when one publishes something to all comers. So there would be no Fourth Amendment restraint on police obtaining the content of such a blog, either by bringing up the site themselves or via the third party hosting that content. The same holds true for a Facebook wall which the user leaves open to the public, YouTube videos left open to the public, and flickr pictures left open to the public. And the same holds true for tweets from a public account, meaning one for which the user does not restrict followers. Since any private person can obtain these things without restraint, the police can as well. (page 238)
Do you have an expectation of privacy? Does your law enforcement agency worry about this topic? My treatment of this issue is admittedly very superficial–there are many different facets to explore. For a much lengthier treatment of the topic, I encourage you to read Mr. Henderson’s entire article, you can also see sites such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
For another review and more information about GeoFeedia find a comprehensive post by Patrick Meier on iRevolution here. Despite the debate over privacy, I think GeoFeedia is a great tool and probably represents the future of how emergency response organizations will monitor social content in order to gain the best situational awareness. Let me know what you think.
Maryland Emergency Management Agency (Photo credit: Maryland National Guard)
The Maryland Emergency Management Agency (@MDMEMA on Twitter) has recently taken their social media communication’s strategy to new heights–even incorporating a module about the tools into their Public Information Officer training.
I had the opportunity to meet the MEMA Social Media Coordinator, Kasey Parr, when we both served on a panel at the Social Media Week in Washington DC (a big thank you to Michael Clarke of International Media Solutions for organizing our session). I asked Kasey in a written follow up for a little more detail about their social media plans and current processes. Below is the result of the Q&A with both Kasey and Ed McDonough, the MEMA PIO.
Q1. What type of Social Media content is included in the PIO training?
A1: Kasey: The first training we conducted on “Social Media in the JIC” was right before Hurricane Sandy, forcing me to cut down on my slides because of time constraints on Ed and myself. The presentation given before Hurricane Sandy included:
Why do we use social media during emergencies?
What are the benefits?- This will now include a case study of the Derecho/Hurricane Sandy
Our level of engagement/How we use SM
VOST concept and how we can create a model with MD social media managers
Procedures during an event- 12 hour shift roles and responsibilities
Monitoring/responding (what it is, how we do it, etc)-
A1: Ed — I would add that we have been teaching about the use of social media as part of our instruction of FEMA‘s Basic PIO (G290) and JIC/JIS (G291) training for several years. We discuss the various platforms for SM, how to get buy in from supervisors and/or elected officials, stress the differences and similarities between SM and the traditional media, and emphasize that it is a two-way information flow that also can help operations folks with tactical decisions. (You may be familiar with some of the ways Bill Humphries of LAFD has used Twitter to gain operational information.)
Maryland Emergency Management Agency (Photo credit: Maryland National Guard)
Q2. How is SM incorporated into “normal” communications and messaging processes?
A2: Ed — During our “sunny day” periods, we regularly use social media to engage the public about preparedness information, regularly monitor Facebook and twitter for information about weather, traffic and other information in and around Maryland and from emergency management agencies around the country. Unlike traditional media, where we are usually just pushing out information, we use social media to actually engage the public with contests and such to get immediate feedback. We also are in the process of making sure that our social media policies are incorporated into our public information SOPs, so any state public information officer working in our Joint Information Center will understand the role of social media in emergency management.
Q3. Do you talk (in your training) specifically about the transfer of the intelligence gathered from monitoring social networks to decision-makers?
A3: Kasey–We do address social media monitoring in our training. As a part of the procedures in the JIC the roles and responsibilities of the monitor are outlined. These responsibilities include alerting the team of any relevant trends that may need to be addressed and by whom these issues need to be addressed according to the urgency of the matter. Some issues can be easily solved with the PIO, relevant state agency reps, or they [may] require the attention of the Senior Policy Group.
Depending on the nature of the information that has come through, we may need to get the Governor to address it in his next press briefing, have the PIO construct a press release, or create a social media messaging strategy centered on the intelligence or trend to eliminate confusion. After Hurricane Sandy, we walked away with a lot of lessons learned as far as media monitoring is concerned. In my opinion, the social media monitor has the most important role during a disaster. This is one part of our social media program that I would like to build out for a disaster or emergency situation.
A3: Ed — I would add that we are exploring the use of crowdsourcing programs that could work in conjunction with our GIS staff to give operational staff in the state EOC better situational awareness during an activation. This will become even more important for counties and cities, as they are on the front lines of response.
Thank you so much Ed and Kasey! Let me know what types of questions you might have for them or other agencies.
Mary Jo Flynn, the Assistant Director of the Emergency Management Division in Anaheim California, consistently surprises me with her creative use of social media and new technologies to engage CERT members. For instance, just a couple of months ago she Tweeted about how she integrated the use of QR codes into a CERT exercise.
Conduct a CERT exercise using QR codes posted around a facility. Dubbed a "choose your own adventur pinterest.com/pin/6628742573…— Anaheim CERT (@AnaheimCERT) May 09, 2012
Ms Flynn promoted the idea on her “CERT Exercise Idea” Pinterest page and indicated that the QR code exercise was played by adding images, descriptions and/or video to the links in a type of scavenger hunt where each decision got volunteers to the next QR Code Station. What a great way to add a layer of interest!
Social Media Exercise
This month she is taking the concept of adding game-type elements into training to a new level. Intuitively we all know that the best way to learn something is by actually doing it. For this exercise, the learning objectives Ms Flynn would like to accomplish are for CERT members to not only understand social media but also to increase their competency in the use of the tools. In order for team members to learn how to use social networking in a real-world, face-paced environment she has created a game of sorts for them to participate in during the California State CERT conference. The game/exercise requires participants to use social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Instragram, and points will be awarded based on activity level, measured by their use of live-Tweeting, Facebook posting, Retweeting, and getting ReTweed, for example. Additionally, a team element has been incorporated–which is important, people tend to participate more if they feel they are a part of a group. She created this video (embedded below) in order to prepare CERT members to participate as soon as they arrive at the conference.
I asked Ms Flynn for more information about the “how and why” of the exercise and she provided me the written answers below. I wanted to post her responses in full so that others could emulate this great example.
Nature of the exercise:
This is a dynamic exercise in which conference participants will utilize social media to generate live social web data. Their entries simulate making contact with family members or posting pictures as neighborhood situation status updates. A second part of the exercise includes the identification and analysis of the web data simulating a virtual EOC environment. While the exercise may seem like nothing more than a scavenger hunt or silly networking game, it is an intricately layered opportunity to build team work, practice technical skills, collect and share information and be that much closer and ready to deploy for an actual event.
Why I pursued this exercise:
I’ve been looking to plan small exercises locally for my team that utilized live data but without the fear of sparking controversy or panic when using simulated data in a public forum and I believe as emergency managers we must first do no harm in social media. I’ve not been satisfied in adding “Exercise” or “Drill” to a live tweet for fear it would be eliminated on re-tweet and lose effectiveness and potentially lose trust from my audience.
Why Now, how this came about:
I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. My colleagues using the #smemchat have been talking about exercising using events like the Inauguration or Superbowl to practice safely with live data. I wanted something smaller scale. When approached by California Volunteers to speak at the conference, I inquired as to whether or not they would promote live tweeting. Once we agreed on using live tweeting and a scavenger hunt as a mechanism to encourage networking, the rest of the exercise fell into place. Since then I’ve just been having fun refining some of the “injects” like the video.
Why this exercise is important to me:
Lately I’ve become concerned that the Social Media Emergency Management community has only encouraged adoption of social media without providing enough detail in training, exercising and strategic planning. I believe we will continue to face challenges from opponents [people who don't believe social media is important] if we don’t also demonstrate the ability to train and exercise in such a manner as to build community trust.
I’m happy that we can accommodate so many pieces of the puzzle and pull together such a strong national VOST [Virtual Operations Support Team] along with local volunteers and conference attendees to hopefully see success through this exercise.
What to expect after the conference:
I’m a very big believer in capturing lessons learned and I’ll be incorporating feedback into an After Action Report and sharing with Lessons Learned Information Sharing (LLIS).
Thank you Mary Jo! If you have any questions for her, she is on Twitter @AnaheimCERT or @MaryJoFly.
The blizzard of 2013 is still causing problems from New Jersey to Maine at the time of writing. Although recovery from the storm is far from over, I’d like to look at Massachusetts specifically and make some observations about the role social media and web-based communications played (and continues to play) during this event.
1. Public organizations, as well as elected officials, provided great service announcements to encourage people to help one another. My favorite was a Tweet from the Mayor of Boston asking people to be a snow angel, not just make one.
They even took it a step further by asking “How are you being a Snow Angel today? Use#BOSnowAngel to share a photo of your good deed.”
2. Sometimes the message was simple: “I don’t know.” This post on Facebook was from Mass 2-1-1 who defines themselves as “an easy to remember, toll-free telephone number that connects callers to information about critical health and human services available in their community, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”
One thing Mass 2-1-1 might have done is linked to the private utility company’s Facebook page, which brings me to #3.
3. Utility companies definitely bear the brunt of much of the public’s ire in the aftermath of disaster events, and this one is proving to be no exception. This storm also provides an age-old lesson in how to handle some of that anger: no comment. One look at the Nstar’s page will give you an idea of some of the vitriol that can be spewed when the power is out, even for a day or two. This simple statement on their page elicited over 200 responses, quite a lot of them angry.
“We expect to have all customers restored by Thursday night and will have community by community restoration times available tomorrow. Our crews will continue to work around the clock until all affected customers are restored. Please stay away from downed power lines and assume all lines are live. Thanks for your patience as we repair the damage from this devastating blizzard“
Although this post seems innocuous, people felt that the restoration rate was way too slow. One person started a fire storm by stating the following:
“I just observed TWENTY SEVEN trucks parked at Dunkin donuts in Falmouth. I have an infant and no power for 48 hours with no end in sight. Some sort of estimate would be extremely appreciated. I am a healthcare worker that’s been working for 30 of the past 48 hours I’m cold, hungry and cranky. My patience is wearing very thin…”
I think they handled it well, however, by letting the public defend them versus jumping into the argument. Often it is a worker’s family member that is the most animated with statements along the lines of “Hey–they are working hard, I haven’t seen my husband in three days!” An example of someone coming to their defense is provided below. This somewhat inelegant statement both defends the company but also points out what everyone would like…more information.
4. If you build it, they will come…and maybe crash your site. The International Business Times reported before the storm that Boston was promoting their snowplow tracking website called SnowOps Viewer that would allow citizens to track snow removal by location by zooming in on the map as well as by inputting an address. This is possible because all city plows are equipped with GPS devices. Other major cities including New York (PlowNYC) and Washington DC have similar systems. The problem, however, was that so many people went to the site it crashed under the weight. This is the message even today, Feb. 11: We are experiencing significant traffic and the site is currently unavailable. We are working to resolve these issues. Please check back later. Thank you for your patience.
Every disaster seems to teach us that sending large amounts of people to your website is not a great idea, unless you have done significant load testing beforehand. I hope they sort out what went wrong soon!
5. Boston has operationalized Twitter. Twitter, unlike their snowplow website, remains up with no problem and Bostonians have been encouraged to send a Tweet to @NotifyBoston to report problems such as unshoveled sidewalks or disabled vehicles. One look at the exchanges taking place there shows that it is obvious the city is taking the citizen-reported information very seriously and wants to hear about problems (see an example below). The @NotifyBoston feed also includes information for citizens as well, including advisories, closures, and storm updates. (I wonder if or how Mass 2-1-1 and @NotifyBoston are coordinating their efforts and sharing information? That will be a question for future posts.)
Getting the public to pay attention to emergency preparedness information can be a challenge. Research in this area tells us that “community-based participatory approaches to designing and disseminating risk communication for at-risk populations, and offering messages in multiple modes that are locally and personally relevant, would have many benefits for strengthen emergency preparedness, response, and recovery for at-risk populations, but are currently underutilized.” Meredith, et al (2008). Although social media has helped provide a participatory multi-modal approach, there are still many improvements that could be made.
San Francisco, with leadership from Alicia Johnson (@UrbanAreaAlicia) the city’s Resilience and Recovery Manager, is making huge leaps in providing personally relevant preparedness information with the revamp of their 72 Hours preparedness site SF72 or San Francisco 72 Hours. I should note that Alicia emphasized that the site is a team effort and includes the design and innovation consulting firm Ideo, @ideo; Rob Dudgeon, the Director of SF Emergency Services or @sfDEMrob; and Kristin Hogan or @kristinlhogan.
I spoke with an Alicia about the goals and direction this site will be taking. She stated that SF72 concept came from the realization that our current preparepdness messaging is not working.
“So much of what we do is based on individuals preparedness. But research from recent disasters has shown us that people prepare and respond as communities. You never recover from a disaster as an individual, you recover as a community.”
The new site is not quite finished at the time of writing. Once it is done and vetted with SF stakeholders, including the public, the plan is to replace the existing 72Hours.org,
3 Common Preparedness Messaging Mistakes This Type of Site Can Address
1. Too much information in a non-visual format. We live in an era of video and image communication, yet we continue to provide the public information in a heavy-text format. Public safety organizations are not alone in committing this error. For instance, my high school junior literally tosses college information mailers in the trash if they only include a letter and few, if any, pictures. Mailers that do have a lot of images, however, get placed on her bulletin board. In terms of public safety, I commend the new wave of preparedness apps coming out of emergency management offices, however, quite a few of them look like the screen shot above. And although all of the information is complete, I have to wonder why the content wasn’t made more accessible, with icons or pictures for instance, especially since this particular page is tailored for people with special needs.
2. Not enough interactive content. Providing a laundry list of protective action measures is not necessarily the best method to communicate this information. More than likely it is not even read (see #1). Even though a list may provide all of the correct content, active learning is way more fun, meaning it holds people’s attention. This increases the chance that the material is retained. The SF72 site embraces this active model, which is evident in the “Quake Quiz,” an interactive quiz that is not only very visual but interesting enough to hold the attention of kids and adults alike. Other apps, such as the game associated with the Disaster Preppers TV show, also provides an example of how preparedness content doesn’t have to be dry, but can actually be entertaining as well.
3. No (or not enough) emphasis on sharing. As the general public moves more and more towards openness this sometimes causes uneasiness in government sectors: sharing isn’t caring… it as a violation of the personal privacy protection act. However, asking people to share with their social networks how they are preparing is a great idea/best practice. Why? We know people will often respond more positively when asked to do something by a friend versus a government agency. (See the CDC’s 2012 Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication Manual.)
Providing the opportunity for sharing is one thing that the SF72 site also does well. People are asked, for instance, to share that they took the quake quiz and even have access to a bit of code in order to place a banner on any website or blog (which is how I included the image above). They also intend to include videos of people talking about their experiences during large and small disaster (e.g. a house fire) and how they were prepared, or what they would have done differently. This statement on the site demonstrates their desire to embrace the concept of community.
SF72 is San Francisco’s gathering place for emergency preparedness.
We believe in connection, not catastrophe. We believe in the power of many pairs of hands. We believe in supporting the city we love.
I’m looking forward to seeing the entire site completed. Alicia also told me that once it is finished, it will be available to other communities to adopt as well, since they are doing the project in an open source format. The quake quiz, however, is a licensed product. If you are interested in more information you can reach Alicia via Twitter or provide a comment below.
Is your organization doing anything similar? Let me know.
A Twitter chat occurred yesterday (1/25/2013) about the role of social media during the ongoing bushfires in Australia. The chat was organized and facilitated by Robert Dunne @Academy911, Joanna Lane @joannalane and Joanne White @joannewhite. Although I haven’t had time to read through the complete archive of hundreds of Tweets, some resources stood out to me that I’d like to share.
One of the items mentioned was this great presentation available on YouTube by CFA (Country Fire Authority) Digital Media Manager, Martin Anderson who discusses the integration of social media into emergency service procedures in Victoria, Australia. Mr. Anderson points out that the full adoption of social media had to come with three main changes in mindset:
From: “We hold the info the community needs and we expect them to come to us.” To: “We realize we need to go to the community.”
From: “We will decide what the community needs.” To: “The community will tell us what they need.”
From: “The public is a liability.” To: “The public is a resource.” See the full video below:
Some great examples of the many ways the Australian public can stay informed during this crisis were also shared during the discussion on Twitter. One emerging theme is the move toward providing aggregated information from many different agencies and organizations along with a visualization of that content.
1. A great resource page by HardenUp.org has been established for the bushfires that provides an aggregation of official social media channels as well as images posted by the public. HardenUp is a project by Green Cross Australia who’s mission is to prepare the public for a changing climate “in ways that embrace sustainability and community resilience.” The resource page was inspired by the Queensland Public Alerts page, sponsored by the Queensland government.
2. The Country Fire Authority has a similar aggregated social media site aptly called “Social Media Updates.” The page lists official social posts from the CFA Facebook and Twitter account, as well as from other relevant official accounts including for instance, the Melbourne Fire Bureau or MFB and traffic information from VicRoads, just to name a few.
CFA: Fire Ready Smartphone Application
3. The CFA also has a FireReady mobile app. This app was mentioned during the chat, and I blogged about its features here.
4. The ABC Emergency website is a great resource that provides an aggregated list of all current alerts and warnings. The site was set up in the wake of the Black Saturday Fires and Brisbane Floods by the Australian Broadcasting Company. I like that they don’t just provide information about the hazard, but also what the public can do to prepare themselves. The preparedness pages also include links to official agencies. For instance, the “Plan for a Bushfire” page has hyperlinks to each of the Fire Emergency Services. The ABC’s stated purpose for the site:
The caption states: ABC Emergency only publishes warnings from official sources. This is a list of official warnings currently available to the ABC. You should check with other sources for more warnings relevant to your area.
Google Crisis Response Map: Current Fires and Incidents
5. The Google Crisis Response team is also active in this disaster. Their NSW Crisis Map has current bushfire information. They call this “…a mirror of the NSW Rural Fire Service Current Fires and Incidents map.”
This list represents just a few of the interesting resources made available to the public during this event. I hope these agencies will share their lessons learned: I look forward to hearing more about the role social media continues to play in the land “down-under.” What are you learning?
Thanks to Nathan Hunderwald or @smem911 for ReTweeting some of the best links.
I live in the DC corridor and therefore I follow the WMATA (Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority) social media accounts. The authority has great social presence and I find their Twitter feed especially useful. I look to them to see, for example, why I’m standing on a platform with no train for 20 minutes. More often than not, they will have posted the problem(s) that caused the delay.
Shady Grove-bound Red Line train offloading at Gallery Place, door problem. Next RL train directly behind, and at Judiciary Sq. 8:23a #wmata— @wmata (@wmata) January 14, 2013
Watching a conversation that took place with WMATA the other day, however, made me re-evaluate some of my own advice. I have often stated that it is important to communicate with the public how you will be using social networks in order to manage their expectations. For example, “This account is not monitored 24/7.” The public, however, pushed back to WMATA for saying almost this exact statement. I captured the conversation below. They simply stated:
.@wmata if people are reporting emergencies then the police might want to monitor it.— Aaron Tobler (@aarontobler) January 08, 2013
I’m not sure why WMATA said to report emergencies to that long number versus 911. Whatever the case, the idea that the account was not being monitored 24/7 was astounding to some:
@mrjohner our account does get monitored, just not 24/7. Have a good night!— @wmata (@wmata) January 08, 2013
The last exchange reminds me that exclamation points can demonstrate that someone is excited, enthusiast or sarcastic…I’m going with the last choice. Nonetheless, this exchange makes me a bit nervous. Is a 24/7 monitored social media presence now something the public will demand, especially for public safety organizations? If not today, will this be a demand in the near future? What are your thoughts?
Update: @WMATA responded to this post via Twitter. I really appreciate their replies!
@kim26stephens use of "!" is for pleasure & enthusiasm. You may dial 911, however you won't directly get MTPD as if you used 202.962.2121.— @wmata (@wmata) January 14, 2013
@kim26stephens 911 controlled by the municipalities, not us. We understand calling would be easier, but it would not direct dial MTPD— @wmata (@wmata) January 14, 2013
For those readers that do not live in the DC area, the MTPD is the Metro Transit Police and they ”have tri-state jurisdiction with responsibility for a variety of law enforcement and public safety functions in transit facilities throughout the Washington, DC Metropolitan area… MTPD police officers have jurisdiction and arrest powers throughout the 1,500 square mile Transit Zone that includes Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia for crimes that occur in or against Transit Authority facilities. It is the only tri-jurisdictional police agency in the country and serves a population of 3.2 million.”
The Boston Mayor has declared a public health emergency due to the deadly flu outbreak that has killed 18 people to date. Public Health organizations are pulling out the stops to communicate protective action information to the public and social media is just one of the tools in the toolbox. The public, however, is also using social media to talk about the flu. They state such things as whether or not they are sick; whether or not they had a shot; and “Google” what they should do after they become ill, just to name a few of the topics of conversation. People can even download a new Facebook app titled “Help, My Friend Gave me the Flu” to figure out who they need to blame for feeling miserable. (As an aside the app is actually quite cool. After you give it permission to access your newsfeed it looks for key words from friends that have posted content related to feeling sick. From a public health standpoint, if people know some of their friends are ill they might be spurred to get a flu shot, or at a minimum keep their distance. I’m happy to report all of my friends are healthy!)
All of this web and social data, in turn, is being “mined” by public health organizations and researchers in order to determine both the geographic spread of the virus, as well as the rate of infection. Some organizations are also asking the public to self-report how they are feeling. Below I outline five tools that are interesting aggregators of social flu data.
1. FluNearYou is a tool that allows the public to participate in tracking the spread of flu by filling out a survey each week. The survey is quite simple and asks the respondent if they have had any symptoms during the past week and whether or not they have had the flu shot either this year or last year. Respondents can include family members and the questions are asked about each person individually. This user contributed data is then aggregated and displayed on a map with pins that are either green for no symptoms, yellow for some and red for “at least one person with Influenza-like” symptoms. The pins are clickable and display the number of users in that zipcode that have reported their condition, but no personal information whatsoever. The number of participants in the state is displayed (1294 in Massachusetts) as well as locations and addresses where people can get vaccinated. Links to local public health agencies are also provided. People can also sign up to receive location-based disease alerts via email. Social sharing of the site and its content is encouraged by the addition of prominently placed social media buttons.
2. Google Flu Trends is another site that provides geographically based information about the spread of the influenza virus. Their data is aggregated from the search terms people are using versus self-reporting. In fact, the graph of the tracked searches (see below) related to the flu compared to the actual reported cases of the virus is so close that they almost overlap.
Google explains how this works:
Each week, millions of users around the world search for health information online. As you might expect, there are more flu-related searches during flu season… You can explore all of these phenomena using Google Insights for Search. But can search query trends provide the basis for an accurate, reliable model of real-world phenomena?
We have found a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. Of course, not every person who searches for “flu” is actually sick, but a pattern emerges when all the flu-related search queries are added together. We compared our query counts with traditional flu surveillance systems and found that many search queries tend to be popular exactly when flu season is happening. By counting how often we see these search queries, we can estimate how much flu is circulating in different countries and regions around the world. Our results have been published in the journal Nature.
In fact, the current flu trend data for Massachusetts reflects the declared state of emergency. (See also this article: Widespread Flu has public logging online.)
3. MappyHealth is another tool that tracks keywords related to health but instead of using data from searches in Google, this system utilizes the Twitter data stream. Their stated reason for the site: “It is hypothesized that social data could be a predictor to outbreaks of disease. We track disease terms and associated qualifiers to present these social trends.” Although this blog post is focused on influenza, the MappyHealth site tracks 27 different categories of illness. They explain how all of this is done on their FAQ page.
The graph below displays Tweets by the hour and day that are related to influenza. The last full day on the chart is January 9, which shows a significant spike in the number of Tweets on the topic.
What is everyone talking about? The user can actually see the individual Tweets by clicking on any point on the graph. The associated Tweets then populate a table beneath the graph (profanity and all). The table includes the time, tweeter, complete text of the tweet, location (if available) condition match and qualifier match. The last two terms need a little bit of explanation. If someone states “I don’t have the flu” the condition match will state “flu” but the qualifier will state “don’t.” Location data is not included in all Tweets, however, MappyHealth does provide a sorting mechanism by location for those that do, and this content is displayed on a map.
Another feature on the site includes a link to a “Realtime Twitter Search.” This link takes the user to an advanced search MappyHealth has already created that includes many different keywords Tweeters might use when talking about influenza, including: flu, influenza, h1n1, h5n1, H3N2, adenovirus, etc. This search is available for every illness category. This feature alone is worthy of a bookmark.
4. Not to be outdone, the Center for Disease Control has released a Influenza smartphone application. The intended audience is clinicians and other health care professionals, with a stated purpose of making it easier to find CDC’s latest recommendations and influenza activity updates. Some of the reviews, however, point to a few problems, such as dated information on flu activity.
5. HealthMap.org was involved in the design and development of “FluNearYou” and therefore has a similar look and feel to it. However, the site does have a very different process for gathering data. HealthMap states that they
“…bring together disparate data sources, including online news aggregators, eyewitness reports, expert-curated discussions and validated official reports, to achieve a unified and comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health. Through an automated process, updating 24/7/365, the system monitors, organizes, integrates, filters, visualizes and disseminates online information about emerging diseases in nine languages, facilitating early detection of global public health threats.”
HealthMap.org also has a mobile application that includes all of the features found on their website, but I actually find the app easier to use. Using the smartphone’s touch-screen-zooming capability makes it is easy to hone in on specific locations and view all of the associated alerts. The alert content, however, is a bit heavy with information from traditional media.
+1. #FluChat: News organizations are not only providing the public with information about the effects of the influenza virus this year, some are also providing a public health awareness function via their presence on social networks. On Thursday, January 10th, for example, a #FluChat was sponsored by @USATodayHealth.
Have questions about the flu? Tweet them using #fluchat and we’ll get you answers at 3 p.m. ET today.— USA TODAY Health (@USATODAYhealth) January 10, 2013
Health based Twitter chats offer the public the opportunity to post questions that are addressed by healthcare professionals or researchers. The CDC, for instance, has conducted many chats on a wide variety of topics. Watching the questions that are posted in these chats offers local public health organizations an opportunity to “hear” the concerns of the public. Knowing this information can help with message formulation and coordination. Here are a few questions posted to the #fluchat:
Bonus: Reviewing the #fluchat stream I found “A Flu With a View” from Sickweather.com. This visualization of flu data comes from a process they use to filter Tweets, Facebook updates as well as self-reporting on their website. They state: “This amount of real-time data, combined with historical data from the CDC and Google Flu Trends, is what gave us a crystal-ball-like view of the flu this year. In fact, our data of flu season to date shows that we are still near the peak of flu season, but possibly (hopefully) starting to level off.”
See this visualization:
None of these tools will help people feel better once they are already stricken with the virus, but they might alert the public to how prevalent the virus is in their community and possibly persuade folks to take preventive measures. Tell me what you think. How could your agency put this information to use?
This post was also placed on the WMASMEM.wordpress.com blog.
Project HEROIC–which stands for Hazards, Emergency Response, and Online Informal Communications (see footnote)–took a close look at the online activity of official organizations during the recent domestic terrorist event in Boston and the ensuing suspect chase–that seemed like a marathon in itself. They released a report today (May 10) titled “Following the Bombing” which I have summarize below.
