Help Research and Support the Response to Hurricane Irma
We need your help! If you have a few minutes, please read below.
As Hurricane Irma bears down on Florida, hundreds, maybe thousands of organizations are preparing to descend upon the state to support the survivors. It is an effort that takes many different types of people from many different organizations. But who are these groups? How do they find each other?
These questions are the impetus for the Response Roster Project. We want to understand response efforts from the perspective of both the official and unofficial response. Who are the unsung heroes and responders taking time to help in any way they can?
Looking for My Virtual EM Conference Presentation?
A couple weeks ago I informed you that I was participating in my first virtual conference. I am happy to report the conference was a resounding success and I had many people attend my session on data, technology and social media for disaster management.
Unfortunately, I know many of you could not make it. Don't fret! Check out the recorded video below...
Feedback Needed on House Bill Proposing Social Media Research Project with Red Cross
Representative Thompson from Mississippi introduced a bill to the House of Representatives for the American Red Cross (ARC) to conduct a pilot research project to better leverage social media in disasters. The language in the bill is fairly vague, but I gather they want the ARC to implement something tangible and then evaluate its usefulness and performance.
A study like this could be very useful to the wider social media in emergency management (SMEM) community. I particularly like how the bill incorporates the use of social media to help deliver response supplies to affected areas, a form of operational intelligence. And social media for operations and intelligence is the next frontier of social media research that will enable disaster decision makers to make better decisions faster and more accurately.
I will be providing feedback on this bill and am curious about others' thoughts. What other components of SMEM should be researched? Will this be useful to you? How so?
You can track the bill here. Here are the quick and dirty details of the bill:
Are Disaster Infographics Still Cool? Useful?
It seems like every week or month, I get "the latest" disaster infographic in my inbox. Inforgraphics have become popular in recent years to communicate complicated topics and data. There are infographics on social media, types of hazards, impact to businesses, emergency management careers, etc. I keep a Pinterest board for these types of graphics (see below).
Because I am largely a curator of this information, not a consumer, I am not clear how infographics have helped the industry. Are disaster infographics useful? How have they helped? Are they effective? Have you used any in your work? If so, how?
Check out of a few of the infographics below and let me know what you think.
Exercising Social Media - Review of and Q&A with EMSocialSimulation
I was recently able to talk with both Corey Mulryan and Kyle McPhee from Hagerty Consulting, a well-known and fast growing emergency management consulting firm. Corey and Kyle have been leading an effort at Hagerty to develop a new social media exercise tool called EMSocialSimulation. This blog post contains a review of the tool as well as Hagerty's Q&A responses that provide additional information.
EMSocialSimulation is a great social media simulation tool geared toward organizations and jurisdictions looking to train and exercise on beginner to intermediate social media capabilities at an affordable price. I was impressed...
Idiot's Guide to Reddit
In many cases, we all need the simplest possible explanation for something. It is a fact of life that no matter how hard we try to "get it," we are stymied until we hear it explained to use like we are in elementary school.
This was the case for me not too long ago. It happened to be for Reddit, "a type of online community where users vote on content to take part in a reddit community." Call it a mental block or simply glazing over the obvious, I just couldn't wrap my head around this type of user community and how it could be used in general as well as for disaster management.
I found two great videos that led me to my aha moment and succinctly explain what Reddit is and how it works:
The first time I experienced Reddit's prominence was in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon Bombings. Reddit users upvoted article(s) that incorrectly identified a suspect. This reporting was grossly negligent and contributed significantly to rumors that should never have gotten the attention they did.