In the communication section, the standard will required organizations to develop overall strategies for effective communication throughout ones emergency management and business continuity program. In addition to requirements to complete an assessment to determine the communication needs and establish systems and procedures some references have been included on the need to consider social media. Because the committee is striving to keep the main part of the standard as concise as possible, most of the social media references are in the Annex sections. Some of these are noted below:

• particular attention should be given to the increased use of social media by the public and their expectations to receive and provide information on social media channels and their capability to widely distribute information about the incident independent of official information channels
• consideration should be given to the fact that traditional media monitors and retransmits information from social media
• components of the system may include mobile and web-based technologies and social media platforms which enable interactive dialogue with and among the public
• public expectations regarding the use of various systems should be considered
• a set of technologies and channels targeted at forming and enabling a potentially massive community of participants to productively collaborate
• under the heading of communication and warning, other communications devices, other technologies such as the Internet [e-mail, social media, text messaging, etc.] wireless devices, fax machines etc. can be used as primary means of alerting specific population groups or in combination with other technologies
• capability is required to monitor information provided by the media (media is broader than traditional TV, radio and newspaper) and stakeholder groups to ensure that reports are accurate and to identify any communication issues that need to be addressed

CSA and the technical committee responsible for Z1600 wants to provide helpful information in the annex but it is reluctant to provide web links to specific resources or reference specific publications because they have the potential to change thus making the document become out of date more quickly. They assume those who use the standard will search the web for relevant resource material to help when implementing a program based on Z1600. I understand the committee's position but also realize it may be a time consuming process for each user of the standard to search the web for the best available material to help develop the social media part of the the communication component of their program. This is where PTSC-Online can be a great resource to those developing an emergency management program by providing and evaluating specific resources to make the search process easier.