Social convergence impacts emergency managers and first responders in many ways. Gone are the old days of responding in quasi-isolation. This means particularly difficult new challenges for Public Information Officers.

Time is a luxury no incident commander or PIO can afford. There are now four key imperatives when a disaster or emergency occurs:

1. Respond … that hasn't changed … but organizations now do so under much more scrutiny

2. Alert your audiences … be socially convergent (use…

Recent events have again demonstrated the absolute necessity for organization to monitor social media during incidents or crises. This goes well beyond using social media as a communications tool  (althought it's a great start). The mall attack in Kenya has given another (albeit a rather unpleasant one) argument for the benefits of active social listening. After all, if the bad guys can use social networks for situational awareness, shouldn't you ? 

 To add to this context, the terrorists…

Someone made an interesting observation yesterday, about the common complaint heard from employees and from the public, that no one tells them anything.

In fact, we push out information to employees and the public all the time. We may not always meet the needs of those audiences, but we do have good intentionss and mature processes for informing people what's going on, and often, what they should do.

So what is going on here? We provide good information, but our clients still complain…

http://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=100924

June 4, 2013 - From the President and CEO of the Internet Association: (trade organization comprised of 17 leading Internet companies across the globe, including AOL, Airbnb, Amazon.com, ebay, Expedia, Facebook, Google, IAC, LinkedIn, Monster, Path, Rackspace, Salesforce.com, SurveyMonkey, TripAdvisor, Yahoo, and Zynga.)

"Social media a vital role in the critical days and weeks after a disaster, when efforts transition from…

Our society moves at a million miles an hour. That pace, and the influx of messages, makes it very difficult for EM agencies and governments to reach through the clutter and impart the benefits of preparedness and being informed during emergencies. Are there easy solutions? No ... However, it's essential that officials keep up with the times. Although the need to use all channels to reach all audiences remains, different social networks offer the ability to reach different types of clientele.

The study is part of an ongoing NIST project, launched in 2008, supporting the development of performance metrics and laboratory tests for electronic safety equipment with two-way radio-frequency (RF) transmission capabilities. The New York tests focused on RF-based personal alert safety systems (RF-PASS), used by firefighters as distress beacons, but the test methods and path-loss results are applicable to other wireless devices such as handheld radios.

Follow this link to the summary: http://…

Reports of the Boston attacks came with lightning speed. Too fast to keep up in fact. The pictures and videos are horrific: This kind of event underscores the need to be prepared. We often worry about the big stuff: attacks against airplanes or nuclear plants. But what about the threats from within? From radicalized extremists using unsophisticated means? A whole look at our preparedness (in Canada and the US) should be in the cards now ...

So a few observations about today's events, media…

This is the last post in a series which started in late 2011. It focuses on my efforts to help organizations charter their course toward integrating social media into emergency management (SMEM). The previous posts: 

Series introduction (October 12, 2011)

Part 1: starting from scratch (October 23, 2011)

Part 2: Setting objectives and measurement (October 23, 2011)

Part 3: Choosing your first social network (November 2, 2011)

Part 4 Interactive use of social media (November 22, 2011)

Part…

There's no way around it: emergency managers have to take social media into consideration when they plan how their EOC will operate during incidents ... I'd make the same parallel with the incident command post for first responders ...

We all know however, there are varying degrees of acceptance and use of social media among the emergency management community in Canada and elsewhere. So the key is to convince executives and officials by showcasing the benefits of social listening during…