I'm very fortunate to work with some very smart people. The staff at Emergency Management Ontario is absolutely dedicated to the safety of their fellow Ontarians. This commitment shows iteself during every exercise and in real-life emergencies.

It is also very evident during Emergency Preparedness Week. This year, EMO leading the way with some innovative approaches. My previous post reflected on the use of Twitter by EMO, as an alerting channel. Now, they have added a unique emergency preparedness tool on their website that lets Ontarians gauge their own level of preparation, helps them formulate plans and put survival kits together.

The Emergency Preparedness Challenge is a fantastic way to reach out in an interactive way and help Ontarians make the choices that could ensure they have the necessary resilience to survive a major disaster or crisis. I invite you all to give it a try.

 As emergency managers and business continuity planners try to integrate the web and social media into their practice, we should remember that the use of these technologies should not be limited to the response phase only but should apply in all aspects of EM. I gave a presentation to the Emergency Management Council of the Conference Board of Canada in Calgary last week, on that very topic.

You can see the presentation here. The main topics include: the impact of the "age of social convergence" for emergency managers, the challenges the social media revolution brings for EM and BCP, a staged approach in integrating SM in EM and BCP/COOP and some case studies based on recent disasters.

I am very thankful for the leaders of the Conference Board for the opportunity to address their council. I met great people and learned a lot. I sincerely hope to have helped spark some key discussions about the integration of SM in EM practices in Canada.

Some of the conclusions in my presentation:

• social networks are proven emergency information tools
• social networks + volunteer crisis mapping and crowdsourcing offer resiliency in disasters
• age of social convergence means that people want to participate during a disaster ... not just be witnesses or victims
• the trend is toward a future where emergency managers will act upon a community-based situational awareness/common operating picture.

Again, I welcome your comments.