Archive for January, 2010

There has been a lot of hype and speculation regarding today’s announcement by Apple of its tablet computing device. The anticipation was high enough to cause an 8-10 minute delay on Twitter a full hour before the actual event.

While the official iPad announcement ends years of speculation regarding the device’s existence, it also confirms that we are moving towards affordable information mobility. It has reaffirmed the existence of “apps” as a programming model. It has placed the contents of the internet, at one time shackled to a desktop, into the hands of nearly anyone and nearly anywhere… including where there is the potential for an emergency.

So how does this change things for Public Information Officer‘s utilizing Social Media?

• Mobility is a driving force in the consumer world and this continues to fuel the fire for further mobile development with the iPad being the latest innovation
• The way our target audiences are consuming information is changing quickly
• The types of information our target audiences are consuming is changing quickly
• Our target audiences want the experience to be as conversational as possible and not just a one way broadcast
• Agencies that either haven’t already or don’t soon start using and embracing Social Media to create content, build trust and identity, which can then be harnessed by the apps themselves will be left behind by those that do
• Social Media PIOs will have to think about effective mobile strategies for their content and their message including the possibility of app development

What do you see the announcement of the Apple iPad doing for your world? Share your thoughts in the comments below…

Last week I was intrigued by this tweet from Craig Fugate:

The link he provided was to a shared situational map and reporting center powered by Ushahidi. This open source project was intaking the crisis information through crowd sourcing in near real time locally. Since there was a lack of a centralized command and control center in Haiti to organize and direct the humanitarian efforts, the Relief Agencies were able to turn to this application to determine where there was an urgent need in proximity to their location. You can see how the Ushahidi Haitian Center may be useful to a foreign relief agency operating in the theater of the disaster.

So just what is Ushahidi you ask?

What is Ushahidi? from Ushahidi on Vimeo.

While Ushahidi is an open source project, and therefore free to use, after quickly perusing the source code it will require some moderate to advanced technological knowledge to make it work. Some other places that have deployed the Ushahidi system include MapATL – Visualizing the crime in Atlanta and the Swine Flu Outbreak.

What I really like about Ushahidi is that it centralizes your information into one place that the system updates in nearly real time, and it also offers syndication possibilities with RSS Feeds. I can think of quite a few different applications for that feature set.

For those of you who may not have the technological chops to run a Ushahidi installation, our friends at Depiction have some new software upgrades that may be what you are looking for to create a “Common Operational Picture” for all the agencies involved in an incident. While their video does not address the possibility of crowd sourcing the ability to report incidents, they will be demonstrating these features at a webinar on 1/27/10 @ 1:00pm PST where I am sure they will be willing to answer any questions about how Depiction can be used in that way.

Does your agency have the technological knowledge to install Ushahidi? If not, then what do you think the biggest challenge is to attaining that level of tech independence?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Coordinating Software Developer Volunteers (ushahidi.com)
• Working on Ushahidi’s Haiti Response (whiteafrican.com)
• Volunteers Power the Open Crowdsourcing Movement (ushahidi.com)
• Ushahidi Wins an Open Source Award in Kenya! (ushahidi.com)
• Open Source Software in Government (avantrasara.com)
• Why Open Source is the New Software Policy in San Francisco (mashable.com)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Mark Basnight of the Charlotte Fire Department joins us for the second episode of the PIOSocialMedaTraining.com podcast which is now available for your listening pleasure!

In our second audio podcast you can hear us discuss:

• The view from the #SMR2009 Winner’s Circle with Charlotte Fire Department
• How the contest gave Charlotte FD a vehicle to spotlight their Social Media efforts
• How stakeholders in the day-to-day success of the Charlotte FD responded
• Building trust and relationships is vital
• For agencies looking to start in Social Media, start slow and experiment with personal accounts
• The Social Media Response in Haiti
• The first interview out of Haiti was via Skype which is the same service we use to record the podcast
• The first video and images out of Haiti were via Twitter and Facebook
• Fundraising efforts spread throughout Social Media in many forms
• Social Media can be the source of unsubstantiated rumors
• Agencies need to engage in Social Media and define themselves as trusted sources of information
• Agencies engaged in Social Media have the power to stop the wheels of the rumor mill if established as trusted sources of information

Connect with Mark and The Charlotte Fire Department on Twitter and Facebook

Want to listen while you’re on the go?

Thanks for listening!

Since the 7.0 magnitude earthquake rocked Haiti 60 hours ago it has become clear that the true first responder in both getting the word out and providing coordination has been Social Media. Here’s just a few of the developments in Haiti having to do with Social Media:

• An Advanced Twitter Search of Tweets within 50 miles of Haiti provided a filter to zone in on news from the actual area
• The first interviews to come out of Haiti aired on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 via the Social Media tool Skype
• Photos posted through Twitter and Facebook were the first images showing the sheer destruction from the island nation
• “Yele” was the most popular topic less than 24 hours after the earthquake struck as people tweeted and retweeted messages to make a $5 donation to singer Wyclef Jean’s Yele Haiti Foundation. This was done by sending the text message “Yele” to the number 501501, which inspired a slew of other mobile giving campaigns. The organization also uses Twitter and Facebook
• Facebook users are calling to their friends to donate to the various relief funds in lieu of the virtual gifts they usually receive and Facebook launches a Global Relief Page in response
• The American Red Cross and The Salvation Army have taken to their Twitter accounts soliciting for mobile donations.
• The calls for donations using Social Media prompted the FBI to issue a donation advisory aimed to help the good hearted avoid online scams
• The Twitter hashtag #rescuemehaiti has been used to identify locations where there are potentially trapped victims while #relativesinhaiti has been used to try and contact family members

US Responders In Haiti

The lead governmental office coordinating the relief efforts in Haiti is the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance. FEMA’s Daily Situation Reports have included the status of deployed and standby FEMA resources including:

• US&R VA-1 Hub
• US&R VA-2 Hub and Facebook Group
• US&R CA-2 Hub
• US&R CA-5
• US&R CA-7
• US&R FL-1 Hub
• US&R FL-2 Hub
• US&R NY-1 Hub
• US&R OH-1 Hub
• US&R TX-1 Hub
• USNS Comfort Hub and Facebook Group

Unfortunately, as you may notice, the Urban Search & Rescue teams have not yet embraced Social Media.

VAFireNews is providing updates about VA-1 and VA-2

Do you want to understand what Social Media can do for your agency? Spend the 30 minutes to watch the 5 Reasons and Methods for PIOs to Develop and Distribute Social Media to see the benefits a Social Media presence will be able to provide your agency.

Mobile Giving Campaigns

Here is a list of the mobile giving campaigns via Mobile Giving Insider:

• Text HAITI to 25383 to donate $5 to International Rescue Committee
• Text HAITI to 30644 to pledge a donation to CARE
• Text RELIEF to 30644 to get automatically connected to Catholic Relief Services and donate money with your credit card
• Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross
• Text the word HAITI to 52000 to make a $10 contribution to The Salvation Army in the United States
• Text HAITI to 45678 to donate $5 to the Salvation Army in Canada
• Text YELE to 501501 to donation $5 to Yele
• Text HAITI to 864833 to donate $5 to The United Way
• Text CERF to 90999 to donate $5 to The United Nations Foundation
• Text DISASTER to 90999 to donate $10 to Compassion International

It was Social Media that was the actual first responder on the scene in Haiti. How ready are you to be there with it?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Donating by Text: Haiti Fundraising Goes Viral (time.com)
• Red Cross Mobile Donations Top $3 Million (appscout.com)
• Haiti Text Donation Campaigns Face 90-Day Delays (gigaom.com)
• Covering disaster on the real-time Web: The Haiti earthquake (digiphile.wordpress.com)
• Gleaning Information From Haiti Online (thelede.blogs.nytimes.com)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Join Greg Friese, co-founder of PIOSocialMediaTraining.com to explore reasons and methods to develop and distribute social media. During this recorded interactive session Greg shares tips, techniques, best practices, and examples of emergency response organizations using social media.

Do you want to experience a live event? Keep an eye on our webinar offerings with our partner EMS Boot Camp!

The following video appeared on YouTube in the wake of the earthquake this past weekend that occurred in California:

With the decreased cost and increased availability of video cameras this sort of video is not uncommon anymore when events happen.

What will be more important will be the ability to upload videos with geo location data similar to how geo location enabled Tweets are being monitored by TED. This is a topic we discussed briefly on our first podcast, and it is one that we expect to spend a lot of time on in 2010.

What use of geo location data do you see as being relevant to you in your work as a PIO?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Eureka Earthquake Caught on Video (mashable.com)
• 6.5 quake hits off northern California coast (msnbc.msn.com)
• “I Felt That”: USGS Leverages Earthquake Tweets (gigaom.com)
• 6.5 earthquake strikes off California coast (cnn.com)
• San Francisco Earthquakes Get Their Own Geolocated Twitter Account (techcrunch.com)

One of the most valuable aspects of Social Media is its ability to spread a message both near and far. In order to effectively do that an agency needs to create a Social Media message their consumers can easily become passionate about.

The 5 Basics For A Passionate Message

The real key in creating passionate Social Media consumers is in the message. There are 5 basics that your overall message should follow in order to foster a sense of passion amongst your community…

Target Your Message To Your Community’s Interests

Just as the easiest way to reach an audience is to go where they already are, the easiest way to get your community interested in your message is to tailor it to their interests with something of unique use to them. It is important to understand the community perspective, be able to ignite their passion, and at the same time be both useful and entertaining in order to get your message out there.

Action Item: Consider what the goal of your message is and make a list of 5-10 specific interests from the viewpoint of your community. Identify the broadest one and tailor your message to that one specifically first before addressing any others.

For the #SMR2009 contest we understood that our audience was interested in Social Media itself. Therefore we tailored our message and the event itself around that interest.

Create A Clear Quick Action In Your Message

Both ease and convenience of action is vital. Most media consumers today do not have a long attention span and have even less patience when being asked to do something that is diverting them from what they want to be doing. Your message can be moving, fill them with a need to act, and light the passion in their hearts… but it will be for nothing if they are then blocked from decisively acting quickly. By removing as many barriers you can there is an increase in a chance of success of meeting your goal, whatever it may be.

Action Item: Define a clear action that you want your message to direct to. Make sure it is an action of relative ease and preferably one they perform without navigating away from the message.

For the #SMR2009 contest we created a clear path of action for both nominations and voting. We included specific platform instructions and accommodations for Twitter since we know that a large portion of our audience utilizes it, and made the actions as easy as possible by providing both a sample nomination via Twitter and an in page nomination form.

Utilize Multiple Media Formats

What media formats will work best for your message? Will it be in an entirely written format or will you be able to use images as well? What about video and audio? Whatever formats you choose to use, be sure that they are also embeddable and usable by others. Allowing others who are passionate about your message to embed a video, audio, graphic, or even the written word on their own will only help you to reach a wider audience. This is your ultimate goal, and enabling your passionate consumers to reproduce your efforts is vital.

Action Item: Look at your different spokes and make a note of what offers the ability to embed content as opposed to what does not. Whoever allows embedding, create a piece of media for that platform, and then embed that piece of media as part of your message.

For #SMR2009 we did not use any embeddable media. This was a conscious choice we made because of the wide scope of platforms we were dealing with. You can see this idea in action at the #FCBLOG09 Contest hosted by FireCritic. Towards the bottom of the page he not only is providing graphics for use on other blogs, but he is also providing the HTML code so they can easily cut and paste it.

Centralize Your Goals

So just how much can you really fit into 140 characters? Chances are your message and the call to action will exceed that limitation. This is why either a blog post or a page to direct your community to is vital. A blog post has the advantage of being transmitted via RSS, but a page has an advantage when it comes to long term search engine results.

Action Item: Centralize your message and action onto a page (if you’re blog platform allows pages that is), author a post about it, and link to the page via your other spokes.

For #SMR2009 we had a page with all the rules and forms as well as a blog post with the Quick Rules linking to the page. All of our Twitter and Facebook mentions specifically linked to the page.

Believe In Your Message

Your belief in your message will be evident by the actual effort you put into it. The absolutely worst thing you can ever do is to leave out a step or a stage in limbo. Have a clear cut schedule as to what needs to be done by when, and then stick to that schedule. Worried about unforseen circumstances for a step you may need to manually do? Build yourself a little bit of a cushion but announce that up front in the time table.

Action Item: Use Google Calendar or another time/task keeping tool when planning out your campaign. Be realistic in the planning stages so that your delivery does not falter.

Going into #SMR2009 we had a specific timetable set-up. We were providing 10 days of nominations along with 10 days of voting (we actually provided 12 days of voting but subtracted the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day holidays from the equation) which we initially thought would be enough time to both get the results from the Judges AND privately ask the Finalists for a blurb for the voting page. Due to the high volume (and uber-quality) of the nominations, we extended the judging time but this didn’t allow us to speak to the Finalists prior to the official announcement which still went off on time.