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A Citizen’s Eye View of Public Preparedness

Would Creating A Social Networking Game — “Coastal Cleanup” — Be Helpful In Recruiting Volunteers For Gulf Oil Spill Response?

June 4th, 2010 · 1 Comment

I have written several posts about ways citizens could be involved the Gulf Oil Spill cleanup. In an article on PRNewsOnline.com, David All, recommends drawing upon the popularity of games on social networking sites to recruit volunteers:

“…imagine a game — call it “Coastal Cleanup” — that connects people online for a good cause in their local communities offline. Volunteers could “check in” at locations via Foursquare and unlock badges for their volunteer efforts. Or they could earn patches of the ocean as rewards — similar to the (Lil) Green Patch game on Facebook that empowers users to fight global warming.

That’s just the kind of strategy companies and organizations need to be pursuing to win public relations battles in this social-networking era. By now it is clear that people spend a lot of time online, much of it on social-networking sites. And gaming is one of their favorite online activities.

FarmVille, which engaged its community to raise money for Haiti earthquake relief, leads the pack, but other social-gaming venues are rapidly becoming popular. For instance, more than 500,000 users “check in” regularly to earn badges, mayorships and more on Foursquare, which is only a year old, and reportedly growing by 15,000 users each day.”

The full article can be read here.

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Tags: Preparedness Ideas · Volunteering

1 response so far ↓

  • 1 Wharton’s “Quake” Simulation Game Shows Why Humans Do Such A Poor Job Planning For & Learning From Catastrophes // Jun 4, 2010 at 1:05 pm

    [...] Tags "What Should We Tell The Public?" Amanda Ripley American Red Cross Andy Carvin blogs Books CDC CERT Citizen Corps CPR Craig Fugate Cross Blog David Stephenson Drills FEMA Go Bags Gulf Coast Oil Spill H1N1 Homeland Security Inside & Out Homeland Security Watch Hurricane Preparedness Israel Janet Napolitano Media Michael Chertoff National Preparedness Month New York City Department of Health New York Times NYC-OEM NYPD Preparedness 2.0 Preparedness Tips Ready.Gov Red Cross Resilience Rich Cooper Robin Parker Schools Social Media Tips Twitter University of Colorado Natural Hazards Center Video Washington Post YouTube ← Would Creating A Social Networking Game — “Coastal Cleanup” — Be Helpful In … [...]

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