In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

Andy Carvin, the social media strategist at National Public Radio, has been a pioneer in the use of technology by the public and others in responding to disasters. At the TED-NYED conference in New York, Carvin gave an interesting presentation, “The New Volunteers: Social Media Disaster Response And You,”
He offers a nice overview of the evolution [...]

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This edition of the “What Should We Tell The Public?” video series features John Shea who manages FEMA’s extensive social media effort. In the segment, Shea urges the public to look online to find information about preparing for emergencies as well as to share info and learn from others. He recommends citizens go to the [...]

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New York State is experimenting with an idea to distribute emergency alerts (including the NYAlerts mentioned in the previous post) over online gaming networks. According to an InformationWeek.com article.
The goal, said New York State Deputy CIO Rico Singleton, is to reach younger residents who spend more time on the Xbox, PlayStation, or Wii than with television [...]

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This edition of the “What Should We Tell The Public?” series features John Gibb, Director of New York State’s Emergency Management Agency. John is a leader in the field, and I have quoted him on previous occasions.
In the video, Gibb recommends that citizens subscribe to government emergency text/e-mail notifications such as the NY-Alert system that he oversees [...]

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I wanted to highlight two points I heard during a terrific recent webinar, “Social Media and Technology Breakthroughs: H1N1 and Seasonal Flu Communication”:  one about the Centers For Disease Control’s (CDC) view that mobile phones have an increasingly valuable role in public health communications and another about Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management’s expanded use of Twitter.
In [...]

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As I had mentioned last week, the first-ever Random Hacks of Kindness took place this weekend in Mountain View, California. The event — which came out of discussions at the inaugural Crisis Camp held in May of 2009 in Washington, D.C. — was aimed at identifying key challenges and developing technological solutions to ‘real world’ problems [...]

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I recently had the opportunity to speak with James Featherstone, the General Manager of Los Angeles’ Emergency Management Department, about the City’s citizen outreach efforts, particularly the relaunch of the Department’s website Ready LA.
When it comes to public preparedness, Featherstone has a bad news/good news situation. On the negative side, the Department must prepare and respond [...]

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There are few positives about contracting Leukemia, but I got one perk  – a H1N1 vaccine. Because of my illness,  I am a member of the ‘underlying condition’ priority group, and therefore just received the vaccination shot.
Around the nation, authorities are now distributing the limited supplies to priority groups. Here in New York, the low [...]

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As part of the inaugural “Random Hacks Of Kindness: Disaster Relief Codejam” (RHoK), a group of more than 150 leading crisis and technology experts are coming together for the next several days to work on identifying key challenges and developing solutions to ‘real world’ problems related to emergency management and response here in the U.S. [...]

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Jeannette Sutton has a terrific post on her Disaster Sociologist blog, “The Cavalry is Assembling: Two Social Media Responses to Hurricane Ida.” She describes how two different online initiatives — the Hurricane Information Center and Emicus.com — began mobilizing to respond to what was initially predicted to be a major storm.
In the end, Ida ended [...]

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