In this era of public participation in events, official communicators need to work with the non-official communicators. The National Hurricane Center seems to get this idea of participation and its reflected in their effort to seek input on better ways to communicate with the public specifically about storm surges. To that end they have published a webpage from ideascale, that makes it easy for you or anyone to submit ideas. More than just a suggestion box, it is an interactive tool that allows comments and voting on the ideas submitted showing which ideas are rising to the top based on the votes. So far at this writing 12 ideas have been posted wit 49 participants.
I suggest you have a look. You probably have some good ideas to share, but even if you don't it is very instructive for communicators to look at the ideas that are being submitted. I'm noticing the importance being placed on graphic presentation of storm surge information. Ah yes, visuals. Not just words.
Thanks Harris County (TX) JIC for bringing this to my attention.
