Consider the following scenario: you and your closest buddies are sitting around a table in a conference room. The doors are closed, the projector is on, and you are paying careful attention to the presenter who has the distinct pleasure of lecturing to you immediately following a carbohydrate-rich lunch of pasta. At some point, a fire alarm begins to go off. You sniff the air; it doesn't smell like smoke. You look around; no one is moving from their seats, the speaker continues to drone on, the conference organizers seem unfazed by the noise. You turn to your table-mates who each shrug their shoulders indicating "I don't really know what it means." Murmurs in the crowd begin as people question whether this alarm indicates the need for action or perhaps whether it is just an annoyance that should be ignored. Before doing anything drastic, such as taking a self-protective measure like evacuating the building, you do something common to most everyone who has ever been faced with a potential risk scenario - you 'mill about' and ask questions in order to make sense of the information and determine what should be done about it.

Now shift this scenario just a bit. No longer are you and your buddies sitting around a table in a conference room, but you are distributed across a geographical area. You're watching a webinar after lunch and you're participating through a virtual chat mechanism. At the same time, you have Tweetdeck and an instant messaging program open on your desktop, your mobile phone is attached to your hip, and the TV is on in the background. You receive a text message from your daughter who says that something is happening in the downtown area and it is drawing crowds of people. You start to see geo-coded Tweets appear from that same location where people in the crowd begin to comment and even post pictures to Flickr about what is taking place in the vicinity. Your own attention is diverted from the webinar as you begin to communicate through your social networks to inquire about what is taking place in the downtown area. Before taking any additional action, you seek out information, discuss it, and then make a decision on what to do next. Essentially, you eMill (thanks to Michele Wood of Cal State Fullerton for this concept).

eMilling is similar to the socio-behavioral activity of milling that occurs following every alert, warning, or crisis notification that is sent. Before a person or group of persons takes protective action, they confirm with their peers, colleagues, and the geographically proximate public what the danger might be, how to interpret the risk, and what actions should be taken. With the advent of new technologies, milling has moved from the physical space of a hazard to the electronic space of networked communications. Never before have we had the opportunity to connect to people so quickly or to observe individual and communal decision making in relation to an impending hazard. This is milling moved to the online space of the internet. It is eMilling.

Jeannette Sutton is a disaster sociologist, specializing in alerts, warnings and crisis communication using socila media.