If ______ started a blog, how would the citizens find it? And how would we ever keep up with their info? Just remembering the 911 days and the info that came into the comm. Center during a windstorm is overwhelming. 12 people whose profession is answering calls and interviewing people quickly never able to keep up and generating literally dozens of pieces of information about minor car accidents and downed power lines. If those were the only calls it would be one thing, but there were always just as many calls from people who just wanted to complain because their power was out or no body would answer the phone at the power company, or government should already have everything fixed. Only a small percentage of information received in the call center was valuable or useful info. Just trying to read the tweets would be difficult let alone answering them, researching information, etc and remember that the people answering the phones won't have the information management tools available at their fingertips like a comm. Center. The whole concept of sharing information using twitter, etc. seems a little daunting.
Here's some thoughts back. Twitter is a great tool for during the disaster response (in my opinion). Short concise, quick. Very much "in the moment" type of information. What is different from individual phone calls is that what you write on Twitter is seen by everyone who chooses to follow you. Word of mouth (or word of Tweet) will get the message around to people in their network. If you have good information it will go viral.
You don't have to respond to every Tweet. Follow the conversation. Trees reported down, power out. Hey, you know you have a problem. Get them to geocode it and put it up on a web site. I advocate a Wiki for these purposes. People post their information, pictures, damage estimates and you have situational awareness and even a damage estimate depicted on a map without you doing anything! Other than setting up a system for the reporting to happen.
I like the idea of a blog or Wiki also before an event to get information on preparedness and mitigation out and begin the conversation to develop that electronic relationship and some digital trust.
Yes, it is a bit different from the past--but I guarantee it will make a huge difference in your emergency management programs. Think outside the box!
