Social Media 4 Emergency Management

Recognize this hotel?

If you do, check your schedule for this Monday evening, March 10th.

This is the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center hotel in Virginia and it will be the site for the National Emergency Management Association Mid-Year Forum for 2014.

Whether or not you are planning to attend this conference, if you are in the local area and have any relationship to the #SMEM conversations on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, you should plan to stop by the Finn & Porter restaurant inside the hotel to meet up with a number of active SMEM collaborators.

This will be a casual gathering or #TweetUp and you are invited to join us.

Early rumors suggest that sightings of Kevin Sur (@rusnivek), Joanna Lane (@joannalane), Jeff Phillips (@_jsphillips), Kim Stephens (@kim26stephens), Todd Jasper (@toddjasper), Eric Kant (@etechops), Tanya Ferraro (@tjlasagna), Brandon Greenberg (@disasternet), Steve Peterson (@emergencycomms) and I (@cherylble) will be hanging out.

Don’t be shy! Stop on by anytime after 5p…..I suspect we’ll be there for most of the evening.

Also, feel free to follow the #NEMA2014 hashtag throughout the conference. I’ll likely do the bulk of my sharing through the @sm4em handle so as not to annoy my non-EM friends.

Have a GREAT week.

@JackBurkman on left, @Jack_Burkman on right

Does the name “Jack Burkman” sound familiar?

If you are a sports enthusiast, you have probably heard about the lobbyist in Washington D.C. who is proposing legislation to ban gay players from the National Football League.

This week, I have a great case study to share with you about the “other” Jack Burkman.

Jack’s story is special because through his experience you will hear how being active in social media has helped him manage his own reputation, despite the activities of his name-sharing twin.

First, let me share a few important details about the less-famous Jack Burkman

• Jack Burkman is a 3-time, locally-elected politician who serves on the Vancouver City Council in Washington State,
• Jack has had a career in engineering and management for Hewlitt Packard,
• Jack understands the importance of social media and the opportunity that it provides for people to be more involved in their community,
• Jack made it to Twitter fast enough to snag the Twitter handle @JackBurkman, and
• Jack is a genuinely great guy who loves to listen to all sides of an issue before making an informed opinion.

This past Monday, the “other Jack” went public with his desire to develop legislation to ban gay football players from the NFL.

And social media responded.

People rallied around the cause, sought out ways to contact Jack Burkman, and started posting.

And, for Councilor Jack Burkman, posts immediately began appearing on Facebook and Twitter.

The first one I caught was a simple word: “Idiot” which immediately caught my eye because the Jack I know is hardly an idiot.  And, in a quick search, it was obvious that people were mixing up the identities of the two men.

But what I noticed next was fascinating, @JackBurkman was responding and talking back.

In fact, my local Jack created a canned message which simply said,

You are looking for Jack_Burkman. I’m in Vancouver, WA. Our views and politics are quite opposite. #Doppelganger

— Jack Burkman (@JackBurkman) February 27, 2014

He sent @mention replies to nearly everyone who included him in their vitriolic reactions.

On Facebook, Jack would reply to the comment and then, shortly thereafter, he would delete the comment altogether.

After a few hours of dealing with the comments, Jack changed his profile picture to this:

Jack understood that his profile picture could serve as his “online yard sign” and aimed to send a message via the colors used and his simple message.  He knew that the use of the rainbow colors would immediately cause people to say “wait a minute, why would Conservative Jack use those colors?”

Now this isn’t the first time that Vancouver Jack has been mistaken for Conservative Jack.  In fact, in both 2006 and in 2010, Conservative Jack made the news for controversial comments and on both occasions, Vancouver Jack has received a ration of hateful calls and emails.

In the previous incidents, the emails and snail mail were slower to arrive, but Jack felt incapable of moderating the response because he only had the option of replying to people individually.

According to Jack, the 2014 attack was more virulant, but as quickly as it ramped up, it also quickly ramped down as the conversation was rerouted to the proper @Jack_Burkman.

I had the opportunity to interview Jack this past week and I asked him what he would share with other public officials who might be reluctant to join social media because of situations like this one.

In a very matter-of-fact way, Jack said, “I like the metaphor of a house burning down. You must stop what you are doing and deal with it. It’s the nature of the beast.  You have to be responsive to the public where they are at.”

With curiosity, I asked Jack whether he ever thought about turning off the comments on his Facebook page and he shook his head and said it never crossed his mind.  He engages in social media to reach the public and would never think about shutting off their access to him as a local representative.

While others might rush to shut off the comments, Jack welcomed them.  He also never intended to push people’s comments over to the instigator of this situation. His only goal was to inform folks and let them know that they had misdirected their concerns.  And people responded with fast apologies and deletions of their content.

You may be wondering how much time it took to respond, Jack noted that he probably dedicated about 4 hours on the first day primarily as he wrapped his head around how to respond most appropriately.  He replied to every email, tweet and Facebook post on his own.

In comparing the 3 different situations since 2006, it was clear that social media gave Jack a venue to talk back to those who were attacking him.  And if Jack wasn’t involved in social media? His reputation would still be under attack based on the use of his name.  Social media gave Vancouver Jack the ability to say “this isn’t me.”

Jack’s presence on social media also limited the number of direct phone calls he received about this situation.  In 2006 and 2010, the attacks came primarily on email & phone.  But this time? Jack only received 2-3 phone calls (of course one of those was from CNN requesting an interview before they learned they had a wrong number).

Jack credits his experience in commenting on news media blogs in teaching him how to respond in this situation.  He shared that when he is the first to post in a factual and friendly manner to news articles, the path of the conversation changes.  He said that  he has learned that you cannot join the conversation when the comments are already raging or on fire.  His goal is always to “turn the flame down” when he engages in social media.

To summarize, what are the key lessons that you might want to take from @JackBurkman’s experience?

• Expect rumors & misinformation,
• You cannot respond too quickly with factual information,
• Presence on social media gives you the ability to be involved in the conversation,
• Avoiding social media means that you’ll be left only with phone/email options to dispel rumors which is far more tedious to work with,
• Your profile picture can provide visual cues to readers as well, if simple and clear, and
• Don’t fear the negative campaigns, but rather figure out what messages will turn those flames down.

I loved watching how @JackBurkman handled this situation.  All too often, I hear public officials express fear and reluctance, about getting into social media without realizing how they are limiting their options when it comes to managing their reputations.

You don’t have to know Jack to realize the importance of sharing this story with those in your offices who are still on the fence about social media.

Rumors and misinformation will always be with us.

Get involved so you can set the record straight.

In the past two weeks, I’ve received the following YouTube video from more than 5 people with the important question, “should we abandon Facebook in and pursue other social media sites?”

This video is excellent because it nicely illustrates that “follower count” does not really matter. It is easy to buy “likes” through a variety of websites like Fiverr.com which is why I go crazy when people ask me “how do I get more likes?”  Followers and likes are an artificial metric that means nothing at the end of the day.

In the emergency services field, high follower counts indicate two things: Either an agency has acquired followers through sponsorship or they have had a disaster which drove internet traffic their way during an incident.

It is true that all emergency agencies should see surges in their followings during emergency incidents, if they are engaged actively on social media.  People will naturally follow your accounts if you are providing good information that helps them remain self-sufficient during a time of crisis.  These are the types of likes and followers that you want.

In 2011, Facebook introduced “EdgeRank” and since then, it has been increasingly difficult for your full audience to see the messages that are posted by an agency or business.

What this means, however, is that the key metric you should be watching is whether your messages are being shared with others online.  As the video above explains, Facebook looks for how much engagement your posts receive.  The more natural engagement, the more ways Facebook will move the message so that others can see it.

Here are some ideas on how can you increase the odds that your information will be shared with your larger community:

• When your business or agency shares a post of importance, like it or share it from your personal accounts, too.
• If you have employees with personal Facebook pages, ask them for their help in sharing your agency content.
• If you work with groups of volunteers, be sure that they are aware of your Facebook page and ask for their help also in amplifying your messages.  (Sidenote, however: Don’t just beg people to share your content. Be timely & relevant with your messages so that they will naturally have a higher likelihood of being liked or shared.)
• If you share content in other ways (like via email or newsletter), be sure to include links to your social media accounts.

Let me return, however, to the original question…..should you leave Facebook because they use limiting marketing methods to ensure that they make money?

My answer to every inquiry was this:

Yes, the algorithms are clearly not working in government’s favor for public messaging; however, the sheer size of the population using Facebook still outweighs any other platform considerably at 1.23 billion users as compared to other social sites.  There is a great article that provides the user statistics on many different sites.  You’ll see quickly that the numbers are still in Facebook’s favor.

If I was choosing one other site to invest time into messaging at the moment, however, it would be Instagram.  This picture based site is garnering a lot of engagement and will require you to turn your messaging completely into pictures which might be a leap for many public agencies.  But…..if you want to stay in touch “with the kids,” you may want to work on figuring that out.

So, next time you scroll through Facebook, help your favorite agencies out by liking or sharing their content.  Your engagement is valuable and helps that agency counter the Facebook algorithms.

Here’s a newsflash: I could care less about sports.

Yes, I know I’m from Washington and this next week, I’ll be courteous and feign some interest in the fact that the current Super Bowl Champions are from my home state. I may have even made a pair of football earrings and wore blue today.

Despite my lack of interest, I do, however, tune into the Super Bowl.

But not for the reason that 99.99% of America does.

For the past few years, I’ve been using the Super Bowl to train, mentor and expose other emergency managers to the concept of Virtual Operation Support Teams.

What is a Virtual Operation Support Team (#VOST)?  It’s a group of people who come together and monitor social media for a specific purpose. And, when employed during emergency situation, that specific purpose is usually to monitor social media for specific information surrounding a crisis.

These purposes may include:

• Finding pictures of damage throughout a local community,
• Looking for comments from people who need 9-1-1 services, but can’t call 9-1-1 for some reason,
• Looking for trending complaints or concerns about emergency response,
• Tracking community-led recovery initiatives,
• Watching the feeds of official public safety organizations for key messages to amplify, and
• Sharing personal protective recommendations with the public.

When this type of information is found, it is routinely shared with the Emergency Response entity that it is connected to serve.

Now, to be clear, there isn’t a VOST capability just floating around, waiting to help everyone.  It is important to note that if a community or emergency response entity wants to have a VOST team, it must work to create such a capability in its jurisdiction.  There are currently 31 VOST team in various stages of development all around the world.

VOST Team Leaders convene monthly in a Leadership Coalition conference call to debrief activations and chat about how their teams are developing, training and exercising.  If you are interested in joining these calls, simply email Cheryl at cherylble@gmail.com to be added to the growing email list.

To learn more about the VOST concept generally, also feel free to check out the VOST website at http://vosg.us which is maintained by Joanna Lane of @NYVOST.

Getting back to our #SMEMBowl exercise…..here is what happened today.

• The Game Parameters were placed on a Google Doc to advertise the exercise,
• A Skype Incident Room was created. Everyone who wanted to participate was added into one Skype-chat so that we could all coordinate via text-based chatting,
• A VOST Workbook was opened and access was granted to everyone who was playing (note: access has since been changed to “comment only” so that you can check it out),
• People began to collaborate and fill in the workbook,
• With a mix of experienced VOST members and brand new members, we were able to answer questions, mentor and illustrate some of the work that occurs on regular VOST missions.

At the end of the day, 15 people participated in #SMEMBowl and we have 5 freshly trained folks who have now had a taste of what working a real mission is like.  The returning members also had the chance to brush up on their skills and hang out with each other virtually.

And for those of us who could care less about the Superbowl?  We had fun AND prepared for our next disaster which is a huge win.

If you’ve never considered putting together a Virtual Operations Support Team (VOST), feel free to take a brief look through my agency’s Field Operations Guide.  If you find it useful, feel free to make a copy and modify it with your agency’s needs in mind.

If your agency is still struggling to monitor social media during times of crisis, consider developing a VOST team to help you manage and seek out valuable information.  Our VOST community has an active Skype Room called “All Things VOS” which you can be added to anytime.  Simply connect with a #VOST team leader by using the hashtag #VOST in a tweet with your request.

It’s okay to love sports, but don’t stand on the social media sidelines and hope that it’s okay that you don’t engage.  People will be talking and managing your emergency without you if you ignore the conversation.

Two days ago, my grandfather turned 90 years old.

Today? He joined Facebook and sent me a “friend” request. I nearly fell off my chair.

Age is one of those fascinating things in social media because there are many people who relegate social media to the “younger generation” and yet, there is a growing number of seniors who regularly use social media

In fact, in November of 2013, NPR shared that seniors (over the age of 65) are, indeed, the fastest growing group on social media. They were, of course, citing the most recent PEW report on Internet Life which noted that over 50% of seniors now use social media.  This demographic change in recent years is due, in large part, to the number of people who turn 65 every single day.

But the truth is, with regards to senior usage of online sites, people join social media because of “perceived” need.  While many seniors are happy with their networks of relationships, many also realize that they can stay in touch with a broader number of friends and family online.  This can be particularly true with keeping pace with grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

And, all too often, I hear middle-aged emergency managers quickly dismiss social media without even evaluating their community’s use of social media.  In fact, I often say that if I had a dollar for every time I’m told that peers of mine feel like they will retire before they really need to care about social media, I would be rich.  But I do shake my head.

Our communities are using social media.  Our kids are using social media. Our parents are using social media. And even our grandparents are using social media.

And just in case you need a little perspective on my Grandpa’s age.

• The FCC was formed when my grandfather turned 10 years old in order to regulate radio communications.
• The very first Winter Olympics was held in France along with the very first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
• IBM was actually founded the year he was born.
• He saw “Gone With the Wind” at age 15 when it was first released in the movie theaters.

If you are avoiding social media, it’s time to stop. Seriously.

Earlier this week, some of my friends were taking a class at the Emergency Management Institute (EMI) for Advanced Public Information Officers.

They shared this Twitter slide as it was shared in class and it made me a little crazy for the following reasons:

• Twitter is platform that allows you 140 characters.
• Your goal is to have your information re-shared or retweeted.  This means you can’t use the full 140 characters.  A better goal is about 100 characters.
• If you’re critiquing grammar on Twitter, you probably haven’t really been on Twitter.

Engagement on Twitter can look very short and sweet, but rarely follows anyone’s style guide. Sorry, Chicago.

Here is an example:

. @mtthwhgn I’ve just read your recent #smem blog. Great work http://t.co/FWj3BxLH2N TY for the ‘shout out!’ #resilience

— Caz Milligan (@Caz_Milligan) January 12, 2014

In this Tweet, by my friend Caz Milligan, here are some things to notice:

• The first character is a “.” This allows the general public to see the Tweet.  If Caz had directed this tweet to @mtthwhgn, only she, the recipient and those who follow both Caz and @mtthwhgn would see the Tweet in the general timeline.  By putting any character at the start of the tweet, it will be seen by anyone that follows Caz.
• You’ll notice the use of the SMEM hashtag as illustrated by #smem.  This is like shipping a Tweet into a stream.  A hashtag (placing a # sign in front of any word) will make it independently searchable.  So, anyone watching the #SMEM comments on Twitter (but who may not follow Caz) will also be able to see this Tweet.  Same goes for her use of the hashtag #resilience.
• The word “thank you” is shortened by TY (also, probably not in any style guide for good grammar).  You’ll also see regular use of the acronyms RT (re-tweet) and MT (modified tweet).  Many other text-based abbreviations are used in Twitter.  Here is a good list if you need a reference:   http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/textmessageabbreviations.asp
• And while you don’t see it in this Tweet, you may even see numbers used in place of words like 2 = to, too, two, 4 = for and/or B4 = before.

While the world can always use more encouragement for folks to focus on grammar, practicing your good grammar skills on Twitter is not really necessary.

The Twitter community will ask you to provide timely, relevant and interesting information.  Accuracy is good, too, although in dynamic situations may be a little tricky.  I’ve heard it said that you can be timely or accurate, but rarely both at the same time.  Your community will forgive you for inaccuracies as long as you quickly correct misinformation and communicate regularly.

So, save your grammar pokes for Facebook, okay?

Because I have a reputation for using social media, I find that I am often invited to projects or committees so as to “bring the social media” to the table.

People are often surprised when I don’t bring up the topic of social media at all.

Social media is a great tool, but regular use doesn’t always indicate that your process is social.

Let’s talk about how you collaborate currently on your projects.

When you have a face-to-face meeting with all of the players or partners involved on a project, you have a highly social environment.

From the start, people are able to make eye contact, gauge body language, set objectives and work on identified outcomes. You have a direct ability to transform a project from one stage to its successive next stage.

Note: If you’re attending face-to-face meetings and projects are making no noticeable progress, you need to evaluate the value of that meeting.

One way to test the value of the meeting is to evaluate if any transformation has taken place from where information was at the beginning of the meeting to what occurred by the end of the meeting. If information makes no noticeable change, you could likely have shared this same information via static format like an email or a newsletter. Don’t waste people’s precious meeting time unless you are aiming to make forward-moving progress.

Now, think about how you collaborate outside of meetings:

• Are participants able to choose their level of engagement?
• Can participants see the comments/feedback from other partners or players?
• Can project evolution be accessed, if desired?
• Are project documents/history all easily accessible for partners?
• Can partners or players easily see the next steps or how to engage in the project?
• Are the tools being used simple and understandable?
• Are you getting the outcomes that you wish to see of other participants?

Many projects still rely on email for collaboration.  Email is a really challenging tool for collaboration.

If you have 5 or more partners attempting to work on a project, a simple “reply all” on email grows annoying very quickly.  If project history or documents are primarily shared via email, you may be missing partners right from the start who have size-based limitations on what can be shared over their email servers.

Some collaborative methods of working together include:

• InstantConference provides a set of free tools for teleconferencing
• Doodle.Com for collaborative scheduling,
• Skype which allows for document sharing, voice, video and chat-based conferencing,
• Google+ Hangouts which allow for video-based meetings which can be recorded,
• Google Docs which allow multiple people to edit a document at once
• WikiSpaces which allows collaborative working on a topic
• QikPad and Pirate Pads allow for quick work in a shared space along with chat features
• Trello provides a way to collaborate easily on to-do lists and next step elements of projects
• Dropbox allow partners to easily share files.

It’s not so much which tool you use, but rather a mindset that says “can everyone engage to the level in which they are interested in the project?”

Can people access information, make progress on the project and contribute without emails being required?  If your answer to this question requires an email, you might want to check out a collaborative tool and see if that helps to boost the level of engagement among your participants.

Working collaboratively can save you an incredible amount of time.  The more you collaborate, the more you’ll crave it.  It will indeed transform the way you work.

The one downside, however?  You will begin to notice how much email-based collaboration still occurs….and how ineffective it truly is.  Sorry!

I will never forget the first week of January in 2004.

It was perhaps the most epic week that I had experienced to date because I…

• Turned 30 years old,
• Was in my 1st week as an Emergency Manager,
• Had to be a quick study because the Pacific Northwest was experiencing a rather historic snowstorm, and
• Learned I was pregnant with my first child.

In my first 10 years following college, I had worked in the Juvenile Justice system.  I interned as a Crime Victim Advocate, worked in a correctional facility for young men, worked transitionally in a youth shelter for girls who had become impregnated through rape & incest situations and finally settled into working in a risk assessment center, determining release plans for youth at the point of their arrest.  I loved my jobs in this career field, but didn’t really see myself advancing long-term.  So, I pursued my Master’s Degree in Public Administration.

Shortly after finishing my degree, I started looking at other positions in county government.  And, I got my first interview to be a County Commissioner’s assistant.  I thought that job sounded like fun.  During my interview with the County Administrator, he asked me one fateful question which was “What do you know about Homeland Security?”

This was such a surprising question because during my Master’s program, I had been assisting a professor write her book about the Department of Homeland Security.  During my final year, my professor departed the university, which left me in a lurch because no other professor was willing to work on that topic as part of my thesis work.  When the County Administrator asked me this question, I don’t think he anticipated the earful I gave him.

A week later, I got a call.  I didn’t get the Commissioner Assistant job, but if I was willing to wait, he asked if I’d be willing to work on creating a Homeland Security office that worked closely with Emergency Management.  Of course, the rest is history.

My first few days on the job occurred during a very snowy winter which had sparked a local activation of our Emergency Operations Center.  I was quickly beginning to understand what the Incident Command System was by living it and trying to digest the Emergency Operations Plan as quickly as humanly possible.

As I wander down memory lane, I thought it might be fun to consider where technology was in 2004.

In doing a little review of Forbes, Wikipedia and other pop culture sites, the following describes where we were 10 years ago in the tech world:

• Laptop computers were about $750-800 and becoming more affordable to users.
• The camera phone market was relatively new.  Nokia predicted that 2/3rd of phones make have cameras in the future.
• 3.0 Megapixel cameras were around $200.
• iPod’s were predicted to reach the $250 price point, but $200 still seemed out of the question.
• Video-blogging was just becoming possible.
• Facebook launched on the Harvard campus to students only.
• Nintendo launched it’s DS handheld gaming system.
• TiVO was predicted to be overtaken by EchoStar and be “clobbered” in 2004.
• DVD players were about $300.
• Bluetooth Technology was new.
• MySpace turned from file storage into a social networking site.
• Google offered its initial IPO and raised $1.6 billion dollars.

And if you really want a glimpse of 10 years ago, check out my hair!  It’s okay to laugh.  Remember, I was just exiting my roaring 20′s.

Having spent the better part of this weekend working on my Certified Emergency Manager recertification through the International Association of Emergency Management, I have a few observations which will hopefully help you if you are seeking your CEM credential in our profession.

First, and foremost, don’t wait until the last minute to round up all of the proofs to illustrate that you have been working hard over the last 5 years.

If you follow me on Twitter, you know I waited too long to decide whether or not I would recertify.  My dilemma has been this: I LOVE being an emergency manager, but I don’t love documenting everything I do.

To be frank, in my 10 years as an emergency manager, I feel like we spend far too much time filling out forms that say what we do and don’t spend near enough time actually doing the work.

I don’t use the CEM acronym after my name because I don’t like to feel like I have to cite a bunch of letters to prove my worth in this field.  Beyond that, initials are often used as points of expertise and exclusivity.  And, in my world, I often learn more from volunteers than I do from anyone else.

But I did pursue my CEM credential 5 years ago because I wanted to illustrate commitment to my profession and because it requires me to reflect on what I have been doing over time.  It allows me to self-evaluate against set standards and it is healthy to gauge the contributions I make to this field.

What was humorous over these past 5 years is that my recertification manual truly tells a story of how social media has changed my world.  5 years ago, I met most of the CEM proofs, but some of them took some “creative” connectivity.  This year, I could have certified in every category except for proctoring CEM tests thanks, in large part, to working with social media & emergency management.  And there were committees and projects that I left on the cutting room floor simply because I didn’t want to burn up a 2nd ream of paper.

If you are contemplating obtaining your CEM certification someday, here are some recommendations:

1)  Start keeping copies of these types of documents as you work:

• Training Agendas & Sign-In Sheets
• Training Certificates of Completion
• Thank You Notes for presentations
• Committee Assignment Letters
• Leadership Award Letters or Media Announcements
• Conference Badges (yes, believe it or not, they count as proof of your attendance)
• Conference Agendas (along with things you learned at the conference)
• Special Assignments
• Publications in which you are mentioned.
• Letter from Legislators that prove you had contact with them.

2)  Take a look at the Certification Manual online so that you can determine which types of “professional contributions” you plan to make over 5 years.  Then, add those to your ”to-do” list.  The link for certification is:   http://www.iaem.com/page.cfm?p=certification/application

3)  Be attentive to the types of training that you sign up for.  Remember, only 25 hours in each category get credit.  This means that you need to take training on a broad spectrum of skills and experiences.  And, of the 100 hours needed to recertify, 25 of those have to be in a ”general management” category and not “emergency management.”  Planning ahead can help.

4)  If you are on a limited training budget, keep an eye on the FEMA Independent Study courses and take the new courses as they come out.  The link for these courses is:  http://www.training.fema.gov/IS/

And, I hear a rumor that certification will be available through an online application in 2014 (which is a really good thing because if I have to send another 3-ring binder through the mail in 5 years, I may really get annoyed).

On a separate note: if you are an organization that runs a credentialing or certification process, you should really consider some collaborative technology development.  As I was completing this paper-based, data collection process, I couldn’t help but be annoyed at how futile it is to send all of these paper records to a fate where they will ultimately be destroyed after review.

Seriously?  This is 2013, right?

Let’s consider for a minute how useful it could be to have professional emergency managers submit their experiences online to a searchable database.  Then, let’s dream about the power of mobilizing our professionals based on their skill sets and experiences with emergencies, technologies and communication skills.

This kind of dreaming could become a reality quickly if the leadership teams in organizations truly embrace the desire to collaborate in the most effective manner possible.  In days of shrinking resources, we need to seriously look at systems across our profession to better evaluate ways to minimize the effort and maximize the return.

Okay, I’ll stop now.  And get back to labeling my binder tabs and baking some holiday cookies.

May you all be blessed this week as you celebrate your special days with those you love.  It’s hard to believe that 2014 is just around the corner.

If you have access to any “public information officer curriculum,” I have a homework assignment for you:

Check the curriculum and compare how many slides are dedicated to social media versus the number focused on writing press releases.

Recently, I have been taking a look at both public information slides and videos and it is interesting to see how dated many presentations are with regards to information dissemination.

Often, there is a “nod” to social media where a slide will say “it’s important and you might want to figure it out,” but rarely is there any specific discussion of the benefits or instruction on how to use it effectively.

What really kills me though is the extraordinary focus on press release development! Typically, PIO curriculum will spend several slides talking about the length, clarity of the ideas conveyed and having a bold title or “hook” in the release.

Seriously?

When you are in a dynamic situation, spending time fashioning a perfect press release is rarely going to be possible. In fact, while you are writing that press release, people around you are tweeting, posting on facebook and filling in the blanks you think you will be answering.

Press releases are too long and too slow. That is all.

Your public information officer or section should be fashioning talking points just as quickly as you can verify key information about your emergency.

These talking points should be focused on the following types of information:

• Identify who the “official sources” are that will be sharing information,
• Share what is happening and confirmed (or share openly about when you can or will share more information),
• Provide information on how people can protect themselves, and/or
• Give ideas on how people/onlookers can help (channel the benevolent desire to help immediately).

If you are managing public information in an emergency, your list of talking points should be dynamic and changing regularly.  Allow for various ways for dissemination and forgo the need to approve every single message.  Instead, ensure that the talking points are reviewed and approved periodically.

Social Media information significantly changes what is possible for both Public Information and Planning sections of any Emergency Operation Center (EOC) or Incident Command Post (ICP).  Be sure that your training curriculum stays current and doesn’t find itself wasting time on antiquated products like press releases.