Top #smem-related events of 2012: at #10: Israel-Gaza war

Here's the first post in my Holiday series on top SMEM events of the year. 

Some may think there's little in common between a war in the Middle East and social media in emergency management. Well, I like to think you can identify lessons to learn from pretty much any field, anywhere.

I've said in the past that social convergence now should now have agencies/organizations do four things all at once from the onset of any incident:

Furthermore, you conduct social media monitoring for five key reasons:

1. verify the effectiveness of your emergency information messaging
2. rumour control
3. detect and deal/respond to any request for assistance
4. identify reputational threats that could undermine your ability to fulfil your mandate
5. enhance your situational awareness

So, where does the war between the Israeli Defence Forces and Hamas fit in? It's simple. Both sides in the recent conflict understood that you need to own the public space on social networks to position your operations under the best possible light. That PR component played a key role in how international public opinion perceived the conflict.  

Ask FEMA if they need to "fight for their image" during response and recovery efforts. They sure do. Critics abound and ignoring them can undermine the effectiveness of any operation by bringing unwanted distractions from a focused enterprise. 

The same applies to the American Red Cross. Their efforts were fantastic and still doubts and frustrations were common. I remember a newscast where a resident of New York was complaining that " ... all those highly-paid Red Cross people are nowhere to be seen ..."  or words to that effect ... We all know that it's VOLUNTEERS that are at the heart of the Red Cross emergency operations but there was a perception of inaction and frustrations grew along with the volume of misinformation.

So, that's the lesson I learned from the Israeli-Hamas war. You must defend your response to any incident, using all the platforms and tools at your disposal (with a particular focus on social networks) even as your are conducting on-the-ground operations. 

No emergency is local anymore. Perceptions are shaped on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube (among others) instantly. Impressions are made on your street, in your neighbourhood, town, county, state/province ... across the country and the globe. 

Welcome to the SMEM PR war! 

Our second annual #smem holiday series of posts

Okay, so maybe two years doesn't make a tradition. However, my two American Amigos and I (James Garrow and Kim Stephens) have decided to repeat last year’s experiment and do an end of year/holiday series of posts once again. I'm not sure what exactly Jim and Kim have in mind but it'll be interesting for sure. 

My series will be the “top 10 SMEM events” of 2012. The selected events (totally arbitrary ... chosen by me ! ) will cover everything from natural disasters to conferences; all occurrences that helped move the integration of social media into emergency management over the last 12 months or so.

Since our efforts met with some success in our first try, why not risk it again? So stay tuned. My posts will follow every second day or so until we reach the “big reveal”. For last year’s list see the links here: 

• Jim's list 
• Kim's list
• My own list

Atten-hut ... Now Tweet! Of war and social media.

Modern warfare is waged on multiple battlefields at once. From the streets and alleys of Fallujah or Gaza, to the open stretches of the Arabian desert to the jungles of South Thailand, men still fight for ground or air superiority.

But more and more, other warriors fight in different arenas. Cyberwar is a reality. We've seen it in quasi-open conflicts (Estonia/Russia), in open battles (Georgia/Russia), in the not-so-cold war and spying between China and the rest of the world. Now we're witnessing it as well in Gaza, Israel and other parts of the Middle East.

We're also seeing the emergence of a social version of the infowar ... where the fight is for the hearts and minds, of not only national constituencies, but international public opinion. Isreali "social warriors" are now the new cool kids on the block. 

The use of social media in modern societies is now so prevalent that it actually can become a tactical tool ... because we're humans and like to talk about what we're witnessing. That can pose a risk as Israeli authorities have deemed.

We saw in the Mumbai terror attacks, and we're seeing it again in Gaza and Israel, the crowd uses mobile tech and social networks to livestream/tweetcast the conflict. And this can be mapped quite accurately.




So what does this means for crisis communicators or emergency managers? There are clear parallels. As we've seen from Hurricane Sandy, our audiences can get pretty upset when they feel our response is not what it should be. Monitoring and engaging on social networks becomes vital to any operational activity so that the focus can remain on the response and not veer into political damage control.

Ask Governor Christie, Mayor Bloomberg, the American Red Cross and FEMA how important it is to win the "hearts and minds" of not only the people impacted by disasters but also a much larger set of audiences.

Do you have a social war room ready for battle? Ready to guard and defend your reputation the next time you're engaged in an operational response? You better be ... your whole mandate, your very existence, might be undermined by the false (or accurate) perception of a mishandled reaction to a disaster.

Remember, the three critical roles of the public information officer in a disaster in terms of pushing out info:

1. giving out info that will help people stay safe ...
2. giving out the info so our audiences can adopt the behaviours we want them to adopt (evacuate, shelter in place, prepare)
3. and put your response under the best positive light ... the PR component of his/her job 

It's that last bit that is so often forgotten. The current social war, amid a very real shooting war, indicates how essential guarding your reputation against threats ... even in a preemptive fashion, is to the very success of your operations.

10 reasons why there'll now be a before Sandy and a post-sandy in SMEM

There has already been a few solid analyses of the use of social media in emergency management (SMEM) as it applies to the response and early recovery from Hurricane Sandy. Few have been more to the point than this one from Gisli Olafsson of NetHope. We knew this was going to be different even as the exact extent of damages were unknown and as preparations were being made, as my good friend Kim Stephens points out. 

Whereas I had plenty of time in the fall of 2011 to undertake a full review of the use of social media for Hurricane Irene, I don't have that kind of time now. So, very quickly, here are 10 reasons (in no particular order) why I believe this storm marks a turning point for the SMEM movement.

1. Yes, they are right! New York (and the surrounding area) is the centre of the universe. (at least in a legacy media sense). What was bound to happen was endless scrutiny of the preparation and the response. But also, many media outlets brought the use of social media during the storm to the front page. How people created their own networks to stay informed, ask for and receive help and much more. It's New York kind of thing now (SMEM) and one that won't go away! 
2. Crowdsourcing the truth. From collectively identifying fake pictures on Instagram and other visually-oriented social networks, to debunking false rumours on Twitter and outing people purposefully spreading misinformation, the online truth squad was on duty. Social networks are at once the hotbed of all sorts of crappy things and the canvas on which the truth can begin to emerge. More on this from Patrick Meier.
3. Crisis Mapping hits the big time. Media outlets, countless agencies, corporations and hundreds of digital volunteers produced a variety of maps on many topics: power outages, communications outages, availability of gas and many more. Here's a pretty good list. Volunteers gathered at crisis camps, hackathons and in many darkened living room to do some fabulous work. Whether all these maps made a valid contribution or not, the phenomenon cannot be overlooked.
4. Some requests for crowdsourcing situational awareness enhancements, aggregating existing databases and mapping incidents on maps came from "high-level official sources". More on that later but this adds to the legitimacy of expanding the emergency management family to digital volunteers.
5. Many governments, at all levels, used social media to communicate with their constituents before, during and after the passage of Sandy. Again, social networks (particularly Twitter) proved to be effective emergency information tools.
6. Social networks became a true lifeline for many. Calls for help, offers to assist, or messages to let friends and family know "I'm OK!" ... were abundant. What's clear is that people turn to social media to share their experiences during a disaster. More then ever they do so through their mobile devices ...especially when power is out. Individuals, businesses, anyone with some sort of power, became an invaluable resource if they could let you charge your phone

7. Volunteer organizations with expertise in SMEM really made a difference. Whether they were officially requested (such as the NY Virtual Operations Support Team or NY VOST), or turned themselves into portals for all sorts of emergency and preparedness info (such as Humanity Road did) or remained the stalwart provider of life-saving, up-to-the-minute info (such as the New York City Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Service or NY ARECS), their presence on Twitter and other social networks was essential to the safety of many residents of the impacted areas. 

8. First responders and local emergency managers were very active. A new SMEM hero was born and she managed to help make the FDNY a beacon of hope for many New York residents in very difficult times. Dave Statter, from Satter 9-1-1 blog fame identified others who were active:

I know I am will be missing some, but here are few in my region I followed that seemed to be doing a very good job of keeping the public informed via Twitter: Alexandria, VA (@AFDCHIEF200), Arlington County, VA (@ARLINGTONVA), Fairfax County, VA (@FAIRFAXCOUNTY), Howard County, MD (@HCDFRS,@HCDFRS_CHIEF, @KENULMAN), Montgomery County, MD (@MCFRS, @MONTGOMERYCOMD), Prince George’s County, MD (@PGFDPIO, @PGPDJULIE, @COUNTYEXECBAKER ), Washington, DC (@MAYORVINCEGRAY, @IAFF36).

9. the Red Cross Digital Operations Centre proved that organizations who dedicate resources to SMEM (especially social media monitoring) are best placed to play a role and fulfil their mandates during a disaster. 







10. Finally, FEMA's decision to highlight its social media rumour control activities brought to the fore, this absolute necessity for the operations of any emergency info centre or JIC. Countering rumours and misinformation, is now more critical then even, when news moves at the speed of social networks. False information can not only damage the reputation of any response organization, but it can also put lives in danger. 

There, you have it. Still not convinced that we've reach a critical moment in the evolution of SMEM? Read this post from my buddy Jim Garrow. So, it's time for us who work in EM and crisis comms to catch up with our public and the pioneers in SMEM. We need to adjust our posture to be able to deal with a flood of information that comes with any disaster.

Are you ready for the age of social convergence in emergency management? 

Too much info during incidents: time for a new command position?

As Hurricane Sandy (#sandy or #frankenstorm on Twitter) approaches the East Coast, we are once again witnesses to a great volume of information and warnings put out by a whole slew of sources. Governments (federal, state, municipal), the media, volunteer technical communities (VTCs). Virtual Operations Support Teams (VOSTs), the private sector, bloggers and ordinary citizens.

Even though we are still just anticipating the storm, some serious efforts are being deployed, particularly in crisis mapping: Tweak the Tweet, ESRI, Google Crisis Response and others, are using this tool to gather info. Anyone can see how easy info overload can happen.

Now, go forward in time, let's say 24 hours, and all those channels, at the local, state and even federal level, are totally jammed with requests for assistance, witness accounts of the evolving situation, and comments on how the response is being handled. It all becomes a big noise ...

Information should be the most valuable commodity for an incident commander or an EOC director. If we adopt the view of "whole of community" approach to preparedness and resilience. we should also aim for "community-based situational awareness" or a fully comprehensive user-defined operating picture.That means integrating intelligence from social listening activities.

That's where the value of SMEM (social media in emergency management) really comes to the fore. The social convergence (mobile tech + social networks) results, on one hand, in empowered volunteers (organized or spontaneous), and in greater scrutiny and even criticism, on the other hand.

All this results in a veritable flood of information that could have an impact on any incident response, from ops to the PIO function. So, I'm thinking the time has come to modify the ICS/NIMS structure and add a formal intelligence officer position as part of the command staff. I've talked before about the need to make a similar change in terms of providing emergency information. 

I know making change to the doctrine is not a popular topic but times change, how people consume and produce information has changed as well. I also know that span of control issues could arise by adding another command position (if you add the general staff and command staff chiefs/positions ...).

But the environment of any incident has changed because of social networks. Information is available in real-time and should be added to the decision making process. Now, I'm not talking about an Intel Officer position in the sense of criminal intel (for my law enforcement friends who might be troubled by access to this kind of info) or in the normal military sense. This concept of an incident intelligence officer is more in the contextual analysis and environment that surrounds every disaster or crisis.

It's more akin to an information manager role, controller of all the data that's available to command. The photographer/developer who puts all the available operating pictures into a useful mosaic of ops pictures ... to come up with a "global view" of the incident.

I see the benefits as follows:

1. better, more comprehensive, community-based situational awareness for command
2. supports better decisions by giving more info for the allocation of strategic resources in tough fiscal environments
3. makes reporting up to higher echelons (political or otherwise) easier with a more "constituency-oriented" picture of what the incidents means ...

I'm sure this will get a lot of comments ....looking forward to them! 

Big exercise = big lessons learned in SMEM

I had the opportunity this week to take part (mostly as observer/coach) in a big emergency management exercise. Trillium Resolve had more than 1,000 participants from 50+ organizations in a vast part of southwestern Ontario.

The scenario was based on a series of severe weather events impacting municipalities in four different counties and the largest nuclear power station in the world (with 8 reactors ...).

A scenario this ambitious proved to be too enticing for not trying to add on a social media component. As part of the design team, I promoted early on, a "closed loop" approach. This was done mainly to ensure that no exercise tweet or Facebook post would cause concerns.

The way I thought we could do this without overburdening the exercise players, was to simulate the "output" of a social media listening operation. Based on the "tweak the tweet" syntax, I developed a series of report such as this one. Whenever possible or relevant, I added geo-location data and pictures or videos to add to the realism. 

The original intent was to have the reports send via email to different EOCs and PIOs playing. What actually happened was that the exercise controllers, broke down the reports and included individual simulated posts/tweets on a fake news web site that had been created for the exercise. So it ended up that players, especially PIOs/comms people, actually had to monitor social media and web/media stories in real time. 

Now, if we had had the time and resources, we could have used a tool such as Simulation Deck which is rapidly growing popular among the military, academic and corporate sectors, as a tool to test social media monitoring capabilities.

By trying to inject some contemporary reality into the exercise play, we were trying to do four things in relations to monitoring social networks:

1. develop our ability to keep up with the volume of data we needed to keep an eye on (social and traditional media)
2. increase our ability to identify social network injects which posed reputational threats or we calls for info or help
3. determine what data could be analysed and transformed into solid intel for decision-making purposes and putting in place the channels to flow that info
4. finally, validate the process for engagement/responses

Since I wasn't playing, I wanted to test my own skills ... so I started a crowdmap of not only the play injects but also the real-life media stories and posts about the exercise ... It was hard to keep up. I've written before that social media monitoring can be quite challenging and requires a team effort.

So, in closing, some key lessons I learned (or learned again !) during the week. To be effective, a social media listening/monitoring program needs the right resources ... it's a big job! You need (in my estimation):

• to do the basic listening and searches, 
• to tag/analyse/collate/curate the info and make it into actionable intel or tasks 
• to conduct the engagement piece and respond to calls for help, request for info or dispel rumours.

It's more than one person could do ... or even three. Also, another key piece is to put in place, ahead of time, the channels through which the output of your social listening program will flow.

And very importantly, find a "champion" in your organization's leadership, who believes in the validity of the info that results and acts upon it ... proving that social media monitoring is now an essential part of any response to a disaster or crisis.

Crisis communications readiness: a necessity

I often say that every organization should have a thorough crisis communications plan and that every response plan should have a crisis comms component. Furthermore, every employee should receive some sort of media relations/public outreach awareness training because they can all become the "face" of the organization during a crisis.

in addition, social convergence (mobile tech + social networks) means that someone is always watching you ... or at least has the mean to tape (videotape too) what you're doing ... catch their actions for posterity.

There is no way to avoid crises ... people make mistakes, have lapses of judgment ... and they get caught on tape or called out online.

Nothing goes unseen today ...well not much ... the most fleeting, embarrassing moment can come back to haunt you. This briefest of movement of one finger, caused a fire chief to publicly apologize. 

Now, when you do something dumb in a deliberate manner, in front of cameras ... then you're asking for trouble:

Okay ... that's once right ? People learn from their mistakes ... don't do something stupid like that again ? ... Well, it would seem not in every case ... read this account of a second troubling incident involving the now infamous "badge 728.

You know you're really in trouble when your boss has to apologize on your behalf and behalf of the whole organization:

Online mistakes can equally be as painful: 

That particular tweet prompted this apology:

StubHub

• ✔

@StubHub

We've deleted an unauthorized tweet made from this Twitter handle. We apologize to all of our followers for the inappropriate language used.

A fantastic top 20 list of online/social media mistakes can be found here.

A few of lessons here:

• dust off your crisis comms plan and exercise regularly
• train your people and then train them again 
• bring awareness of the social convergence and the challenges it brings to anyone who interacts with the public

Your people are human ... they will make mistakes ... the best way to counter them is to adopt a human approach. 

It worked well for the American Red Cross.

Some other good examples of how to handle mistakes or crisis on social media. We're in a brand new connected world ...we're all watching ...waiting for the next person to falter publicly ... 

It's time for emergency managers to catch up with society!

The Canadian Red Cross did all of us who believe in the growing importance of social media in emergency management (SMEM) a great favour. They commissioned a poll whose results indicate that Canadians expect us to use the tools they use every day during disasters.

The following infographic tells the story:

• 64 per cent of Canadians use social media sites, 62 per cent of whom participate nearly every day
• 63 per cent think disaster and emergency response agencies, including fire and police, should be prepared to respond to calls for help that are posted on social media networks
• About one third of respondents (35 per cent) think emergency services would respond to a request for help posted on social media, 74 per cent of whom believe help would arrive within one hour
• 54 per cent of Canadians say they would use social media to let loved ones know they are safe in an emergency
• Although television (39 per cent) and radio (26 per cent) are the preferred ways of receiving news about an emergency, one third (31 per cent) of Canadians say they would prefer various electronic methods, such as web sites, social media or cell phones
• While the majority of Canadians say they have personally experienced disasters, 66 per cent have not taken steps to prepare themselves for an emergency
• The main reasons cited for not taking steps to prepare include: perception that a disaster is unlikely to occur in their area (27 per cent); never thought about it (21 per cent); and no time/never got around to it (12 per cent)

The interesting is to marry these results with these ones on mobile usage:

This social convergence (mobile tech + social networks) is the basis for a new era in emergency management and while there are many enthusiastic practitioners of SMEM in Canada, there is a great deal of room for acceptance by EM officials.

During my stay in Halifax last week, for the Canadian Red Cross Conference on Disaster Management, I heard lots of enthusiastic comments but those were not generally associated with ongoing SMEM practices.

Many recognize the value of social networks as emergency information tools ... as a one-way for EM agencies to communicate with their audiences during a disaster, few yet fully realize the great "force-multiplying" effect of the use of social media by citizens during disasters.

Simply put, they ignore the valuable data that people put out voluntarily to share their experiences in their neighbourhoods, streets and communities during incidents. All data, that can be monitored on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Reddit for example, and then analyze to provide actionable intelligence to support effective decision-making by command.

My argument to spur on adoption of full spectrum SMEM practices: there is no greater commodity for an EOC manager or incident commander than information or intelligence. Social media monitoring brings tons of such intel ... actionable information that can lead to better decisions and a more efficient use of strategic resources during a response ... that's a key point in a fiscal environment where resources are becoming scarcer. 

In the end, emergency managers won't have a choice ... they'll either make full use of the tools that the people they serve use everyday ... or they run the risk of being irrelevant or lack the full array of intelligence that leads to better responses.

Building community resilience and social networks

I had the great privilege to be invited to present at the Canadian Red Cross Conference on Disaster Manager in Halifax earlier this week. The theme of the conference was "community resilience" and I was asked to talk about the use of social media in emergency management (SMEM).

We heard from Laurie Pearce of Royal Roads University on the need to build resilience from the bottom up, based on the capabilities and strengths of communities. Karina Pillay-Kinnee, the Mayor of Slave Lake in Alberta, told the immensely powerful story of how her town was nearly destroyed by a wildfire and how community resiliency provided the backbone of its ongoing recovery.

Also very illuminating was a first-hand account of the Japan Triple Disaster from  Naoki Kokawa of the Japanese Red Cross.

I tried to orient my talk on the notion of social media as a key element in all components/pillars of emergency management and the EOC. In my mind, this certainly goes way beyond using SM as communications tools although they are very powerful instruments in connecting with audiences during a disaster. Information is aid ... social networks play a great role in delivering it.

I believe that the true power of SMEM resides in the increase of information and data available to decision-makers. It allows them to deploy resources is a much more strategic manner because their situational awareness can be in real-time, down to the hyper-local level with the use of the right technologies. We all have to gain by a full integration of SM into EM.

I cannot think of a better way to increase our collective resilience.

New technologies and the power of the few

This week, the world witnessed the other side of the "Arab Spring" ... Hardliners, from Tunis to San'a, from Benghazi to Cairo, exploited the sheer stupidity of a misguided and hateful petty crook in California, turned "film maker".

The "Innocence of Islam" episode shows the power now at the disposal of almost anyone, to do some very good stuff ...or in this case, some serious damage. All it took, is 14 minutes of preview, shared on Youtube ... re-shared on other social networks ... to spark anti-US sentiments across the whole Mideast. 

It shows how U.S. foreign policy in the 21st century is at risk of being derailed by a single, pseudonymous fraudster. In the 1990s, Marine Gen. Charles Krulak famously coined the phrase “The Strategic Corporal” to describe how a 19-year old Leatherneck’s actions, broadcast worldwide, could derail U.S. interests. Meet Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the Strategic Con Man.

The article on Wired.com illustrates the evolution of the "strategic corporal" concept in the age of social media. Now, almost anyone, or anything, can come up suddenly and threaten an organization's reputation or very existence. In some extreme cases, the very lives of its members might be in jeopardy.

My good friend Gerald Baron has already written about crises that go "viral".  His main point is being prepared. I'd venture to say that any measures taken to reach that degree of preparation should include: 

• Basic, daily social media listening or business intel gathering 
• a process put in place to action any intel that merits a reaction
• delegation of authority to put in motion your response
• identifying and using the right channels to reach your key stakeholders 
• training every member of your organization in basic media relations and crisis management ... just enough so they know how to refer calls/queries ...

A few caveats. Despite the best plans and preparation, sometimes you just can't win. In this case, anti-US feelings run deep in large segments of the Middle East. All the speeches and calls for calm by President Obama and Secretary Clinton might be for naught.

Also, decentralizing or not having tight control over your crisis communications response might itself lead to more issues ... a quick social media counter-attack could also put your on dangerous grounds:

The State Department has come under criticism in the past for being slow to adapt to the social-media world. It didn’t have that problem in Cairo: Its Twitter and Facebook engagement was rapid and consistent. But that rapidity may have outraced its more traditional diplomatic responsibilities to insist on the inviolability of its Embassy and to stick up for basic American values — even when the speech in question is gross.

You can't respond at a tactical level by undermining your strategic posture. That's the conclusion of the Wired.com article where the above quote came from.

In the end, vigilance and preparation are the only tools at your disposal to see you through a crisis gone viral ... and some gumption to stick with your plans and by your principles ...When social media is used for nefarious purposes, they can become deadly weapons in the hands of those who wish you harm.