Social Media and Emergency Response

Emergency Management Magazine hosted an All Hazards Stakeholders Summit in Seattle today.  I believe this is the second year of these “summits”, bringing together the best and brightest stars in Emergency Management to motivate, inspire and educate.  It was fun ...

As a social media (SM) junky for a few years now, I have had lots of opportunities to use the medium during a community’s worst day.  I’ve made some mistakes and learned some lessons along the way, but now feel ...

This week’s announcement of the Red Cross and Dell’s collaboration in opening an innovative digital operations center is a giant step forward in incorporating social media efforts in crisis response.  The Red Cross has been a thought leader and champion ...

OK, I admit it, I’m a weather geek.  Meteorology fascinates me, and living in my area of the Pacific Northwest affords ample opportunity to study weather patterns.  Up here, the complex influences of the Pacific Ocean, Cascade and Olympic Mountain ...

The other night an impromptu Twitter chat erupted among a few of us #SMEM stalwarts.  The subject; credentialing social media volunteers who assist during disasters.  Conventional emergency management practice requires people register with their local emergency management (EM) agency before ...

Every Friday at 12:30 EST, folks jump on Twitter to monitor the #SMEMchat hashtag and discuss the latest and greatest issues related to using social media tools in emergency situations.  Work prevents me from being a regular participant (yeah, I ...

A couple of months ago I heard about a new social media website in a meteoric climb.  Pinterest is the new kid on the block.  Within a year of it hitting the “beta world”, it earned top 50 status in ...

Yesterday, Gerald Baron (the #1 Big Kahuna of social media in emergency management according to Patrice Cloutier’s ranking of top 25 social media emergency management influencers) gave his predictions on what will happen with SMEM in 2012. I read lots ...

My staff often accuses me of being obtuse and nebulous as I pontificate in briefings and written communications.  While I don’t agree with their jealous and myopic perspective of my keen skill in spouting bureaucratic hyperbole, I thought it prudent ...

This afternoon, the HELP Foundation, a non-profit disaster planning and management volunteer organization posted an intriguing Twitter question to one of my #SMEM colleagues, Jeff Phillips My knee-jerk response is….wait for it…a toilet plunger. Yep, you read me right.  Now, ...