Author: Jim

Sometimes I worry that I write too much about social media on this blog. With events like H7N9 and the atrocity in Boston earlier this week, should I be focused more on the job that government communicators are doing: media relations, crafted statements, subject matter experts usage, press releases? But then events like H7N9 and the bombing happen, and there are such amazing lessons to be learned about how social media is influencing and remaking government communicators’ jobs that I literally can’t help myself. This is what government communicators’ jobs will be.

Since the Boston bombings are so fresh on everyone’s mind, I want to start there.

I don’t want to talk about how I found the first pictures of the scene FIVE minutes after the first bomb went off and informed my chain of command, who at first didn’t believe me because it wasn’t on any news sources yet.

I don’t want to talk about how we utilized our newly updated emergency public information plan that requires us to review all scheduled social media posts and cancel any inappropriate ones.

Instead, I want to talk about sweeping streets for secondary devices. If you followed the events on Monday afternoon, you’ll remember the frantic search of every package, bag and box in most of metro Boston. The Explosive Ordnance Tech (EOD) teams wanted everyone off the streets so they could work quickly without putting the public in harm’s way. This one-minute snip of a call came over the EMS radio talkgroup:

In the middle of the biggest emergency to hit Boston in years, with lives hanging in the balance, it was decided the best way to get information–critical, life-protecting information–to the public, where they were at the moment, was to, “get on social media.” Not tell the media, not issue a press release; when seconds counted and thousands needed to be warned, social media was the right tool. In different situations, something else may have worked better, but in this emergency social media was right choice.

It’s natural for me, an information guy, to think that one of people’s critical needs in an emergency is information. (If I am not a hammer, why am I surrounded by nails?) So while it may seem that I’m being selfish when I say we should have four goals to accomplish to start people on the road to recovery (food, water, shelter and wifi), anecdotal evidence, especially from the last few disasters, has started to show that my request isn’t so strange.

When I give presentations, I usually mention something about how, in a disaster like the Joplin tornado or Superstorm Sandy, people go to extraordinary lengths to get access to information, but I saw this article in the Guardian recently that demonstrated that this need isn’t just a first-world one, but instead is a function of today’s hyper-connected world.

[I]n developing countries – think of Haiti after the quake, Indonesia post-tsunami or the Central African Republic during the current political upheaval – there is often a rapid decrease or even instantaneous halt to the amount and quality of information available for local people, those directly affected by the crisis. Dangerous rumours and misinformation begin to run rampant, causing panic and poor decision-making.

The article goes onto talk about how humanitarian organizations can, or should be, fulfilling the need for information in those cases. The author mentions how local media is often overlooked in such cases; everyone’s got a radio, right?

And that’s a pretty good place to stop. People are looking for information, and humanitarian organizations can help. But I wonder if there’s not a whole lot more to this idea of giving people information in a disaster. You see, in my title and call, I’m not asking for radio broadcasts. I’m asking for access, for a super fat pipe that can download–and upload–information.

And I want data for two reasons. First is the obvious thing. They are survivors and they need information, on the disaster, on where they need to go, on what needs to happen next, about the larger world (yes, it’s still there). The goal of this is to start the recovery process. The more quickly folks can start to normalize, the more quickly they can get back on their feet. And yes I’ll admit, a lot of this can be handled by traditional post-disaster messaging.

The second reason, though, is where I start running off the rails. In addition to being survivors, these people are two other things. First, they are members of a family. And as family members, and friends, and acquaintances, they have a duty to their family and friends and acquaintances. To let them know they’re okay, or not. To commiserate or be grateful. To ask for help or support or wave it off. Remember, these folks aren’t victims, they are survivors and need to do something to feel useful and helpful.

The second reason they need access is because they CAN help. They’re the only ones who’ve been through this disaster. They know what got hit, what didn’t, who’s missing and where they might be. They are the best information nodes you can ask for. And not only that, it’s likely that they know the area affected by the disaster better than anyone else. You will never get as good, on-the-ground intelligence as you would from a local survivor that’s motivated to help. It’s impossible to pull them all into the Command Post, but by allowing them to post informational updates on Facebook or Instagram, you’ve given the response team a powerful new ally.

I think we’re in the midst of a radical change in how we do emergency response these days. It’s no longer just about saving lives, it’s about empowering survivors, too. By giving them the tools they need to be useful and helpful, we can not only hasten the changeover to recovery work, but also shorten the time needed for their personal recovery, for saving their lives later.

During the first week of April, right as H7N9 influenza was making waves in a number of local, state, federal and international health authorities, the World Health Organization kicked their Twitter account into high gear and started posting updates and risk communication messages about the virus.

Most of the messaging was quite good, but a series of tweets tying the prevention of H7N9 to standard food safety messages really rubbed me the wrong way. I even wrote a blog post about it!

I think now, after a week or so, it’s only fair that I follow up on the situation. See how much they value and integrate good risk communication practices. And what I’ve found I’m very impressed with.

The tweets on H7N9 have been confined to updates like this:

Links to more information, including risk messaging like this:

Even messages cautioning a wait-and-see approach, which is highly recommended at this stage in the disease outbreak:

And then they back that approach with real action. In between H7N9 posts (or more correctly, they’re posting on H7N9 in between other posts), they’ve got information on World Health Day and cutting salt out of your diet and information about other diseases:

But the tweet that’s impressed me the most is this one:

If you’re a regular reader, you probably saw this recent post about communicating risk via Twitter and how the City of Hoboken, NJ did it right during a recent spate of water main breaks. Well, now it looks like the World Health Organization has started using this cutting edge trick, too.

And they continue to learn and interact. As some of your know, I run a monthly Twitterchat around issues of public health and social media (#sm4ph). This week was our April chat, and one of their social media staff stopped by to discuss the use of Twitter by WHO for H7N9 with the community.

In sum, hats off to WHO for a top-notch online campaign thus far. I called them out previously, and the response is exactly what I hoped for.