Category: Uncategorized

There’s been a lot of virtual ink spilled in the last week or so about H7N9 influenza. I’ve been keeping an eye on it, and very quietly getting my Program at work to “lean forward.” It’s a good exercise for us, and if this does turn into something bigger, well, we’re the ones who are supposed to be ready. But we haven’t issued anything publicly at work yet. Because, well, frankly, there’s no there there yet.

We practice risk communication for the long-term. We issue alerts and notices sparingly because we want folks to know that when we do say something alarming, that’s the time to sit up and take notice. Our thinking is that the more we amp up small matters, the more we contribute to the noise (and in today’s ubiquitous media, that’s a big problem), the easier it is to tune us out. Alarm fatigue is what they call it.

Which brings me to the point today. What if you HAD to over-warn. About everything. And not because you think it’s the right thing to do, but because you want to to stay out of jail. That seems to be the situation right now in Italy, following the trial and conviction of Italian scientists who failed to “properly communicate the risk of a major earthquake in L’Aquila.”

“Alarmism? It’s the poisoned fruit of the L’Aquila sentence,” says Franco Gabrielli, the head of the Civil Protection Department, the day after the Garfagnana evacuations.

His spokesperson Francesca Maffini says it’s inevitable that scientists are now erring on the side of caution.

“It’s not the verdict itself, it’s the very fact they were put on trial,” she says. “If the risk is between zero and 40%, today they’ll tell us it’s 40, even if they think it’s closer to zero. They’re protecting themselves, which is perfectly understandable.”

I’ve talked about the absolute disaster the L’Aquila earthquake warning suits were before. And this obviously unforeseen, by the government, consequence is just adds to the pile of “how wrong can this be.”

And none of that compares to the fiftieth or sixtieth time one of these middle of the night warnings goes out, and everyone ignores it, rolls over and goes back to bed. And then the warning is right. That’s the danger of not practicing long-term risk communication. It’s the same mindset of people who live on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and don’t evacuate, the same mindset of people who lived in the bayous of Louisiana before Katrina and tried to ride out the storm, the same mindset that prevailed during the US Department of Homeland Security’s failed Homeland Security Advisory System, that seemingly went up and down every day.

This isn’t something that executives and politicians are expected to know anything about. It’s their job to look in charge and respond right now to today’s emergency. And if it doesn’t happen on their watch, then there’s no worry. But for those of us in the trenches, the risk communicators that will be here long after those politicians have moved on, those of us who need the public to trust everything we say that need to stand guard against this.

We need to learn and advocate for long-term risk communication. We need to fight against short-term, one-off risk communication–especially if it’s being done for political gain. Because the only people who will suffer are those folks we’ve sworn to protect.

When I present on how social media is affecting disasters and disaster response, folks in the audience always ask for best practices. What social network should my agency be on? When should we be posting? How much social media is too much, or too little? My response, while good (if I may say so myself) was always kinda squishy. Stories and anecdata, I’d say. This is my experience, I’d say. I’ve heard that, I’d say.

Not very reassuring for folks pinching pennies and nickels.

But I’d always qualify my statement that the field is evolving very quickly. Tens of thousands of people are betting their lives and livelihoods on the idea that social media is the future and can return on investments. They were trying all kinds of things to make a buck, and pretty soon, they’d have a good idea what that magical formula was. And it looks like we’re finally seeing the results of all of that work.

One of my favorite webapps in the world is Buffer. They help to schedule and spread out posts so you don’t overwhelm your audience. I use it constantly. And their blog? One of the best out there. Recently, they posted on social media studies, highlighting seven key things folks have learned. Honestly, even I learned some things from the post, it was that good.

The list is as follows, but this is just a tease, you should definitely click through to get the direct links to the studies:

1. Over 120 Billion Facebook Impressions later – what we learnt (post length)
2. Almost half of online customers expect brands to provide customer service on Facebook, but only 23% provide it
3. The science of social timing: When, how often and where should you post?
4. Click-Through Rates May Matter Even Less Than We Thought
5. 70% of Consumers Trust Brand Recommendations From Friends
6. Social Networks Account for 20% of Time Spent Online
7. Shelf Life of Social Media Links Only 3 Hours (bitly social media stats)

And here’s my bonus resource. You all know that I encourage folks to be themselves, to have fun, especially on social media. Well, the king of being funny online, Ben Huh (of I Can Haz Cheeseburger and a million cat memes fame), was interviewed at a recent tech conference. The interview perfectly crystallizes what I’ve been saying for years. And the fact that Mr. Huh is wildly successful on social media, so if you don’t believe me, you need to check him out.

I like to downplay the idea of a 24/7 newscycle. I think the term implies that you have lots of time to get involved in a situation because it’ll always be there. The media will always be beating down your door, so you’ve got time to craft an answer. Instead, I like to talk about the 10-second newscycle. In my mind, that term implies that you’ve got ten seconds in order to get your side of the story out; after that, you’re just part of the noise in someone else’s storyline.

My change in terminology leads, or should lead to, a re-examination of the tools we use to live and interact in that new newscycle. Press releases don’t really have the turnaround needed, and besides, they’re the worst position way to push out risk communication messages (e.g., do this, not that). Twitter, I like to think, works really well for a number of reasons. First, it’s direct: I, the communicator, am talking to you, the recipient. Second, it forces us to be short and direct: short messages have been shown to be more easily uptaken. Finally, it’s easily share-able: it’s easy to spread messages amongst target populations who’ve already set up information dissemination channels.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw one of the best examples of where social media, especially Twitter, could have been used to do real risk communication. The Hoboken, NJ water main breaks.

I happened to be in Phoenix at the time, presenting at the wonderful Arizona Partners in Preparedness conference when I found out about it on Twitter (social media monitoring for the win!). Because I work in public health, I’m always interested to see how large cities deal with boil water advisories, so I try to keep an eye on how things are going. The job that the City of Hoboken did was excellent starting with this:

Their next tweet was about the boil water advisory:

Notice the time? Less than ten minutes from their last tweet. Fast turnaround. Small, chunked information that’s easy to digest.

Then I got into things:

https://twitter.com/jgarrow/status/317309769654362113

Eight minutes later, they replied directly to me, letting me know the process for how they’re looking to get more information:

In the meantime, the worked to combat rumors by posting informational updates:

Once United Water posted the full boil water advisory, @CityofHoboken updated their feed with the link.

They provided updates through out the day on the progress and even reposted the boil water advisory a few times to make sure that as many people could see it as possible. And finally, and in a stroke of trust-building genius, they took the time to thank folks who passed along their message and thanked the City’s account for the tweets:

To me, this is the best practice out there. Gold standard that should be emulated. I think that it’s not too hard to imagine how I’m rewriting my boil water advisory script and pre-approved messages this week.

This is what I want to see when I’m done with my next emergency:

https://twitter.com/NerdgrrlGarvey/status/317362375483346944