Records Retention & Social Media...It's Here!

With multiple social media accounts across multiple platforms, it is often difficult to aggregate the data and information.  Traditionally, aggregators have done a great job of helping us manage the multi-channel/multi-platform approach to social communications.  Tools such as Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, and Seesmic are low-cost options for getting started.  However, until now, they have not offered the ability to easily export and maintain the records of messages and conversations as required by some federal, state and local statutes.  Additionally, with thousands of messages sometimes flying around, it is hard to properly retain these records.   

Simly said, records retention has been a critical element missing as widespread adoption of social media continues.  However, Hootsuite, my favorite aggregator tool, has just added an archiving feature.  I haven't had a chance to play around with it much, nor has the company promoted the feature yet, but it looks promising to solve the legal issues associated with social media records retention.  You can archive 100 messages for free at this point.  Archiving 10,000 messages will cost you an extra $10/month.  Archiving 100,000 messages costs an additional $50/month.  

Either way, the costs are relatively minimal and provide a good opportunity to begin testing your social media prowess without overinvesting from the start!  The platform also provides enterprise management features that allow team members to coordinate, assign tasks, and manage specified accounts.  These are especially helpful if your social media presence is growing unweildy.  

What is your favorite aggregator?  How do you maintain your social media records?

Social Media in Disaster Exercises

In case you don't know, my full-time job for the past number of years has been as a consultant putting on various types of large-scale disaster exercises across the country. I have designed and developed exercises for all levels of government and many different programs.  

As emergency managers and public information officers struggle to incorporate social media planning into operations, some organizations have begun to incorporate social media into exercises as a way to better learn and adapt to its dynamic nature. Most recently, I helped incorporate social media into exercise play at the behest of one of my clients and learned a number of great lessons that I would like to share.

1) Train on the Plan AND on Social Media

Prior planning is a core element of exercise design and development as you want to test and validate the capabilities for which you have planned, not the ones for which you are not ready.  A good exercise also does not set up players for failure, they set up opportunities to learn. That is why prior planning is necessary.

But moving forward with an exercise without having trained on the plan or the subject matter is akin to throwing yourself into the deep end of pool without having learned to first tread water. Social media is also a soft skill that is dynamic in nature, meaning that it is very situation dependent and that just because you do X does not mean that Y will happen.  

While your plans will contain guidance, sending some of your designated folks to social media training ahead of time will help them to grasp and employ the concepts laid out in your plan. They will also be able to help you capture better lessons learned and observations.  

2) Clearly Identify Your Social Media Objectives

Objectives help drive exercise play to the appropriate level for which you have planned for and are capable of. Give some good thought to exactly what you would like to walk away from the exercise having learned and/or validated.  

For example, if you are just starting out with social media, you may want to focus on public information dissemination through social media. If you are more advanced, you may want to focus on public interaction and rumor control through social media. Want a better challenge? Use your "dummy" Twitter accounts (see Point 4) with other jurisdictions' dummy accounts if they are participating in the exercise.  

3) Exercise the Process, Not the Tool

The truth is, there are just so many more social media channels that just Facebook and Twitter. There are also just so many tools just to manage the different channels. However, they tools and channels don't matter as much as the process by which you release, gather, and interact with information.  

If you are able to effectively utilize and master a process, you can easily adapt to the available channels and tools. Focus on exercising workflow and how to handle certain types of information. 

4) Use Twitter to Test the Process

The use of social media largely external.  So how do you exercise inherently public facing tools? Well, Twitter provides options to keep accounts and Tweets private and protected. Set up a separate test account that is similar to your public facing account, except make it protected.  

Also establish about five "dummy" accounts that can be used to simulate citizens, businesses, or other individuals/organizations. Make sure these are also private. A good naming format is "Test_[Jurisdiction]_[Organization]_[User Type]".  

Lastly, make sure you each account "follows" the other.  Even if you mention an external account or hashtag, the tweets will still remain private. Afterwards, you can even print out a copy of the timeline to review for evaluation.  

NOTE: If you are using an aggregation tool such as Hootsuite or Tweetdeck, make sure the player does not post to the real-world accounts.  

5) Use a Social Media Savvy Controller

Use a controller who has a good understanding of social media as well as exercise objectives to manage the five or so "dummy". While it is helpful to develop a general outline of social media comments, questions or injects ahead of time, the dynamic nature of social media is best suited for a controller who can react to the circumstances as a person in a real incident would, but also be mindful of the organization's current social media capabilities and the exercise's objectives.  

Using an aggregation tool such as Hootsuite or Tweetdeck is helpful. If that is not possible, you can still sign in to each account individually, but you may have to use different browsers, tabs, and windows to accomplish this.  

Conclusion

Social is fairly new for emergency management and exercises incorporating social media are even newer. But taking some simple steps that compliment your exercise design and development process will help you to better identify your social media needs, gaps, and lessons learned. Additionally, your comfort level will grow.  

How did you incorporate social media into your disaster exercises?  What lessons did you learn?  

Social Media and Disasters

The fast-paced spread of social media has left organizations and industries in catch-up mode to figure out ways to harness social media to their advantage.  Social Media has taken the world by storm over the past few years with the proliferation of applications like Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and MySpace.  Mobile applications have further enabled the adoption rate of these tools like wildfire...in other words, they have become viral, just like a public health disease spreading upon contact, but in a good way.  Controlling them is not an option; but working with them is.

Amtrak's Northeast Corridor recently experienced a large outage as commuters were about to start their commutes home via Amtrak and commuter rail lines, stranding many travelers.  The most frustrating aspect was the lack of communication by Amtrak via appropriate channels.

The crucial mistake Amtrak made was limiting information dissemination and communication to mass media, referring to television and radio.  However, commuters don't typically watch television or listen to the radio while at work.  Nor do they always check the print media websites before leaving work.  In fact, most commuters only have access to their cell phones and smart phones filled with applications for Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms that they are checking on their way to the train station.

The world is also transitioning, which makes disaster management and public information even more challenging.  The younger generation is tech savvy and does not typically gain information through Mass Media; the older generation still relies on Mass Media for information and doesn't typically use the Internet as much.  Organizations must consider both groups of people when developing their social media strategy.  A media strategy should incorporate mass media, social media, news media, etc.

How has a comprehensive media strategy helped your organization?

Disaster Technology and the Usability Conundrum: 6 Pillars of Useful Technology

As disaster managers, technology is one our tools of the trade that enhance our operational abilities.  They are not the end all be all of solutions, but they significantly help enhance critical activities for success.  In recent years, the number of technology solutions have exploded in both number and capability.  But what has often taken a back seat is the usability of programs that often require high degrees of training and business practices.  I can't say we will ever be free of this, but the level at which we operate is simply too inefficient and costly.  Technology must be intuitive and solve complex process-oriented problems in order to realize its true value.  

But are we really at the mercy of companies developing these solutions?  I take a different approach...we must not only ask, but demand that disaster technologies developed today (largely applications) meet my six pillars of usable software technology: Process-Oriented, Intuitive, Flexible, Secure, Available, and Integrated.  

Process-Oriented

This is a no-brainer.  All technology should help solve a process-oriented problem such as communicating with the public, exercise design and development, managing response resources, or maintaining situational awareness.  Sometimes though, we get caught up in the sales pitch or all the features it has.  

Regardless, the solution must help solve YOUR problem!  Defining these can be sometimes tricky, but good thought and effort must be put into identifying these areas for improvement.  In fact, use your technology procurement cycles as an opportunity to improve process by using tools such as SixSigma.    

Usable

Again, this is something we always hope for, but never fully attain.  From navigation to work flow, applications should be developed as simply and intuitively as possibly.  Can any steps be removed?  What steps are unnecessary or legacy?  Does the application match the flow of the process?  the job?  the mission?  Are buttons and icons easy read and understand?  

These questions are critical to understanding usability and should be expanded as necessary.  The point of this is to reduce costs by reducing the need for application training and complicated business practices.  User dashboards are becoming more common as a usability tool.  User interfaces should be intuitive for someone who knows their job well.  

Flexible

Customization is a long running issue in any of our organizations.  In fact, we go as far to purchase a tool, then pay for more customizations despite common behaviors in the industry!  Our costs end up rising significantly as we realize we need X or Y or Z to help complete our missions.  The truth is, vendors have a tough job balancing what customizations should be in the hands of its customers and what should be retained due their specialized nature.  Many of their revenue models also depend on these customizations.

However, we need to push away from specialized customizations as they have a negative affect on our bottom line.  For example, once you have customized your software, updates, patches, and new features become very hard to deploy.  More problems are encountered, costing more to fix through your maintenance contract or service level agreement (btw, I really think these, as individual agreements, should go away completely; one master should suffice...probably a topic for another post.  This also limits the pace of innovation as many customers are using different versions.  

As mentioned above during the technology procurement process, carefully decide on YOUR needs ahead of time to help avoid this.  Heck, develop a technology strategy if need be.  Your administrative panel should ALWAYS have easy-to-use and flexible customization options that do not require "coding."  And vendors should understand that a strong and robust administrative panel is an absolute necessity!  

Secure

Security is always on my mind (and yours as well).  It reminds me of the song "Always on my Mind" by Willie Nelson.  While I am not talking about a lost love, I am talking about the constant threat of data and information compromise whether it be internal, external or a simple corruption.  We must recognize our threats and vulnerabilities in this area, but also recognize the issue with designing systems so secure it is hard to use and manage for its intended function.  

For example, the HSEEP Toolkit requires a very secure/hard to remember password that has to be renewed every 90 days.  Once more, if you account is moved to "inactive" status or your simply forgot your password, it requires a phone call instead of a simple and automated "Forgot My Password" process that can validate the same information.  I can go on and on about tools that don't balance security with usability very well.  And it truly is a balance.  We are all busy people who need to know that the tools we use are secure, but usable.  

Available

We are all emergency managers, responders and continuity professional with critical roles during emergencies.  As a result, our systems are critical as well.  Downtime is not an option.  Much has been written about business continuity and disaster recovery strategies.  But moves to internet-based solutions is growing significantly and challenging existing strategies to maintain critical operations.  Vendors are working hard to ensure their data centers have 99.9% uptime and availability.  Applications stand a better chance of uptime when they are not in the disaster impact zone.  Additionally, when you use separate applications from different providers in different locations, you significantly decrease your downtime risk.  

I should note that the availability that I speak of heavily relies on internet access and is a critical failure point.  But when you know where you need to devote your money and resources, such as mainly ensuring reliable access to the Internet, continuity strategies become more cost effective and easier to maintain and implement.  Now you are not worried about dedicating IT staff to managing your servers during high load times, addressing network failure or VPN issues, or constantly trying to keep up with software updates and server requirements.   You are dedicating and devoting your time to one important mission, Internet access.

Integrated

This is my bread and butter and where it will be at in the next five years.  Integration represents the many inter-dependencies that we have been trying to manage and coordinate for years.  Technology can make this easier, but if currently fails with all the customizations taking place.  Integrations should be a non-technical/non-coding activity based on the idea that you are simply connected to another platform that serves a complimentary need.  Revenue models need to shift from expensive customizations to standardized customer access.  I am not saying don't charge for this, but there is a middle ground that enables most of the customizations emergency managers are looking in a cost-effective manner that empowers the customer to modify the tool according to its needs.  

Integration still serves a greater purpose, though.  We no longer own ALL the data we work with and it is important that we can shift to an access control model no matter what platform you are using.  I was at a recent exercise where users of the emergency management software were hand posting information from their local status board to the Regional board and vice versa.  This SHOULD BE AUTOMATIC AND THE BOARDS SHOULD BE INTEGRATED!  OASIS is developing many standards to support this, but vendors need to step outside their silos and work in conjunction with their competitors by developing Application Programming Interfaces and pre-configured integrations with other applications.  We are an inter-dependent field that needs inter-dependent technology.  

Simple LDAP (a widely-used IT solution for managing organizational users) integration is a great start to support user provisioning.  Next up..the top five emergency management solution providers should develop integrations to each other's solutions.  

Conclusion

Well, as I write this post, I am realizing how big this issue is and perhaps I need to write a lot more about my pillars.  But I want to make sure I have stressed the one important overarching principle...the software we use today must be intuitive and reflective of our operating conditions.  Vendors have a long way to go to change their business model, get on constant and consistent innovative update cycles, and collaborate with their customers.  However, customers, the people who use this software every day must begin demanding these changes.  Cool features and capabilities mean little unless they are developed with our real-world needs in mind.  

I have hopefully provided some food for thought.  What are your thoughts and experiences?  What would you do differently?

Social Media in Disaster Response...Delegation or System Issue?

NIMS and ICS were developed and further refined out of the need for a unified management structure for response response operations.  Since its evolution more that began more than 30 years ago, systems and technologies have begun to challenge the existing models.  Hal Grieb, a former Texas emergency manager and social media contributer, points out that as frameworks, NIMS and ICS allows tools such as social media to be implemented during a response, but the frameworks lacks the necessary guidance to address social media. 

So is it a supporting technology or a new box in a command stracture?

Adame Crowe, an emergency manager from Johnson County, KS and Hal have discussed two perspectives. Adam discussed some of the structural issues associated with delegation as our capabilities (with social media), including having not grown with our current command systems and our readiness to handle all that independent attention that social media requires is lacking. Hal also raised interesting points about the ability to delegate, which is absolutely correct.  

Often in COOP plans, we talk about succession and clearly delineate (hopefully) each persons role in succession, including roles and responsibilities and their authority. Social media in emergency management (#smem), though, barely has these roles and responsibilities identified as best practices are still being developed and socialized. Everyday new best practices are being developed and they are often very unique to each jurisdiction that has put in the time and effort to address this complex issue, often on the preparedness side, not the response side.

If you delegate this to the PIO, training is NOT enough. The PIO must be explicitly aware of his or her roles and responsibilities to support social media in a managed response. The PIO needs to know where he or she has the flexibility (often dependent on the incident) to "run with it" and where he or she should hold back due to potential conflict with operations. This is why a revision of the JIC/JIS is necessary...to help incorporate the operational roles of social media so that it can be delegated appropriately in a command structure. 

State of Disaster (Part III): Technology

Inspired by Gisli Olafsson' post, The Disaster Manifesto: I Have a Dream...", I too am inspired to write about our transforming field as a way to focus efforts on meaningful dialogue, research, and advancement.

The state of disaster management in the U.S. is a cross between the capabilities of today and tomorrow and the conventions of yester-year.  Disaster management is at the crossroads of a transformation that is enabling organizations across the country and around the world better serve their communities.  But our ability to adapt is showing signs of strain and opposition.  This post is part of a three-part series examiningg the challenges associated with the following issues in Disaster Management:

• Part I:  Government Rules, Regulations, and Structures
• Part II:  Education, Research, Professional Development and Training
• Part III:  Technology

In each post, I offer industry-wide recommendations to help advance the baseline and adapbility of disaster management. 

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TECHNOLOGY

Technology is poised to change the way we think.  The advancement in technology over the past few years is enabling our organizations to do more with less.  Innovation is occurring at a rapid pace and it is certainly hard to keep up, most notably in Social Media.  But there is more to technology; technology that supports information, personnel, and resource management.  Technology also needs to be built with scalability, usability, integration in mind.  OASIS is leading efforts to standardize technology development in emergency management and other fields.  However, technology is Not THE Answer, it is only part of the equation that will help propel disaster management to new levels of ability and advancement.  

History of Technology

In the past 40 years, as technology has transformed corporations and business processes, disaster management organizations have adopted software to help meet the growing demand for disaster services.  Traditionally, organizations have purchased stand-a-lone software or had custom solutions developed.  The burden of maintenance has often rested on the IT departments of each organization at great expense and solutions have often lacked focus on usability.  Additionally, while more organizations are increasingly working with other jurisdictions and partners, the expense of technology has often been duplicated instead shared between organizations.  Today's solutions do not meet the complex and inter-organizational and -jurisdictional needs of disaster management organizations and partners. 

Trends in Technology

Social media is the big behemoth driving technological change in disaster management.  However, it is not the only transformation.  As we look forward, solutions are being developed with scalability and usability in mind.  Over the internet delivery models (a.k.a. software as a service) are becoming more common and are being accepted as valid disaster recovery (IT) strategies.  However, pricing structures remain similar and the cost of acquisition and implementation is still very high.  Additionally, standards don't exist for the integration of multiple platforms that are often used to round out an organization's or region's capabilities.  Integrations are largely custom services provided by technology vendors and add to the costs of acquisition. 

Future of Technology

The future of technology is truly an evolution.  Moving forward, customers will not only be looking for solutions that are scalable and easily used, but solutions that solve specific problems and improve specific processes.  They will also be demanding that solutions are flexible and have the ability to easily integrate with other solutions to help streamline operations.  It is unrealistic to believe that one vendor can do this all; and as a result, vendors much look to partner with complimentary businesses as wells as their competitors. 

With solutions that meet foundational needs and truly address problems, the cost of sales (and subsequently acquisition) will decrease dramatically as solutions divide into two major categories that work well together:  Platform and Speciality Solutions.  For example, WebEOC may meet the core functional needs of its customers with a basic, easily duplicated platform.  While they may offer additional speciality solutions, other vendors will build solutions that tightly integrate with the WebEOC platform for things like Alert and Notification and Resource Management.  Organizations can then select from an array of solutions that will better meet their needs while keeping costs down.

Recommendations:

Technology is not the answer to all our problems, but it is a viable path to overcoming problems, improving processes, and reducing costs.   In order to do so, though, here are some recommendations:

I call on technology vendors and developers to:

• Continue to promote and sell the Software as a Service (SAAS) delivery model, reinforce its efficacy as a Disaster Recovery (IT) strategy, and show its return on investment
• Develop scalable and integrated solutions through the use of APIs, Platform Partners, and OASIS and other accepted standards.  Highly proprietary and closed software is no longer advantageous to disaster management organizations. 
• Focus their development efforts not just on features and capabilities, but usability.  Make sure your solution is easy to use, navigate, and intuitive.  Work with your customers to conduct usability tests and incorporate new customer support platforms and strategies into your services to expand on the collective knowledge and ideas of your users. 
• Ensure systems follow generally accepted standards for documentation, reporting, and information ownership.
• Develop solutions with Federal and state security requirements having already been met AND streamlined.  For example, give more thought to developing and integrating meaningful validation processes for users.
• Develop solutions that enable customers to have more control over the product without requiring costly customizations or support each time.   

I call on disaster management organizations to:

• Critically think about ways technology can better support your operations and reduce costs.  While all solutions may not yet be available, they will be if you demand them. 
• Engage your employees and staff in defining technology requirements and identifying ways to improve operations.

State of Disaster (Part II): Education, Research, Professional Development, and Training

Inspired by Gisli Olafsson' post, The Disaster Manifesto: I Have a Dream...", I too am inspired to write about our transforming field as a way to focus efforts on meaningful dialogue, research, and advancement.

The state of disaster management in the U.S. is a cross between the capabilities of today and tomorrow and the conventions of yester-year.  Disaster management in at the crossroads of a transformation that is enabling organizations across the country and around the world better serve their communities.  But our ability to adapt is showing signs of strain and opposition.  This post is part of a three-part series examining the challenges associated with the following issues in Disaster Management:

• Part I:  Government Rules, Regulations, and Structures
• Part II:  Education, Research, Professional Development and Training
  
• Part III:  Technology

In each post, I offer industry-wide recommendations to help advance the baseline and adapbility of disaster management. 

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EDUCATION, RESEARCH, PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT, AND TRAINING

Industry advancements are not only rooted in the hard sciences, but also the social sciences.  And disasters are no longer just a study of their science.  They are now a study of their impact and challenges in relation to today’s modern society, political climate, and increasingly social and non-linear communications (e.g., social media).  Disaster management is now a field of study that combines the principles of communication, business, and public administration and policy. The people that succeed in disaster management are well-rounded and have a thirst for learning and a sense of patience and calm. 

U.S. News and World Report recently listed disaster management as one of the 50 best jobs of 2011.   Check out the comments section for some great commentary as well.  But as we grow in size and maturity, we must find additional ways to professionally develop our staff and response partners. 

Education and Research

Over are the days of understanding how hurricanes, snow storms, and terrorist events occur.  We know.  We have researched these things for years and perhaps more research is needed.  But the truth is we need more research on the evolution of the industry as a whole, not just the hard sciences that necessitate our existence.  In the past 10 years, there has been an explosion of higher education programs.  FEMA's Higher Education Project has fueled this fire by creating curriculum standards and uniting the efforts of the emergency management academics with practitioners.  But we are out-growing the peer evaluation and validation model.  Program evaluation must incorporate student and employer feedback to help identify emerging gaps and stale content in today's programs.  Independent and blind feedback like the surveys that U.S. News and World Report does for other types of education programs must be applied to disaster management programs. 

Additionally, we need more researchers in the field of disaster management to push the envelope of what we know now and help us proactively accommodate the emergence of new concepts in social media, technology, regionalization, GIS, planning, and exercising, etc.  At this stage, we can benefit far more from knowing how to respond to and engage with the public using social media than exactly how a hurricane develops and spins. 

Professional Development and Training

From Disaster Academia BlogI see it everyday...more and more jobs are requiring Master's degrees to fulfill positions.  But with experience still required, which is part of the Training/Education/Experience Triad, many students are at a loss on how to begin their careers with a disproportionate amount of education.  Professional development is a key element of incorporating new students into the field and we must work harder to stand-up meaningful and structured internship programs that guide students through practical experience.  As they go, they can add additional training to round out their expertise. 

Internships are an underutilized and undervalued way to help advance your organization while giving great hands on experience to undergraduate and graduate students studying disaster management.  More training opportunities are also needed on Leadership, Management, and Integrated Response.  The FEMA Emergency Management Institute curriculum needs to expand further or other organizations, such as higher education institutions, need to ensure these topics are well covered.  Education and training curriculum also needs to be constantly update with principles of leadership from new and noted authors and strategists such as Charlene Li, Jeremiah Owyang, and John P. Kotter.

Steps to Progress

The surge in higher education programs in the last 10 years has been notable, progressive, and warranted.  But internship opportunities need to grow in number and in structure.  While disaster management is an area of growth, job opportunities and salaries must also begin to match the more educated professional base as we transition to becoming a true profession.  Jobs demanding experience need to give way to opportunities for mentorship, especially when the educational foundation is sound and strong. 

As you look at your organization, look at the opportunities to develop your people rather than hire an already experienced person.  And as we move forward and higher education programs become develop, we need continue reinforcing critical thinking and thinking outside the confines of established procedures, especially when those plans or procedures prove ineffective or inadequate for your needs.

Recommendations

The people in and around this industry are our most valued assets and they need to feel accomplishment at the same time they feel there is opportunity.  In order to do so, here are some recommendations:

I call on a resourceful person or group of people to:

• Develop an independent non-profit that accredits disaster management programs and encourages programs to achieve other mainstream accreditation;
• Create a standardized evaluation and rating model for the growing number of higher education disaster management programs that incorporates 360 degree feedback;
• Work with IAEM to develop and promote a standardized internship program and help students find additional experience opportunities.

I call on FEMA to:

• Expand and update EMI's curriculum more regularly to incorporate many of the new concepts and issues challenging today's and tomorrow's emergency managers.  Draw on concepts from other fields of practice as well;
• Challenge foundational concepts by offering new and innovative courses related to emergency management.  For example, host a SMEM Camp as part of the Crisis Commons SMEM Initiative.

I call on organizations to:

• Find new and innovate ways to incorporate interns into your operations and establish relationships with higher education institutions in your local area;
• Look more favorably on prospective hires with disaster management education, but lack the necessary experience.  Mentorship is a very viable option that may serve your organization better in the long run.

I call on IAEM to:

• Expand it's scholarship program by developing a corporate sponsorship program instead of relying solely on the contributions of its members. 

What recommendations do you have?  Where have you succeeded in implementing change?  How?

State of Disaster (Part I): Government Rules, Regulations, and Structures

Inspired by Gisli Olafsson' post, The Disaster Manifesto: I Have a Dream...", I too am inspired to write about our transforming field as a way to focus efforts on meaningful dialogue, research, and advancement.

The state of disaster management in the U.S. is a cross between the capabilities of today and tomorrow and the conventions of yester-year.  Disaster management in at the crossroads of a transformation that is enabling organizations across the country and around the world better serve their communities.  But our ability to adapt is showing signs of strain and opposition.  This post is part of a three-part series examining the challenges associated with the following issues in Disaster Management:

• Part I:  Government Rules, Regulations, and Structures
• Part II:  Education, Training, Research and Professional Development
• Part III:  Technology

In each post, I offer industry-wide recommendations to help advance the baseline and adapbility of disaster management. 

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GOVERNMENT RULES, REGULATIONS, AND STRUCTURES

In the U.S., we have countless rules and regulations that define our legal structures, authorities and responsibilities.  We need interpreters (lawyers) just to understand how to best navigate through them in order to achieve our missions.  What has been our Founding Fathers' dreams when developing the backbone our country over two hundred years ago continues to challenge us every day in this modern and unimagined era.  An overhaul of the entire legal system is unlikely and certainly not practical.  But our system, based on sound principles, allows us to influence change when needed.  And now more than ever, we need to be advocating change in the laws that have guided us over the past many years.  We need to amend the laws to represent the evolution of our modern capabilities and needs while at the same time preserving the sovereign rights of Federalism that recognize local and state authorities.  

Federalism

In the disaster world of Federalism, we constantly remind ourselves that all disasters start and end locally.  This is a principle of our country's founding fathers and is noble in intentions, but hard to practice for expanding, complex and overwhelming incidents.  Furthermore, the dichotomy (see figure to the right) of this issue is that the funds necessary to complete our missions are often dictated by the flow of money from the Federal government.  Our tax bases and elected officials haven't fully bought into the need for disaster management nor do they fully understand all of our vital functions until it is too late.  We need to do more to ensure our community needs dictate the priorities of our disaster management organizations and that Federal funding sources offer enough flexibility to create programs, projects, and plans in ways that are relevant and specific to the uniqueness of our communities.  And communities are not just defined by their jurisdictional bounds; but also by a disaster's impact and consequences.  

Authorities and responsibilities

Every day we are bound by the authorities vested in us either by the executive branch and/or by the legislative branch of our jurisdictions.  Personality conflicts and understanding of our mission often complicate and inhibit the missions by which we are charged to serve. Complex processes and rules established by law makers certainly add to the challenges.  However, it is both our right and duty to lobby for change when change is necessary...and it is necessary.  State and local laws need to be updated to give authority where needed and ensure government operates efficiently and effectively.  Instead of advising us about what we can't do, lawmakers, elected officials AND the lawyers on our staff should be looking at ways to support our missions.  They need to be partners in developing the strategies for success. Lobbying, as part of the Executive Branch of our government is our right and we should work with our elected officials to reform outdated laws and pass new laws enabling us to do our jobs better.

Steps to Progress

EMAC and mutual aid agreements are probably the foundation of recognizing that disasters do not respect the bounds of Federalism and that our system must adapt.  In spear heading EMAC, NEMA has pushed our capabilities further into reality.  But success is in recognizing that we must must go far beyond EMAC and intra-state mutual aid agreements to sufficiently be prepared for the disasters that threaten us.  Regionalization and private-sector partnerships are also evolving greatly as we continue to recognize that we can't do it all by ourselves.  NIMS and ICS are great starts to response management structures, but have not done a very good job of building out complex response management structures for inter-state and/or large-scale disasters in ways that are well-aligned with the principles of Federalism, including the sovereign rights of States.  Localities still have immense trouble scaling their capabilities to the needs of the disaster.  The systems, processes and legal structures needed to support these efforts are complex and with limited precedent; and it is our duty and vital importance to ensure our process-oriented and governing structures adequately allow innovation and progress to succeed AND be captured in a timely manner. 

The simple truth is that we have far more capabilities than we did in the over the last 50 years.  We also have far more responsibility.  Exercising the extent of our capabilities is a hard and convoluted as we bring in more and more response partners at all levels of government and the private sector.  NIMS and ICS are great starts to recognizing the need for more best practices in large-scale disasters.  They are hierarchical structures that need revision to address the decentralized, non-linear, and nodal management structures that have organically evolved in large-scale incidents.  Shared responsibility is becoming an effective model for which we have no great understanding of or resources for.

Recommendations:

Change is of course warranted as part of a modern evolution.  But more importantly, recognizing that we have the power to change and influence is of utmost priority.  Yes, we are undoubtedly strained by our budgets, our staffing, and the amount of time in our day; but it is still important to set ourselves up for success by recognizing the change that is needed and acting upon it.  To get us going, here are some recommendations I would like to see implemented 

I call on FEMA, DHS and other Federal organizations to:

• Comprehensively review existing Federal laws and regulations (either directly or indirectly related to disasters), develop a strategic plan for getting them updated, and identify gaps in which new legislation is needed;
• Create and/or reform grants so they are more flexible, allow creativity, and push the bounds of expectations.  Requirements should focus on measurable results as opposed to finite outcomes;
• Spur innovation and advancement through meaningful challenge grants and/or loans that provide support and opportunity for both private (non-profit AND for-profit) AND public sector organizations.  Expand Challenge.gov to provide innovation opportunities in a free-market environment.  FEMA can't do it all and a SBA partnership would serve the industry well. 

I call on state and local organizations to:

• Comprehensively review existing state and local laws and regulations (either directly or indirectly related to disasters), develop a strategic plan for getting them updated, and identify gaps in which new legislation is needed;

• Find opportunities to work with their elected officials and lobby for change in our legislative branches.
• Work with your elected officials and/or legislature to ensure budgets are appopriated as best as possible and your mission is better incorporated into the tax-base of your community.  For example, does your community have and need an emergency fund?
• Develop better working relationships with your legal departments and staff so they understand your needs and can provide meaningful can-do support rather than inefficient restrictions.  They are poised to help you navigate through the complex legal challenges that face your organization and perhaps provide solutions and work-arounds you may never have thought of on your own. 
• Lay out 5 and 10 year strategic plans that better convey your needs, outlines actionable and measurable programmatic objectives, and ensures your are meeting the comprehensive needs of your community. 

What recommendations do you have?  Where have you succeeded in implementing change?  How? 

Emergency Management Resource Site Needed for Social Media Implementation

I have come to the conclusion that the emergency management community needs a website to assist them in their efforts to implement social media campaigns. Although I am quite proud of this blog and its list of resources, I find myself envious of the social media site built by the International Association of Chiefs of Police in partnership with the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, and the U.S. Department of Justice. The mission of the site, as stated on their webpage:

...to build the capacity of law enforcement to use social media to prevent and solve crimes, strengthen police-community relations, and enhance services. The IACP will be creating practical tools and resources to enable law enforcement personnel to develop or enhance their agency’s use of social media and integrate Web 2.0 tools into agency operations.

By highlighting the service this center provides, I hope to draw the attention of maybe IAEM, NEMA or even the ICMA to try to develop a partnership with the Department of Homeland Security/FEMA to create a similar resource for the emergency management community. Information and how-to's regarding the implementation of a social media presence are available for local OEMs if they search for them. However, there really isn't one central location, not even the First Responders Communities of Practice (FRCoP) site, where a local agency can go to find everything from best practices, to a hyperlinked directory of every OEM in the country using social media. The FRCoP is more of a forum where first responders can discuss problems and highlight best practices, but since it relies on input from the community itself, it does not represent a complete compendium of information.

The first "getting started" page of the IACP site is a good example of why the EM community should be a little green with envy. For instance, under the Policy Development tab, there are model policies, legal considerations and guidance; under Strategy Development, agencies are encouraged to determine their goals and objectives before implementing a SM presence; and of course, there is a tab for tutorials and guides on how to set up SM pages.

Although you can peruse the site yourself, I'd like to highlight another feature I found interesting, the topics page. This page provides timely information about 16 different topics, each with a description and then three tabs:

1. Case studies
2. Current news, and
3. Publications

Publications include such items as fact sheets. For example, under the alerts & notifications topic there are fact sheets on twitter and facebook in printable, PDF formats. One last page I'd like to highlight is the page on Case Law. Again, this page is presented in a searchable format with hyperlinks to full cases once you find the information you were looking for.

Although the emergency management community could turn to the IACP site for guidance, I believe there are issues specific to the EM community that they don't address (crisis mapping and ICS, for example). My hope is that those with an interest in social media and emergency management can make some noise for either an agency or an association to copy this very useful resource.

On Public Health and Disasters

After September 11th and the subsequent anthrax letters, much attention has been given to the idea of public health preparedness. Public health preparedness programs, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sprung up across the country. Their charge was to protect the nation from bioterrorist attacks, and indeed much planning went into planning for future anthrax attacks. In 2003, SARS, a novel respiratory disease swept around the globe, sending preparedness programs looking toward novel diseases as threats to be identified and planned for. Shortly thereafter, cases of H5N1 avian influenza began to be reported in the US media. In 2006, President Bush signed the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act, allocating funding towards preparing for a potential influenza pandemic. To this day, public health preparedness programs in cities, counties and states across the US strive to prevent the very worst from happening in your neighborhood.

While my posts here will inevitably focus on these topics, I wanted to start my series looking at public health preparedness through a different lens. One where public health responders are so-called second-responders. Using the two big disaster news stories of the week, we see how public health is rarely comprised of first responders.

In the aftermath of last year's earthquake in Haiti, public health responders played a tremendous role. But in the immediate aftermath, it is the search and rescue teams, logistical gurus and human services agencies that really provide that initial response. Afterwards, though, public health folks (should) shine. Setting up water treatment facilities, arresting the spread of cholera, (re-)establishing the standard of life.

The big event today takes place on the other side of the planet and the other side of the economic scale. Parts of Australia have been inundated with the worst flooding they've ever seen. The images being broadcast are amazing. The story this week is about the police and fire rescue folks, the shelter providers and food and water deliverers. Tomorrow, and six, nine, twelve months down the road it will be the public health agencies. The water treatment facilities, the mold removers and the refrigerator cleaners will be the too often under-reported on heroes.

There are many buzzwords in our field, but few have the cachet that "resilience" does these days. Few are also so poorly defined (and never operationally defined). I would like to propose the idea that the work that public health practitioners do is the very essence of resilience. Making homes livable, providing safe water to drink, preventing the spread of vicious, murderous infectious diseases are all how a society gets back on it's feet. When done swiftly and correctly, they are all examples of resilience. We've all seen how painfully un-resilient Haiti has been. I wonder how we will view the Australian response this time next year.