Move to Wordpress

It took some consideration but I have decided with starting to blog again to move over to Wordpress. The new URL for the blog is http://publicsafetytech.wordpress.com. Please follow us over there. We have redirected the feed so if you are following via FeedBurner you should automatically receive the new feed.

What a vacation...

It has been a very long time since I have posted anything here however that will slowly be changing. After starting a new job in early 2011 I wanted to be careful to avoid potential conflicts of interest and the challenge of my personal opinion conflicting with official departmental positions. I feel now however that it is finally time to start blogging again. Some posts in the very near future will include public warning and GIS related issues. A major project that I am currently undertaking is one of using GIS for integrated facility pre-emergency planning (to include interior georeferencing) as well as using geoaware based applications for real-time decision support.

Google's Social Search & Why YOU Should Care

Today Google announced on their blog major updates to their Social Search technology. This update will rank posts and links shared by people in your social circle on Twitter, Facebook, Buzz, and Quora higher in your search results when you are searching for a related topic. For example, if a friend or connection on Twitter shares a link to a a local hotspot or has created a review of a of that hotspot in Google Hotpot, you will see that link and/or review will show up when you search for that hotspot or related term.

So, why is this relevant to the public safety community? It provides even more reason for public safety agencies to engage in social media. Studies have shown that people turn to the internet more and more for relevant information in an emergency and Google continues to dominate the search engine market and is the "home page" for a large number of individuals. If your agency has engaged in social media and updates it regularly with relevant information during an emergency than your posts to those social media sources will likely be served to any citizen that is socially connected to your agency and searching for related information on Google.

To put this in a little more perspective, a Tornado Warning has been issued for your area and spotters report that a tornado is on the ground. Your agency posts to Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz, and other social spaces that a tornado is approaching Main Street and the nearest shelter in the area is located at the Elementary School and provides a link to the National Weather Service's Tornado Warning. Hearing that a tornado is in the area, an employee at your local hardware store goes to her computer and searches for the word "Tornado". Do to Google's ranking of relevance, based on social circles and location, the hardware store employee sees the link to the National Weather Service's warning along with your comments regarding shelter locations. The employee makes the decision to close the store and direct all other employees and customers to the shelter.

UPDATE: A short video provided by Google on Social Search:

Battery Care Myths Busted

As more and more gadgets are added to our emergency management toolboxes we may find ourselves with more battery chargers than we typically have outlets available in our office without the need for multiple power strips.  Each of those chargers and the way that you use it contributes to the overall life of the battery within each of those devices.

Many of the lessons that we have learned over the years about caring for rechargeable batteries however may no longer hold true. Most modern devices from cell phones and laptops to two-way radios now utilize Lithium-Ion batteries and these batteries must be cared for very differently than the NiCad batteries of days passed. Common ideas of battery care tell us:

• Always keep batteries fully charged in storage Myth
• Keep batteries cool in storage True
• Always fully discharge batteries between charges Myth
• Keep your device plugged in whenever possible Myth

As you can see, much of the conventional wisdom of battery care simply doesn't apply to most modern batteries. In fact, if you follow those traditional care strategies you may actually be hurting your batteries. A few simple rules to remember:

1. Always keep your batteries in a cool place when being stored. The closer to freezing the better.
2. Minimize full discharges of batteries by keeping a spare on hand and switching them out as they get low.
3. If you are using a device such as a laptop off of it's power cord for an extended period, consider removing the battery after it is fully charged.
4. While our industry dictates we keep charged batteries in a ready state, keep any surplus batteries beyond your ready reserve charged about halfway for extended storage. A possible solution is to keep third tier spare batteries on chargers attached to power strips. If it looks like you may need them due to a major event, flip the power switch on the strip to begin charging to full capacity.
5. Since Lithium-Ion batteries have a limited shelf life, consider emergency contracts to immediately obtain additional spare batteries from local vendors rather than maintaining your own surplus.

Additional information regarding the care and storage of batteries can be found at BatteryUniversity.com.

A case for Twitter Fast Follow

More emergency management organizations are beginning to engage in social media every day.  By leveraging services such as Twitter and Facebook organizations are able to reach entirely new demographics with both emergency information and preparedness messages. A very large portion of our society is actively engaged in one or more of these networks.

As emergency managers we are very accustomed to carrying our Blackberry or other assigned smartphone with us 24/7/365. We are also used to regularly seeing 12 year olds updating Facebook on their iPhones at grocery store checkout lines. Everyone has a smart phone these days, right? Not so fast... As FoxNews reports, market surveys from last year show that 73% of all cell phone sales in the United States were "Feature Phones". Feature Phones, also now referred to as "dumb phones", do not support applications or true web browsing.  Users of these phones do not have access to data plans, Twitter, or Facebook.

So if we are utilizing social media platforms as a primary distribution method of our agency's content how do we reach this 73% of the cell phone carrying public?  The answer comes to us directly from Twitter.  In the summer of 2010 Twitter began to offer a service called "Fast Follow" that allows an individual to send a text message to a short message code and receive your messages as text messages on their handset. There is nothing required of your agency in order to support this service however it would be highly beneficial to ensure that you market the service on your agency's website and any printed outreach materials.

In order for an individual to subscribe to your agency's Twitter stream via Fast Follow they simply need to send a text message to "40404" with "Follow @AgencyTwitterAcct". The end result is a free text notification platform that can be utilized to augment traditional social media followers and/or provide a free stand-in for a full featured emergency notification system for jurisdictions that do not have the funding to procure such a system. The Arizona Division of Emergency Management has done an excellent job of marketing Fast Follow as a way to reach those without smart phones and/or without Twitter accounts. Realizing that people that would likely subscribe using the Fast Follow feature may not have unlimited text messaging as part of their cellular plans, Arizona actually has created a separate Twitter account just for their more significant tweets to be passed to Fast Follow users. I commend Arizona for leading the way in the marketing of this feature and highly encourage all other agencies to also incorporate it into their outreach efforts.

Emergency Manager's Forum

A colleague recently created an online forum for Emergency Managers to collaborate outside of the official constraints of government systems. The forum is very new and does not yet have many posts or members yet however I encourage you to head on over and engage.

Emergency Manager's Forum: http://emforums.forumflash.com/

Emergency Notification System Considerations - Part 3

An emergency notification system that is deployed with a primary mission of providing notifications to the public has significantly more considerations in system selection than a system geared toward internal notifications.  There are several reasons for this but the single most significant is that we must consider two types of messages that will be delivered - those for routine emergencies as well as those for critical events that require immediate action to protect life and property.

Routine Emergency Notifications
We can think of routine emergencies as those that occur daily or weekly that we would like to make the public aware of.  This may include a major road closure, significant weather event, boil water notice, or even a notification that siren systems will be tested.  For these systems we must determine what the most effective method both by penetration and cost to disseminate our message will be. Similar to an internal notification system, we will want to consider the following notification mediums as primary distribution channels:

• SMS (Text Message)
• Email
• Pager
• Telephone

Most notification systems that are available in the mainstream market provide these distribution channels and the public has generally come to expect that level of availability within an opt-in system.  In addition to this basic feature set, I highly recommend that organizations also consider a system capable of delivering messages via fax.  Many businesses and new media desks may be very interested in receiving notifications from your organization however it is quite likely that the most efficient method to reach them may be by a traditional fax machine.  Your notification system should also be capable of publishing your messages to your organization's website as well as to social media accounts such as Twitter and Facebook.  These additional distribution channels can substantively increase both the reach and relevance of your message.

Critical Event Notifications
Notifying the public of a critical event that requires them to take immediate protective action calls for activation of the Emergency Alert System (EAS).  Because of this you will want to ensure that any system utilized for delivering these messages is capable of triggering EAS.  Unfortunately, very few notification systems provide for the direct - end to end - connection to broadcasters.

Although I generally attempt to avoid direct vendor mentions, one vendor that does provide such a system, including the interconnecting infrastructure, is Communications Laboratories' EMnet system. This package places equipment at each activation point as well as each broadcaster and connectivity is achieved using internet as well as satellite links between each point. It is important to note however that while this system does an excellent job at activating EAS, it does not provide for the other distribution channels that we have addressed above.

The advent of the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS) does however offer a mechanism and infrastructure for many notification systems to trigger an EAS activation. Utilizing the internet, a notification system can push a message formated in the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) to federally maintained servers that will then redistribute the message to broadcasters and select other partners. The IPAWS program is still under development at this point however a timeline has been established by the FCC to require broadcasters to obtain equipment capable of receiving messages from the IPAWS server.

Content Targeting
Depending on the size of the jurisdiction, some thought should be given to ensuring that your system allows you to target alerts to specific geographic areas potentially as small as the neighborhood level.  You will also almost certainly want to design the system to allow your citizens to opt-in to receiving specific types of information. A resident may wish to receive notifications about severe weather and school closings but not about road conditions. Designing your system in this manner helps ensure that your content will be relevant to those receiving it.

A Holistic Approach
Since very few vendors offer a single product that does everything well, a comprehensive public warning program may require the use of multiple products potentially from multiple vendors. For example, desiring a very robust and redundant EAS program, a jurisdiction may select a product such as EMnet that performs that function very well and also procure a product that specializes in delivering notification by email, SMS, and other electronic means. They may utilize the output of one of these systems to update their website and publish their message to social media. Such an operational concept can be achieved, through effective system integration, in a single operation performed by the user and will be the topic of our final post in this series.