Suggestions for minimum practice for social media in emergencies

November 29, 2011

This post emerges from a confluence of inputs. Patrice Cloutier’s post “Best practices in the use of social media in emergency management: too soon?” got me thinking. At the Emergency Services Show I spoke to a whole host of people who feel that some responders are on top of social media but others are nowhere with the technology. Given the way emergencies are managed in this country this is an area of risk. At that same show I understood Gordon Scobbie to say that he is working in Scotland to make sure SCG*s (called LRF*s in England and Wales) have a shared approach to social media.

It seems to me that the time has come to define minimum practice for digital technology use by responders. Here are some initial suggestions.

1. Every Category One Responder* should maintain key social media channels.
Right now this would mean that every council, fire service and health trust would have, at minimum, a facebook page and twitter account.

2. Every Cat One Responder should be able to update its social media channels with a maximum of one hour notice 24/7/365.
For larger responders this means having staff in its control centre trained and empowered to provide updates. For smaller responders this would mean having on-call staff trained and empowered to do the same.

3. Every LRF should have clear protocols for how responders will co-operate with each other on social media channels during an emergency
In an emergency all responders involved should use their own channels to talk from their own competence. They should also ensure that they link, re-tweet and point to the channels of the other responders involved. Where there is a lead responder, other responders should regularly indicate this eg

“Follow @marchfordpolice for the latest updates on #theincidentinthetown”

4. Every Cat One Responder should be able to mobilise variable levels of communications resource to their social media presence in a timely fashion.
As an incident escalates, there will be an increased need to updates and to respond to issues raised on social media. This will quickly require a dedicated resource (ie someone who isn’t trying to actually manage the incident).

5. Every LRF should have arrangements to provide for the monitoring and analysis of the online environment in an emergency.
The general public uses the online environment to share data about emerging situations. In some cases the information being shared may be of direct benefit in improving the information picture. In every case it is important to understand how the public perceive the situation and where they are self-organising. This is a resource-hungry task both in terms of the cost of technology and the people needed. Accordingly it is probably most appropriate to resource on a partnership basis.

6. Every LRF should have considered the risk associated with the loss of Internet connectivity and have appropriate contingency plans in place.
Social media is already, for many people, a vital tool in communicating in emergencies. It is becoming a vital tool for responders. This increases the impact of the loss of connectivity. Connectivity might be lost through power failure, telephone system failure or demand significantly exceeding network capacity. If people can’t get online they may self-evacuate, they may panic and they probably won’t turn on the radio (even if it is battery powered, which it probably isn’t).

7. Social media should be explicitly referenced in every plan, exercise and after-incident review.
I don’t think that needs any exposition.

Those are just my suggestions. I’d love to hear other thoughts.

*Some quick definitions

Emergencies in the UK (or at least in Great Britain) are dealt with by local public bodies: police, local authorities, health trusts, fire, ambulance etc. Those with the duty to deal with emergencies are called “Category One Responders” or “Cat One Responders” if you feel jargony, which clearly I do. They have to co-operate in planning for and dealing with emergencies. They all cover different geographical areas. For clarity they are required to join a partnership based around the police force footprint. In Scotland these partnerships are called Strategic Co-ordinating Groups (SCG). In England and Wales they are called Local resilience Forums (Fora?).

Slides from the Emergency Services Show 2011

November 24, 2011

I took part in an afternoon session looking at social media in the emergency services yesterday (23rd November 2011) at the Emergency Services Show in Stoneleigh, Warks.

My task was to speak about how to improve your personal digital skills. Thanks to everyone who stayed and asked questions. Also thanks to Dave Thackery for chairing the whole thing. I promised to put the slides up here. Unusually for my slides I think they stand up without having my commentary.

One theme that ran through the day was the question of trust. The trust organisations must vest in their staff to enable them to use social networking effectively, the trust the public must have in the online expressions of public services (and servants), the trust agencies must vest in  each other, the trust staff must have in their managers and comms teams, and the trust between agencies, the media and the general public.

This is an evolving area. I tend to support view of DCC Gordon Scobbie that managers should start from the point of view of trusting their staff. They trust them to do complex, challenging and difficult jobs. Indeed if managers can’t trust their staff this is surely something for the organisation to reflect upon.

I spoke to someone employed by a large Cat One responder who is banned from mentioning his connection to his employer on social networks. This seems to me to be exactly the opposite of best practice. Anonymity and secrecy destroys rather than building trust. It’s time we moved past this.

 

Slides from Edinburgh and London

November 17, 2011

I agreed to post a copy of my slides from the workshop I ran in Edinburgh yesterday with Public Networks. They won’t mean much if you weren’t at the event. If you’d like to go to a future event or have something delivered in house contact the lovely folk at Public Networks or get in touch with me direct
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For completeness I’ve also put a copy of my slides from the talk I did on Social Media in Community Resilience last week down in London. Those REALLY won’t mean much if you weren’t at the event. (They may not mean that much if you were).

“Take the reins off”: interview with Jon Hall, Chief Fire Officer of Gloucestershire

November 7, 2011

Interesting things are afoot in, of all places, Gloucestershire.

I mean no disrespect to that fine county.

Alright I mean a certain amount of disrespect: I was born and bred in Herefordshire. We don’t have much to look down on but we try to look down on Gloucestershire. Though they have a very nice cathedral and can make a passable bottle of cider.

I didn’t ask Jon Hall to comment on these matters.

Though he has worked for Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service and now he runs Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service.

And their Highways department.

And he’s the Chief Fire Officers Association lead on National Resilience (deploying CBRN and USAR teams in the event of significant incidents).

And he’s one of a growing band of “suits” (uniforms in this case) championing social media. He tweets as @GlosFireChief and where he has influence he is using it to make better use of new technology.

Twitter streams have popped up for Gloucestershire’s Fire and Rescue Service, Highways, and Local Resilience Forum. Localgovcampers will be delighted to learn that Gloucestershire has joined the ranks of the twitter gritters*.

Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Commanders find that they are strongly encouraged from the top to get on twitter. In fact Jon believes that social media is a core skill for everyone working in civil protection and crisis management.

“If you are a Station Commander and you are not paying attention to social media, you cannot know your patch” he says.

Despite the global reach twitter gives him, Jon has found the most significant benefits from the local community. Through twitter he has made connections with parish councillors and other local community leaders that he would struggle to meet in the real world of a large, mostly rural county.

So he encourages everyone to get on social media if only to listen to what’s going on. He is very clear on the importance of local intelligence. In fact some of his officers were embedded with Gloucestershire Police intelligence analysts during the August riots.

His Head of Highways role is a pragmatic response to reorganisation imposed by the cuts but it has given the county a new perspective on issues like flood planning and road safety.

It seems fair to say that Jon is not hidebound by traditional ways of doing things. Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service has just announced an integrated command with a river rescue charity: Severn Area Rescue Association. One SARA team is now based within a Fire Station and firefighters and volunteers deploy together.

Jon says that SARA brings different capabilities. The Fire Service needs slipways, SARA can launch craft down muddy banks. Close working means the Fire Service can have confidence in the training and quality of the volunteer partner.

I asked him whether this was a one off or the start of more state/volunteer integration. He definitely sees more of this sort of thing in the future. Though I’m not sure he was thinking about digital volunteering programmes like standby taskforce (which I was).

Despite the enthusiasm, Gloucestershire hasn’t yet started including social media in exercises. Jon is also conscious that more imaginative uses could be made of the technology. He pointed me towards #woofwednesday which has been used to talk about UK search dog teams, personal safety when dog walking and a whole host of other messages targeted to dog lovers.

And finally, Jon has a simple message for his fellow Chief Fire Officers.

“Take the reins off and let people go for it”

*If this is your sort of thing you might like my social media checklist for councils gearing up for winter.

Exercise Watermark final report: comms and digital highlights

November 1, 2011

The final report into Exercise Watermark is out.

This was an absolutely huge multi-agency flood exercise covering England and Wales.

There was a lot to learn from the exercise. Much went well, much could be improved. A draft report was available earlier in the year which I blogged about then. The final report has seen some changes from the draft and, as far as I can tell, these are mostly to the better. I really urge you to read the report in full.

In the mean time here are what I see as the highlights, from a crisis comms and digital skills standpoint. The recommendations are direct quotes, everything else is my interpretation.

Communication

Information flows between local responders and central government were slow and (by implication) old fashioned. There is a National Resilience Extranet but I’ve never met anyone who found it useful.

In the days when I can skype someone round the world and we can be working on the same google doc with 15 other people there has to be a better system than typing into standard format TLB templates. (I am not suggesting matters of national security should be discussed on a google doc).

Key recommendation 17
The review recommends that government should consider how to use technology better for information sharing and reporting to inform the national and local responses. Government should consider using a live, simple (mandatory) common information platform to use for mapping, digital visualisation, media and other source information.

IT

It’s funny that public sector organisations still block access to social media sites for their staff. It’s curious that public wifi in public sector venues always tends to be flakey. It’s galling that interoperability between IT systems is always a struggle.

In an emergency these issues create real barriers to operational response. They need to be sorted out. I know of at least one cat one responder emergency control centre where there is no IT support at all. Not even wifi. In the 21st century. In the UK.

Key recommendation 18
The review recommends that future exercises involving strategic coordination centres and incident rooms /operation centres should be used to further test location-specific IT and communications infrastructure. The IT issues identified from Watermark, incidents and other exercise need to be resolved. In particular issues like internet guest logins, firewalls, blackberry users and multi-agency access need solutions which can then be shared as good practice.

Mapping

There were a series of recommendations about mapping. I do think that responders could do more to catch up with the rest of the world here. They hold lots of useful data. They have GIS systems. They are often not easily compatible.

There are a whole set of community and web-based tools that need to be part of the mix. OpenStreetMap, Ushahidi, Google Maps all have things to offer. These get a mention in the section on social media.

Am I saying let’s put flood risk maps on OpenStreetMap?

Well that would be great but I’m not holding my breath.

Recommendation 23
The review recommends that UK government departments and the Welsh Government need to make better use of existing mapping and imagery services for emergency planning and response.

Media work

Lots of LRFs have mutual aid agreements between comms teams. That would see, for example, local authority press officers going and helping out an overwhelmed Fire Service comms team. All good stuff. But how well trained are they on the work of the other service? The operating procedures, protocols, legislation and even the names of the key players. More training and exercising and maybe even sharing across LRF boundaries says Exercise Watermark.

There was also some stuff about the physical location of press office cells. It seems to me that much of these issues could be resolved with sensible use of technology. Rather than getting press officers all to drive to the police HQ, link everyone up at their desks.

The processing of press releases and similar statements varied widely across the country. Good practice is a concise, multi-agency, release with key points of information issued in a timely fashion.
Bad practice is 11 agencies all issuing their own releases about different aspects of the same incident.

Recommendation 29
The review recommends that those involved in media briefing during an emergency should get specific training which needs to include the arrangements for mutual aid between organisations.

Recommendation 31
The review recommends that examples of good press releases are shared and used as a template for future multi-agency releases on flood incidents.

Social Media

The social media section has been further beefed-up (it was already pretty strong in the draft report).

Plenty of agencies ignored it. Where they did not ignore it they did not use it well.

This was before the riots of course. Mind you I think the Police have learned from social media use in the riots but I’m not sure other responders have.

The report also talks about “mash-up” sites. By which it means services such as Ushahidi, storify and wikis bringing together information from multiple sources.

These recommendations are my favourite ones.

Key recommendation 32
The review recommends that all government departments and emergency responders assess social media capability, capacity and access and think about removing any barriers so they can start to lead the way in social media conversation.

Recommendation 33
The review recommends that emergency responders media and press officers do some basic social media training so they understand the language, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats posed by social media. Training should cover practical guidance on using existing internet tools to monitor and respond to comments on Twitter etc

If you want to implement these recommendations. Contact me now.

Community Resilience

There is a long discussion about the importance of community resilience. It turns out that communities are quite interested in the plans for their local community in the event of a flood and rather appreciate being given some control over the planning process.

Interestingly for me the community resilience section is silent on social media. To me social media is a community management tool.

Recommendation 35
The review recommends that communities and responders work together so local residents are more prepared by developing community flood plans or community emergency plans if they currently don’t exist.