Last week in Toronto, officials from across Canada and the US attended the annual Emergency Management and Social Media conference sponsored by Public Safety Canada, Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services and University of Toronto.
There were a few trends emerging from the conference sessions that I wanted to share on this blog.
First, the emergency management community has taken great strides to understand social media. The conversations around social media are changing from ‘how do I control the message’ to ‘how can we use social media and work together to improve emergency response.’
It’s an indication that emergency responders are embracing new media. And it is not only communicators who are trying to understand it. Those officials who on the ground responding to disasters in our communities are also looking to technology and social media as tools that can help them improve their response.
The second trend I noticed is that emergency responders are working to understand how they can use crisis mapping. Ushahidi, a free open-source software, was discussed in several sessions. (We’ve blogged about Ushahidi before; you can click here for more information.) A simple explanation of Ushahidi is that it’s an online map that allows members of a community to upload information to alert others to a specific problem or situation – ie, roadblocks, fuel shortage, hospital closures, etc.
While this can be valuable information to emergency responders, one of the biggest challenges is that it is difficult to verify messages from the general public. It is difficult, but not impossible.
Alternatively, emergency officials can be the ones to validate the information that is uploaded to maps. Often in a disaster there are several levels of government and aid agencies working to support the community. Sharing information in real time on a map to provide an overview of the situation could be a real asset to those responding.
These are just a couple of the ideas coming out of the conference. It’s an interesting time for disaster response in terms of social media-- as Toronto Police Deputy Chief Peter Sloly said during his session, social media is a game-changer in the industry.
You can read more about the conference on the Partnerships Toward Safer Communities (PTSC) blog or on Patrice Cloutier's Crisis Comms Command Post blog