Community During Crisis: What Governments can learn from the Boulder Community’s usage of Social Media during the Boulder Fire by Tery Spataro

“CommunityDuring Crisis”
What Governments can learn from the Boulder Community’s usage of Social Media during the Boulder Fire.
September 6-11, 2010
Photo Credit: Chris Hough shared this photo on Facebook from Ken Fricklas’s friend
By TerySpataro
Orange Insights, Chief Strategic Officer

The Situation
The Boulder Fourmile Fire is the worst fire in the history of Colorado.
Roughly 6,385-acres burned.
It took 800 firefighters to get the fire under control.
Over 200 structures were affected by the fire, 169 homes lost
Social Media played an important role in keeping the public informed and the community rational.
The community was amazing and pulled together to help those in need.
What follows demonstrates how the community used social media to mobilize and cope with the Fourmile Fire.
This report based on observed information from #boulderfire
Image Credit: Satellite Image of the fire via NASA/MODIS

#BoulderFire:Social Media Timeline
Wednesday
September 8
Thursday
September 9
Friday
September 10
Saturday
September 11
Monday
September 6
Tuesday
September 7
Source: http://trendistic.com/boulderfire

Wednesday
September 8
Thursday
September 9
Friday
September 10
Saturday
September 11
Monday
September 6
Tuesday
September 7
11:34 am Sandra
11:33 am #boulderfire by Andrew
10:07 am 
Tuesday 9/7, first reported at 10:07am
11:33 am Andrew Hyde began using #boulderfire
11:34 am Sandra Fish began tweeting the fire dispatch reports

Wednesday
September 8
Thursday
September 9
Friday
September 10
Saturday
September 11
Monday
September 6
Tuesday
September 7
6:02 pm#boulderfire peaks
5:01 pm #boulderfire is trending
1:17 pm 
Amanda Pingel’s map
11:34 am Sandra
10:07 am 
1:17pm Amanda Pingel created a collaborative Google mashup map
5:01pm #boulderfire is trending
6:02pm #boulderfire peaks

Wednesday
September 8
Thursday
September 9
Friday
September 10
Saturday
September 11
Monday
September 6
Tuesday
September 7
1:17 pm 
11:34 am Sandra
10:07 am 
EPIC Colorado synthesized information from the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, Boulder Office of Emergency Management, Project EPIC, Google collaborative maps
Community banded together the remainder of the week
Tweets were comprised of evacuation efforts, losses, displaced fire victims, and firemen who lost their homes

Total Exposure of Term#boulderfireUntil 9/11/10
Reached 985,099 people
2.9 million impressions
Via 688 Twitterers
Source: Visualization of the term #boulderfire until 9/11/10
http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/visualizations/exposure-from-the-term-boulderfire

TweetReach for #boulderfireuntil 9/11/10
Tweet Types
Exposure: 2,870,780 Impressions
Each pie slice shows how many people saw how many tweets.

#BoulderFire: Thin Slice of Time
Friday
September 10
Wednesday
September 8
Thursday
September 9
Saturday
September 11
Monday
September 6
Tuesday
September 7
1:27 pm
Analyzed
Sentiment
Social Mentions
#boulderfire
1:17 pm 
11:34 am Sandra
10:07 am 
NOTE: The time of this analysis started 9/10/10 1:27pm. Twitter only keeps tweets in search for 5 days.
The fire continued to rage while the community continued to tweet information.

Sentiment#boulderfire Friday 9/10/10 1:27pm
Sentiment looks to the content to determine if it’s positive, negative, or neutral
This Sentiment analysis for #boulderfire was done on Friday 9/10/10 at 1:27pm only for the first 100 tweets at that time
100 Tweets containing the term: #boulderfire
> positive sentiment rather than negative
35 out of 100 tweets were neutral
The neutral tweets were most likely the result of retweeting straight information such as links and news reports
User profile
Adult
Secondary education
Both male and female

Social Mentions#boulderfire, Friday 9/10/10 1:30pm
Social mentions provides the count of number of times #boulderfire was used during 9/10/10 at 1:30pm
421 mentions of #boulderfire
The strength is found in the messages about the Boulder Fire being discussed
#Boulderfire was mentioned every 31 seconds by 198 unique authors
Within this timeframe, 102 topics were retweeted

Social Mentions#boulderfire Friday 9/10/10 1:30pm
Mentions of #boulderfire by tweeterer on Friday 9/10/10 1:30pm
Brett Greene’s post: “Boulder Fire Stokes Community Through Social Media” in Huffington Post was trending high as a news link because it had the most relevance from a popular source and higher number of retweets.
Tweet content was shifting to information such as housing, storage, meals, for evacuees, and fire containment news.
Larry Oliver, Deb Kolaras, Gaiam, Tuckertown, Kendra Kellogg
Throughout the community members continually tweeted: Sandra Fish, Suzan Bond, Aimee Giese, Kate Starbird, Laura Levy, Andrew Hyde, Deb Kolaras, Kia Ruiz and Jo White.

Amanda’s Community Map
1,826,905 views — 218 comments
85 ratings of 5 stars
Map used different icons to illustrate fire areas, evacuation areas, emergency response, photos
Comments provide help with sourcing the map information

EPIC Colorado Map
Mapped from tweet reports
The spreadsheet is extensive, providing data on time, fire information, tweet handle, offers and needs, shelters, road conditions, photos

Vision Link Map
Displays information on the fire, real time tweets, flickr photos, traffic

What Can Government Emergency ManagementLearn From Social Media?

Insights & Opportunities
Insights
Opportunities
Boulder Community coped with #boulderfire from a rational, proactive perspective
Mobilized using different forms social media
Twitter, Google Collaborative Maps, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Mobile
Established a #hashtag and helpful parameters for tweeting information
When a failure in communication arose, community quickly tweeted information about evacuation
Maps provided information on fire, evacuations, support and resources
Now that the fire is extinguished, the community is still providing information, comfort and support
Federal, state and city governmentsneed to create a Social Media Crisis plan and should identify key community influencers
Establish leader[s] in the community to help with social media communication
Have ready & be using a Twitter account, Map, FB, and include mobile communication
Find key influencers through their social media reach within the community
Assign a social media community leader to establish relationships with key community influencers: universities, churches, local meeting places
Create community-based parameters for tweeting emergency information
Provide a system of notification using maps
Use the system for natural disaster, crisis situations, food recalls, health warnings and epidemics
Empower the community to be proactive and helpful in an emergency situation

Helpful Information:How to Help
All Hazards blog has a larger list of Colorado Wildfire Resources in one place.
The Boulder Daily Camera has a good list of How To Get Help and a page with the latest wildfire information.
The Boulder Office of Emergency Management launched a comprehensive response page at http://boulderoem.com.
Donations for Four Mile Canyon fire victims are being taken by calling either 211 or 866-760-6489.
Goods, money and food are also being collected by Volunteer Connection: services@volunteerconnection.netor 303-413-7737.
Source: Brett Greene
Steve Lowtwait donated his great art skills to create a poster to raise money for the firefighters who lost their homes. Please buy one at:
http://shop.campsteve.com/boulder/fire/

TerySpataro @tery
Scientist in mind creative in heart
Recognized industry leader for understanding digital behavior
Over 15 years of digital research and strategy
MBA in marketing, BFA in communication design
My cat uses twitter @blakethecat
Digital data is chaotic.
I love making sense of the messiness!

“A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.”
~ Henrik Ibsen
Thank you!
Orange Insights is a digital research and strategy firm
co-founded by Amy Lieberman and Tery Spataro.
@orange_views
http://www.orangeinsights.com
info@orangeinsights.com

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Community During Crisis: What Governments can learn from the Boulder Community’s usage of Social Media during the Boulder Fire by Tery Spataro

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Community During Crisis: What Governments can learn from the Boulder Community’s usage of Social Media during the Boulder Fire by Tery Spataro Presentation Transcript