2.1 social media in disaster response and preparedness

Social Media and Online
Collaboration in Disaster
Response and Preparedness
Anticipate, reduce the impact
and cope with disasters
Social Media for Good – www.sm4good.com18.07.2013 1
#sm4resPhoto: Félix Genêt Laframboise/IFRC

18.07.2013 2Social Media for Good – www.sm4good.com
Photo: Marco Dormino/UNDP
How useful is social media when you
are faced with this?

Photo: Marco Dormino/UNDP
How useful is all of this when you are faced
with a disaster?
 Can be very useful for disaster preparedness
 Can provide life-saving information to survivors
 Can increase your awareness of what is
happening, improve accountability and
transparency
-> All of this depends on your country
-> You need to practise before an emergency

DISASTER
PREPAREDNESS
18.07.2013 Social Media for Good – www.sm4good.com 4

Example: The Great ShakeOut
 Annual earthquake drill in the US
 Since 2008; last year 9.3 million people
participated in California alone
 Social media is used to encourage safe
behaviour, create excitement and keep people
involved over the year
 Also includes mass media, emergency
response organizations, city government etc.

ShakeOut is not a social media
campaign, but a disaster
preparedness activity that is
supported by social media.

“[W]hat makes us special is that we are already
extremely relevant. We’re based in Earthquake
Country. Yet, we try to make preparedness and
recovery fresh, interesting, and fun. Social
media is a great way for us to do that, and I
think our sincerity and wish to keep people safe
and ready is obvious.” - @JasonBallmann

Regular, useful and relevant updates that
keep people interested.

Humour can help: Don’t be tooooooooooo
serious, even if the topic is serious

DISASTER RESPONSE

In a disaster social media is
about …
 trying to help people directly
 improving your awareness of what is
happening
 enabling the affected people help
themselves.

Image: UNOCHA; Modified by author
Social media enables communities
People affected by a disaster are either using social
media themselves or indirectly through local media to:
 Share “safe and well“ messages
 Coordinate resources to fill needs
 Find information

It is essential that you listen
Social
media
monitoring
tool
Other …
Look for hashtags, but do not only focus on hashtags!

Tweetdeck.com
One of many social media listening platforms

Example: Twitter, the Fire
Department and Hurricane Sandy
Emiliy Rahimi, NYFD social media manager

Emily Rahimi, NYFD
 Answered hundreds of questions via
Twitter during Hurricane Sandy
 Gave advices and shared warnings
 Connected people to emergency services
where phone lines had failed
 Sat at (and slept under) her desk for 30
hours

HOW MOBILE APPS CAN
CHANGE THE INFORMATION
FLOW
Example

New tools are
trying to close the
information ->
decision loop and
include feedback-
mechanisms.
www.stormpins.com

What is true?

All real/fake photos from „The Atlantic“

Advice to verify information
 What has this user posted in the past?
 What does the user’s profile tell you in this
context?
 Are there other sources?
 Ask internal and external experts
 What about GPS data
 Reverse image search (http://www.tineye.com/)
or (http://www.tineye.com/)

Image: UNOCHA

The information paradox
In a disaster you have
at the same time too
much and too little
information.

What we want:
Enhanced situational
awareness though social
media and online
collaboration

Why use collaborative online tools
for situational awareness?
 Immediate / in real time
(as long as networks and internet are up)
 Many eyes and ears
 Information collection on the
aggregate and the individual level
 Distributed information analysis

How much is relevant?
 About 8 per cent of tweets sent during a disaster
contain situational information
 After the earthquake/tsunami in Japan, more than
100,000 tweets were posted every five minutes
 After the 2011 New Zealand eartquake, 7,500 tweets
were posted per hour using the hashtag #nzeq
→ We need tools that help us identify
relevant information and remove duplicates

Chile earthquake on Twitter
Image: UNOCHA

CROWDTASKING – FINDING
MANY HELPERS ONLINE

Crowdtasking
 Strengths:
• Allows you perform very big tasks in a very short
period of time.
• Easy of use for volunteers
• Multiple organizations/companies exists that
provide tools for free/gifts in kind
 Challenges:
• Needs time and some technical expertise to
prepare before a disaster strikes.
• Most tools are in English.

CRISIS CLEANUP
Example

Why use Crisis Cleanup?
Strengths:
 Online task management tool for organizations
coordinating volunteers.
 Developed by someone who had to coordinate
30,000 volunteers in 5,000 locations across 500
miles.
 Does not require a centralized „task master“.
 Improved transparency and accountability
 Free and open source

Why use Crisis Cleanup?
Weakness:
 No data entry by general public
 Does require dedicated, authenticated data
entry personell (call center)

https://www.crisiscleanup.org

Crisis Cleanup does not use
social media but it embodies a
social mindset!
-> http://demo.crisiscleanup.org

Community of Practice for Social
Media in Emergencies
 Follow #smem on Twitter, Facebook and
Google Plus
 “Social Media in Emergencies” communities
on LinkedIn and Google Plus
 Various blogs

GROUP WORK

What would an ideal collaborative
information management system
look like in your country?
1. What information would you like to collect in an
emergency or as part of disaster preparedness?
2. How would you get that information?
3. How are you sharing the information once you
have collected it?
4. With whom are you sharing this information and
why?

Thank you!
Timo Lüge
Twitter: @timolue

2.1 social media in disaster response and preparedness

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