PowerPoint on how social media is used in various Public Safety agencies, including the fact of how it can bridge the communication gap that has been occurring lately.

1. Educational Technology
Northern Arizona University

2. The Goal of this PowerPoint
• The focus of this project is communication in law enforcement, and the
lack of training given in certain law enforcement agencies, especially in
the wake of the Secret Service communication mishaps between senior
supervisors and line officers.
Courtesy: LexisNexis
• Another vital part to this
PowerPoint is to give law
enforcement officers the training
they need to use social media for
communication, but in a formal
and professional way, especially
when incidents such as the
Boston marathon Bombing
occurred, and social media was
heavily used by the Boston Police
Department to communicate
with the public (Davis, Alves, &
Sklansky, 2014, p. 3).

3. Curing the Communication Breakdown
• There is a problem that occurs within federal law enforcement agencies, such as
senior superiors not either receiving messages or even an electronic means of
communication from their subordinates. These agencies such as Secret Service and
DEA have both had communication mishaps and mismanagement issues where
agents either took part in illegal or drunken activity. The aim at what this
PowerPoint will illustrate, is how the lines of communication between senior
supervisors and line officers can be cleared by the use of mobile and social media.
“[We need] a government where
people can access the forms and
information they need easily at any
time day or night, can submit their
questions and have
them responded to on a timely basis,
and who have people on
staff that are willing to examine
new forms of communication.”
– GovLoop Survey Respondent
(GovLoop, 2013, p. 11).
Courtesy of: Information Week

4. Mobile Devices for Emergency Communication
• “Emergency situations occur on a daily basis, whether that’s a natural disaster,
violence or a workplace medical emergency. Effectively handling these crises is a
crucial communication task for state and local governments” (Bell, 2015).
• Utilizing a mobile platform would help government administrators coordinate
with repair crews in real time, and update them as the situation unfolds. Even if
cell towers were out as well, which would render Wi-Fi unavailable, administrators
would still be able to access their emergency plans because mobile platforms store
data on the device itself (Bell, 2015).
“Preparation is the key, but
accurate execution is essential, as
is accessibility to emergency plans
for all staff…Ultimately, effective
emergency management should
empower employees and foster a
safer workplace” (Bell, 2015).
Google Image Search

5. Putting Together a Communication Plan
• Part of forming the planning process is understanding Cognitivist Learning Theory – which
“recognizes that learners are activity engaged in processing information and constructing their
own understanding” (Driscoll & van Barneveld, 2015, p. 7).
• Some of these skills include:
• Creating: Designing, constructing, planning, producing, inventing, devising, and
making
• Evaluating: Checking, hypothesizing, critiquing, experimenting, judging, testing,
detecting, and monitoring
• For example the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has “more than 100 Facebook pages,
more than 50 Twitter feeds, two blogs, a YouTube channel, and a Flickr page. VA is working to
have an active Facebook page and Twitter feed for all 152 of its medical centers” (Deloitte,
2011, p. 1).
• “Provide facts, press releases, and web content on social media channels to inform and
educate the public. This tactic should be one of your routines to distribute and broadcast web
content via social media channels. It will help to reach parts of your audience who may never
visit your official government website” (Mergel, 2012, p. 7).

6. Potential Misuses to Avoid
• There could be information leaked to the press that is not supposed to be.
• Communication barriers may be a hard task for public sector leaders to work out in their
individual agency.
• The downfall is that an informal comment by an agency employee can have negative effects
on the agency, and at the same time, can make the situation worse, by stating something
false. Usually this kind of thing would happen when an employee makes and informal
comment via social networking (Deloitte, 2011, p. 3).

7. Social Engagement
Learning leaders can evaluate if a company’s culture is truly collaborative and its social strategy
successful via employee engagement scores, sub- drivers such as return on performance, return
on employee morale, employee likelihood to recommend the company or an employee’s
likelihood to use its products (Hartley, 2013, p. 19).
“Education is about how to use
information” – Author Kevin Carey
http://www.govtech.com/internet/State-of-Social-Media-Infographic.html
Courtesy of Mobile Team Unit 6

8. Designing a Social Media Presence
• Who needs to be involved in planning and executing social media activities?
(Accenture, 2013, p. 2)
• How can social media help accomplish organizational goals? (Accenture,
2013, p. 2)
• Most importantly, it is always important to be formal and professional. Being
informal does no good to the image of the agency!
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Social Media usage graph 10/14/2014
- Dionne Waugh, Richmond PD

9. Digital Communication Strategy
“Approximately 70 percent of the American public trusts online information offered by company web sites and 90 percent
trust information from people they know. The use of blogs and real-time networking and information sharing has
catapulted the communications industry into one of the fastest growing in the nation, approaching $1 trillion in 2008” (U.S
Department of Justice, 2010, p. 16).
Graph Courtesy of GovLoop, 2013, pp. 14-15

10. Social Networks – The Boston Marathon Bombing
Protect, Serve and - Tweet
When the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing occurred, the City of Boston was prepared with a social media
plan in place to respond to citizens concerns, and disproving false leads. To provide and example, “About
10 minutes after the detonations, a BPD commander on the scene called for the use of social media to
communicate to the public the steps the police were taking: “I need somebody to get on social media and let
people know what we’re doing here” (Davis, Alves, & Sklansky, 2014, p. 3).
prsa.org
Twin Design/Shutterstock

11. The Realities of Change
“The introduction of new information coupled with a compelling format for this
information is what ultimately will determine whether employees within the network
will negotiate this new knowledge and reframe their collective understanding to
replace or add on this new insight” (Silvers, 2012, p. 39).

12. The use of Gamification to train employees
Gamification
elements may
include
achievements,
badges, levels,
rewards, points,
and
leaderboards”
(Daul, 2014, p. 1).
“Gamification, as defined by ASTD/i4cp, is “the integration of
game characteristics and mechanisms into a real-world training
program or task to promote change in behavior.

13. The Growth of Social Media and Mobile Technology in Law Enforcement
Smartphones
Twitter
Facebook
Photos courtesy of:
Digital Trends
Metro
Google Image Search

14. What Would You Do ?
Remaking the Image of the Organization
You are a Public Information Officer (PIO) for a sensitive
government facility that holds classified government files and
other material that one needs a secret clearance for. There is a
breach by an intruder that gets past federal officers, and gets far
into the facility. This individual is armed with 2 guns, a knife and
is also quite big and muscular. He is chased, and does some
damage to the facility, federal officers eventually take him down.
Because this incident does not look good to the agency, it makes
the news, get printed in the paper, and now there is a
Congressional Hearing within the Oversight Committee. Now
you as the PIO have the difficult task in restoring the agency’s
image and make the federal officers you work with sound and
look professional as possible.
How would you restore the image of the agency, and make the federal officers
you work with look and sound professional as possible, without making this
sound like the officers were not doing their jobs? Also, what social media tools
would you use to get you message out to the public about this incident?
Courtesy: TDN.com

15. Case Study – Nashua, New Hampshire
• “Last November the emergency management team in Nashua, N.H., participated in a cross-
border disaster preparedness exercise with Canadian agencies to evaluate how digital volunteers
and social media can be incorporated in the official emergency response to address alerts,
warnings and notifications as well as mutual aid” (Raths, 2015).
• “A short time later, over Thanksgiving weekend, a powerful nor’easter hit New Hampshire,
causing multiple accidents and power outages. “We ended up using skills learned during the
exercise right away,” said Justin Kates, Nashua’s director of emergency management. “Through
social media posts, our digital volunteers were tracking roads that were closed and compiling that
info onto GIS maps to help first responders direct resources, clear trees from roads and restore
power” (Raths, 2015).
-
Kevin Breaux, assistant deputy director for preparedness, response and
interoperability in the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and
Emergency Preparedness
Flicker/Glass House
Full article:
http://www.emergencymgmt.com/disaster/Social-
Media-The-Next-Level.html

16. References
• Accenture. (2013). Ready, set, go: Creating an engaging social media presence is
about more than tools. pp. 1-8. Received: 24 January. 2015.
• Bell, B. (2015 April 23). Are emergency managers making the most of mobile?
(Industry perspective). GovTech. Received: 15 July. 2015.
• Daul, S. (2014 July). Game design for learning. TD at Work. pp. 1-20. Received: 2 February.
2015.
• Davis, E.F. III; Alves, A.A.; & Sklansky, D.A. (2014 March). Social media and police
leadership: Lessons from boston. New Perspectives in Policing Bulletin. Received: 12 July. 2015.
• Deliotte. (2011). Social media programs for federal agencies reaping the rewards while mitigating the risks. pp. 1-8.
Received: 18 July. 2015.
• Driscoll, M & van Barneveld, A. (2015 January). Applying learning theory to mobile learning. TD at Work. pp. 1-20.
Received: 16 July. 2015.
• GovLoop. (2013). The govloop guide: Crafting a comprehensive digital government strategy. pp. 1-20.
Received: 31 August. 2014.
• Hartley, D. (2013 April). What is social learning anyway? Chief Learning Officer. pp. 18-21. Received: 16
August. 2014.
• Mergel, I. (2012). A manager’s guide to designing a social media strategy. IBM Center for the Business of
Government. pp. 1-18. Received: 18 July. 2015.
• Raths, D. (2015 July 23). Social media: The next level. Emergency Management. Received: 24 July. 2015.
• Silvers, A. (2012). The blueprint for social learning. Training and Development. pp.
34-39. Received: 16 August. 2014.
• U.S. Department of Justice. (2010). Key strategies to enhance communication. Major Cites Chiefs Association. pp. 1-52.
Received: 7 July. 2015.

17. A Final Note - The Power of Communication
– Chris Hsiung, Mountain View PD

18. Thank You!!!
•Thank you for taking the time to take a look at my
PowerPoint. I hope you enjoyed it. Please take some time,
and provide me with some feedback for my class
summary via email at nt266@nau.edu