I was fortunate to be able to participate in the 2012 UH DURP / NDPTC Winter Institute as an instructor, panel and round table participant. Here are some of my notes from the Saturday project proposals.
Apply Social Media techniques to assist Hawaii American Red Cross with better web visibility.
Idea: Fun videos that will engage citizens on YouTube.
Project involving pandemic crises and the use of Social Media to reduce risk.
This comes from experience with the avian bird flu outbreak. There are differences in how diseases are spread and Social Media may help in identifying patterns.
Incorporating Social Media in all phases of Disaster Risk Reduction.
Quite a large chunk to bite off, so this will have to be addressed at a high level.
Collaborative action through Social Media in Disaster Management featuring an Indonesian river flood area case study.
Economic opportunity to grow in flood prone areas increases the need to be able to reduce the risk that is cause by this growth. Social Media will be examined as a way to inform residents in a timely manner.
Hawaii State Department of Health CAMHD and the application of Social Media for Vulnerable Populations.
Many members of vulnerable populations are not active on Social Media, so applications may focus on the overall network which these members are a part of.
Applying Architecture Planning
After hearing the other Social Media presentations, an idea more along the lines of http://citycamphnl.govfresh.com/ was discussed. There is a lot city data that is difficult to get to because of manual processes. APIs are needed to give the public better access to all sorts of data including flood zones and local elevations based upon past permitting information.
Case Study of Thailand Flood and use of Social Media
The Round Table discussions included presentations on:
MIT Senseable Cities Lab
Several projects were discussed, including Trash Track and Red Balloons.
The Red Balloon tracking case study was of interest because the winning team used Social Media with a built in reward system. Although there was a divided cash prize, it was noted by David Lee that a lot of the motivation was to help with the project vs. just the small chance of winning the prize.
I’m watching this privacy study at Stanford with interest as it is using Facebook to gain participants: http://labs.stanford.edu/ipad/7bf24ca8. We’ve also built in similar features into our social fundraising system Team Coupon.
How do we enact behavior change to reduce risk through Social Media?
Can disaster preparation be perceived as “cool”? Will people follow good examples of disaster preparedness? How can Social Media be used to get the general population to be more prepared before disasters hit?
Post Disaster opportunities for rebuilding better using Social Media.
There is strong interest from large corporations and other entities with money/power to rebuild areas that have been hit by disaster. Some of this is great for communities, some of it is self serving. How can Social Media be used to gather input and help get a wider base of ideas and opinions on how to rebuild post disaster?
NOAA Tsunami Portal (coming soon)
Challenges of adopting Social Media in a structured organization.
When there is a perfect storm of disasters, how do we know our capacity to handle communications are sufficient?
All these discussions have provided a level of validation for our work on reputation building.
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