Darrell Darnell is director of the District of Columbia Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency and a component of the effort that kept President Barack Obama's inauguration from devolving into chaos. "My daughter sent me a text regarding a metro closing before the metro rep in my [emergency operations center] told me about it," he said.
That was an example of adapting to technologies as they occur and the topic of discussion at the OGMA Workshop on Web 2.0, hosted by the Naval Postgraduate School's Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) on June 30-July 1 in Monterey, Calif.
The use of social media is an "exciting prospect" for emergency management, Chris Essid, director of the Office of Emergency Communications within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), told FederalNewsRadio in an interview. "It's an exciting new information stream that our responders can utilize and gain better situational awareness."
The workshop examined the application of Web 2.0 technologies to enhance homeland security practices. A joint venture by the CHDS, the DHS' Office for Interoperability and Compatibility, and the DHS' Office of Emergency Communications, the workshop brought together experts from various disciplines including public safety practitioners, technology leaders, behavioral scientists, social networking analysts and government officials.
"Twitter was useful in exchanging information, stamping out rumors, and providing updates on street closures to people attending the [inauguration]," Darnell said. "This is new and different because it is the beginning of a two-way communication system between the public safety officials and the citizens we protect." Darnell also mentioned the effective use of blogging to build trust in a community. He blogs about weekly events on the city's Web site so the public can get accustomed to receiving reliable information online from a trusted source. He added, "The OGMA conference provided a venue for diverse disciplines to share expertise and learn how to ask questions and frame the national conversation."
Mike Byrne, CHDS faculty and lead organizer of the event, said, "The involvement of diverse groups and the pervasiveness of Web 2.0 is dramatically changing the world of public safety, emergency management and homeland security in both productive and uncertain ways. The discussion at this workshop is advancing our understanding and clearly showing the direction of future efforts as we struggle with the dramatic transformation of the way we communicate, collaborate and build communities of interest."
Web 2.0 technologies are designed to provide citizens and homeland security practitioners a simple, rapid way to share information to improve situational awareness in the event of an incident. The public safety/homeland security community has a spectrum of responses to these rapidly developing technologies:
- suppress use of social networking technologies within agencies;
- ignore them;
- adapt to them as they occur;
- plan to take advantage of them; and
- influence social networking technologies to benefit the agency or user.
Social media is important but greater collaboration between scientists, practitioners and technology experts is essential, said Jeannette Sutton, disaster sociologist and research associate at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Natural Hazards Center and a member of the organizing committee for OGMA.
"Human nature doesn't change. Although technology changes at the speed of light, humans are hardwired to believe they are not at risk," Sutton said. "We have to work harder to get their attention and get them to do something." She said the public safety community should take what it knows about human nature and apply technology to advance its ability to prepare and respond.
Sutton's research with Leysia Palen at the University of Colorado is studying how Virginia Tech students used Facebook to coordinate and communicate after the shootings that took place in April 2007. A focus of the research addresses the myths of social media, including: cyber-terrorism, information can be controlled and social media warnings are wrong.
The bottom line, Sutton said, is that social media is important. Using scientific research methods to study how Web 2.0 was used during disaster and terrorist events will increase the ability of public safety and homeland security communities to prepare for and respond to incidents.
Heather Issvoran is the director of program operations and public affairs for the Naval Postgraduate School's Center for Homeland Defense and Security.
