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Gmail is the New Black: Why You Should be Using Gmail Right Now

February 1, 2010 By 8 Comments

Do you use Gmail or some other web-based program, or are you still accessing email strictly on your computer, cursing Outlook, and praying for the sweet, sweet release that death a hard drive crash will bring? Do you have a backup of your address book and necessary emails, should that blessed day ever come?

When I give a social media talk, I tell everyone to use Gmail for basic contact management. It has saved my bacon more than once, and I’ve become such a raving fan that I use it as my only email interface. I even forward my work email and other addresses into Gmail, so I have one window, one set of contacts, and the cleanest, least buggy interface I’ve ever had the joys of using. I can send email from any of my addresses, but the interface is all Gmail.

The joys of Gmail

If you’re not using Gmail yet, here are a few reasons why you need to:

  • Social network building Any social network you join is going to have a way to import your address book into the network so you can see if your friends are on there. Gmail is the easiest one to bring in. Some networks don’t even import web-mail programs like Hotmail. Others are a little more forgiving and will let you import Apple Mail, Outlook and Outlook Express, and comma-delimited CSV files.
  • Offsite storage of your contact list Let’s say that your work computer crashes, and you lose everything. Or you are, um, no longer allowed to. . . access your work computer due to a new arrangement you have with your now-former employer, and you need to let your friends and colleagues in other companies know about your new work situation. Having a copy of your address book in your control will make this a lot easier. You can even sync Gmail with Outlook, so any time you change or add a record, that is reflected in the other. Warning: some solutions will split up multi-email records, and then sync all those brand new records into Gmail. I had that happen twice, after I spent hours cleaning them up.
  • Emergency access If you ever need to reach people over the weekend or in the evening, but your computer is at work, you can still do so. This is especially important for people in crisis communication whose organizations are still planted firmly in 1997. If you’re counting on your email server and your email list to be available if you need to do a press release or media alert, you’re totally hosed if that thing ever crashes because of a large-scale disaster. When I was in crisis communication, we had to come up with some plan to work around just that contingency. And if you’re in the middle of an emergency, and you can’t get access to your email server, you need another solution. There are so many workarounds to getting online, as long as you can get there, you can communicate. But if you’re depending on one computer’s data, forget it.
  • Enterprise email You can even use Gmail for business. For $50 per user per year, you can get 25 MB of storage per user, plus it syncs with Outlook and Blackberry. (For the record, I can also sync my personal email with my HTC Droid.) You keep your corporate identity and addresses, but you have the security and ease of use of Google’s email, calendar, and Docs.

What about you? Why do you use Gmail (or your favorite web-mail application)? Why should people switch to web-mail from computer mail? Or, why shouldn’t they?

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    Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Copyright Holder : Professional Blog Service  •  Headline : Gmail is the New Black: Why You Should be Using Gmail Right Now  •  Keywords : Gmail, email, productivity, social networks, Twitter  •  Publisher : Professional Blog Service  • 
    Filed Under: All Posts, Crisis Communication, Productivity, Social Networks, Twitter Tagged With: , , , ,

    Defining Two Types of Crisis Communication

    January 25, 2010 By 3 Comments

    Crisis communication has two different, distinct meanings. They require different approaches, different ideas, and completely different types of plans. And not knowing the differences between the two can create some problems if you try to use one approach in the wrong place.

    There’s corporate crisis communication (CCC), and there’s CERC.

    CERC — Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication — is what the government calls communication during a massive emergency, such as swine flu, a terrorist attack, or large-scale natural disaster. (And you can tell the government came up with it, since it’s so much longer and has more words than are truly necessary.)

    Both are often called “oh shit PR,” but the difference is that in a CERC situation, a lot of people could die. With CCC, a lot of money could be lost. One type of emergency gives emergency first responders sharp chest pains and indigestion, the other makes the corporate lawyers pull out their hair. But they both say the same two words when something goes down.

    Although these two forms have a lot of similarities, there are some important differences. And if you’re talking about social media for crisis communication, you need to know them, because they affect your strategy.

    Corporate crisis communication

    I’d like to say that it’s important to always tell the truth and to be as open and honest as possible. But the sad truth is that being completely open and honest can ruin a company. I’ve hassled corporate legal departments over their “wrecking” crisis communications, but they’re a necessary part of any response. They just shouldn’t control it. In CCC:

    • Transparency tends to go out the window. The emergency is usually something that will make the corporation (or individual) look bad, so the first instinct is to hunker down and contain the bad news. This often means trying to keep it under wraps. This hardly ever works.
    • The negative end result of a corporate crisis is a loss of money. It could be a hit to their reputation, credibility, or branding, but those will all effect the bottom line. And since that can be in the millions or billions, crisis communication is not something that should be taken lightly. Entire companies, like Chi-Chi’s restaurants, have been lost to bad communications. But it’s the attempt to avoid losing money that leads to bad communications.
    • Communication is about containment. Many corporate crisis PR professionals are focused on keeping their client from being found guilty or negligent. They’re not worried about whether people like them, they just want to win the pending lawsuits. So they’ll put out information that, while is not a lie,
    • The message is the biggest part of the response. There’s other stuff going on behind the scenes — product recall, legal preparations, brand managment — but the communication is what’s going to affect the public’s perception, and thus, their reaction, lawsuits, vendor relationships, etc. Information may be easy to get if you’re in crisis communication, but it’s not always easy to share.

    Social media strategy: Guarded, but present. Correct misinformation, use Tweets and Facebook to communicate with customers in a brand management manner. Put on your best face, but don’t lie. Monitor the gossip sites, but don’t engage.

    Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication

    This is the area I came from. We wanted as much open communication as we could get. More was better, and there was no such thing as too honest. Our goal was to “prevent panic,” and make sure everyone knew what was going on. With CERC:

    • Transparency is crucial. This is information people need to know. Information about where to go for safety, supplies, or medication.
    • The negative end result of a public crisis is a loss of life. When I was at the Indiana State Department of Health, we trained for things like medication distribution during an anthrax attack. The goal was to tell as many people as possible where medication was available. Information has to be gotten out quickly and to as many people as possible.
    • Communication is widespread. The point of CERC is to get as much information out as possible, and to correct misinformation. There is nothing that should be contained or covered up.
    • The message supports the rest of the response. It’s the other stuff that’s going on — law enforcement, public health response, rescue/recovery, clean-up — that’s going to affect the public, and communication lets the public know what’s going on. If there’s medicine to be distributed, communication will tell the public where to get it, but it’s the Point of Distribution that will give it out. The problem with this approach is that the public information officers (PIOs) are trying to get information from the busiest people, which means it’s not always readily available or being put out as quickly as possible. This is one reason the PIOs have direct access to the Incident Commander, the person in charge.

    Social media strategy: Strong social media strategy. More people are getting their news on Twitter and Facebook than they are in their regular media. Put information out on social media at the same time you give it to the mainstream media. Correct misinformation directly, rather than through mainstream media. Monitor the citizen journalists, and engage when it’s appropriate.

    Photo: Slworking2

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      Filed Under: Communication, Crisis Communication, Public Health, Public Relations, Social Media, Social Networks Tagged With: , , ,

      Why Lawyers Shouldn’t Do Crisis Communications

      January 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

      It irritates me to no end when the lawyers and MBAs feel the need to get involved in PR and marketing decisions. You can tell when they’ve had their fingers on a press release or written statement, because they come up with such gems as “We feel terrible for our customer. We are grateful that the customer is now recovering.”

      This little beauty came from the owner of a KFC in Canada, after 15-year-old Kendell Lakin — heretofore referred to as “The Customer” — burned herself on a serving of hot poutine, after suffering an epileptic seizure and falling into the dish.

      (Poutine is a dish of French fries covered with gravy. Not to be confused with “putain,” which is the French equivalent of the F-word. I’m sure French-Canadians have great poutine-putain jokes.)

      The new social media society is all about people and relationships. We don’t refer to 15-year-old girls who burn their faces as “The Customer.” They have names, personalities, and pissed-off fathers. Calling them “The Customer” will piss them off more.

      If you want to avoid looking like cold-hearted corporate monsters, stop depersonalizing people and reducing them to a genderless wallet.

      (Note: I completely understand the need for attorneys. They keep us communicators out of trouble when we’re about to do or say something stupid. But while they do important work, they shouldn’t be in charge of the actual wordsmithing.)

      Crisis communication folks need to seize the messaging away from the Legal Department. CEOs need to remember that hiding behind the stacks of legal books will only anger the public, not placate them. The madder they get, the deeper they’ll cut.

      People who remember Chi-Chi’s restaurants will also remember what happened to it. After 4 people died and 650 people fell ill from a hepatitis A outbreak in Pennsylvania, the corporate staff avoided all contact with the news media.

      In an article on Levick Strategic Communication’s website, they pointed out where Chi-Chi’s made a huge mistake that ultimately led to their bankruptcy and closure.

      Right from the start, Chi-Chi’s made a critical communications mistake common among big corporations facing product liability lawsuits. In an effort to minimize risk, Chi-Chi’s top executives avoided direct contact with the news media. All communications with reporters came through antiseptic one-page statements that had a crisp “just-the-facts, ma’am” feel.

      When Chi-Chi’s Chief Operating Officer Bill Zavertnik did finally arrive in Monaca more than two weeks after the outbreak was confirmed last November 3, he read a brief statement to reporters, took no questions, and then returned to corporate headquarters.

      From that point forward, communications from Chi-Chi’s and its parent company, Prandium, in Irvine, Calif., came chiefly in the form of news releases and prepared statements written in language designed almost solely to avoid exacerbating the class-action lawsuits against the restaurant chain.

      To make a long story short, people got madder and madder, and the class-action lawsuits are what killed the restaurant.

      In other words, avoid saying stupid things like “We feel terrible for our customer. We are grateful that the customer is now recovering.”

      You’re not going to avoid making people mad. But giving your apologies in some sanitized, half-hearted written statement that sound like they were hatched by some corporate lawyer will only make things worse.

      In a lot of instances of corporate crisis communication, you’re going to need the lawyers to keep you out of trouble. But keep the pen out of their hands. They can edit, but they shouldn’t be creating. They need to leave it to the pros.

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        Filed Under: Communication, Crisis Communication, Public Health, Social Media Tagged With: , ,

        Five Essential Tools Any Crisis Communication Pro Needs

        January 4, 2010 By 2 Comments

        Social media is becoming more and more important to an organization’s response to a crisis. While my own crisis communication experience is with public health emergencies, like pan flu epidemics and the threat of anthrax attacks, other crisis comm pros are dealing with reputation management, negative publicity, liability lawsuits, product recalls, etc.

        Thanks to social media tools, there is no reason a crisis communication pro shouldn’t have these tools in his or her toolbox, ready to respond to an emergency within minutes, rather than hours, or even days.

        Whether you’re a government agency dealing with a massive emergency, or a famous athlete caught with his pants down, you need to be able to respond quickly and truthfully. You need to get ahead of the speculators and talking heads whose grinding of the rumor mill can do more harm than the actual truth.

        Many organizations, especially government agencies, are still using old-school media to get their news out. The problem is they’re trying to reach a newspaper audience with timely news, but it’s changed in the last 30 minutes. Or they’re trying to reach the TV news by 3:00 p.m. for a 5:00 broadcast, while most people are still in their cars. And in many cases, broadcast media only spends seconds on your story, and the newspapers are only devoting a few precious inches to your side of the story.

        With social media, you can bypass the media filters, reach the greatest number of people, and in many cases, get the news out before the mainstream media. This is especially useful if you have time-sensitive information, like medication dispensing points, product recalls, hours of operation, etc.

        I’m not saying you should ignore the mainstream media (MSM), or quit using the old methods. Rather, consider adding social media to your arsenal.

        1. Blog: A blog is a great way to publish an entire news story. In many cases, the MSM will use your blog as a source. If you’ve done most of the legwork for them, they’re more inclined to use the information you provided. I had one newspaper in Indiana that would reprint my press releases verbatim, I thought about changing my name to “Staff Wire Report” just so I could get the credit.


          Strategy: Appoint a blog writer you trust, and give him or her carte blanche in reporting the latest news.



        2. Twitter: Twitter lets you reach people quickly and easily. Create lists of important people who will need to hear your news: journalists, fans, customers, vendors, etc. Don’t just use Twitter for barfing out news though. You can use Twitter to talk with people and establish relationships. If people like you, they’re likely to want to hear your news, making you a trusted news source.


          Strategy: Have conversations, provide information, correct misinformation, and answer questions.



        3. Facebook fan page: If you’re a B2C company, nonprofit, or government agency, you need a fan page. If you’re B2B, the debate still rages on. People get their news from different sources, and they get their social media from different tools. So you need to match their information-gathering habits. Since Facebook boasts over 350 million world-wide users, a lot of people are getting their news here.


          Strategy: Run your blog and Twitter feeds through your fan page. Follow the conversations people are having on the page, and participate in them.



        4. Analytics: You need to measure your results and see what works. If nothing else, put Google Analytics on your blog, and set up some Google News Alerts. They only updates every 24 hours (Google News can email stories as they appear), but it’s free, and ideal if you’re not trying to monitor events in real time. StatCounter.com is free and up-to-the-minute, although it will only record 500 hits in a day (you can upgrade to the paid version if you need it). We use Yahoo Analytics (paid subscription), because it has real-time updates, and we can graph everything out. To see what people are saying in the social media stream, try something like Radian6 or ScoutLabs.


          Strategy: Adopt at least one analytics package, and use it to monitor the success of your social media strategy. Compare it to your traditional methods, and see which tools are bringing you the best results. Plow more time and energy into the successful ones, and see if it’s possible to roll the less-successful ones into your new strategies.



        5. A laptop and wifi network card: I know, this one seems so painfully obvious, it’s ridiculous to even include it. But you’d be amazed at the number of organizations still running on desktops, or laptops without wifi. It’s great to be able to visit any location with free wifi, and logging in — I’m sitting at a Subway restaurant as I’m writing this — but what if you’re in an emergency and you’re in an area without wifi. What do you do if you’re responding to a local emergency, and the fastest Internet connection in town is the dial-up credit card machine at the gas station?


          Strategy: Bug your boss until you get a laptop and wifi card (Verizon has the MiFi, a mobile wifi hotspot you carry), and then learn how to use it; these other four tools are useless if you’re ever caught without a laptop and wifi. Use the mobile setup until it’s second nature. If you’re ever caught out during an emergency, you don’t have to pull out the manual just to figure out how to use the wifi card.



        There are more tools available than you could ever hope to master, most of them supporting one of these five basics, but these are the ones you can build an entire crisis communication plan around. If you can figure these out, you’ll be miles ahead of those organizations and agencies who are still trying to figure out the fastest way to fax a one-page press release to 500 different newspapers in less than six hours.

        Photo: Fire Monkey Fish

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          Filed Under: Blogging, Communication, Crisis Communication, Public Health, Social Media, Tools, Twitter Tagged With: , , ,

          Using Social Media for Public Health: Some Proof

          October 23, 2009 By 1 Comment

          I’ve been beating the drum lately about how public health and crisis communication folks can and should be using social media. (Also here and here.)

          The problem is most decision makers think this is still just a bunch of kids and out-of-work job hunters playing on FaceSpace and “twittering, twuttering, whatever the hell you call it.” (Note: Playing dumb as a way to denigrate something you don’t understand? Not endearing. Are you that confused, or just trying to be funny?)

          But the Pew Internet & Life Project (official motto: “we’re smart, and we can prove it with a ±2% error margin”) is backing this idea as well. Susannah Fox recently spoke at the National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing & Media, sponsored by the National Center for Health Marketing, Coordinating Center for Health Information and Service, and the Office of Enterprise Communication, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, the National Cancer Institute and the National Public Health Information Coalition.

          In other words, people who don’t take this stuff lightly. I used to be in the same field, and I know if the CDC and NPHIC are paying attention, then other people need to be paying attention as well.

          Some interesting statistics from Susannah’s slide deck:

          • 79% of adults in the U.S. use the Internet. Of those people, how many have stopped getting their news from newspapers, radio, and TV? We had an LP tanker explosion at a major Interstate intersection. I heard about it on Twitter, not TV. And a newspaper would have been useless for up-to-date news.
          • 48% of African Americans and 47% of Latinos go online with a handheld device; only 27% for whites. Since black people also have a very high occurrence of chronic diseases like high blood pressure and diabetes, handhelds could be a great way to have them access important public health information.
          • Did you know there’s a website called PatientsLikeMe.com? Yeah, me either. But it’s for people who have “life changing conditions.” They’re talking to each other and learning from each other. (Know who that’s going to inconvenience? Doctors. They’re suddenly not the smartest ones in the room, the patients are.)

          I could go on and on, but, well, there are only 7 slides in the deck (Rule #1 of good PowerPoint: Don’t use a lot of slides.)

          But the moral of the story is that if you’re in public health, look at social media as a way to get your message out. Quit relying on the traditional media. Get out of 1987 and join us up here in the 21st century. A vast majority of the public is, but you’re still putting all your eggs in a newspaper-lined basket. Keep old school media in your toolbox, but quit reaching for it first.

          Social Media’s Promise for Public Health

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            Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : Using Social Media for Public Health: Some Proof  •  Keywords : Crisis Communication, Public Health, Social Media, social networking, Twitter  • 
            Filed Under: Crisis Communication, Public Health, Social Media, Social Networks, Twitter Tagged With: , , , ,

            How Health Departments and First Response Agencies Can Use Twitter to Monitor Emergencies, Part 2

            October 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment

            Yesterday, I talked about how local health departments (LHDs) can use Twitter to communicate about and monitor public health emergencies. I also talked about how to set up your own Twitter account. For nearly a year-and-a-half, I was the Risk Communication Director for the Indiana State Department of Health. I dealt with the media during public health emergencies, and took part in several incidents and training exercises.

            A tool like Twitter would have been invaluable, and saved a lot of time and energy in getting valuable information to other first responders, the Incident Command structure, and even the media and public.

            Be sure to visit yesterday’s post to see how to set up a Twitter account and what applications will make this extremely useful.

            Today, I want to show what a Twitter exchange would look like.

            A few more issues to take care of first:

            1. GroupTweet.com. GroupTweet is a web-based service that lets you send messages to an entire group, rather than sending something to all of your followers, or typing in their names one at a time. If you need to speak to, say, an entire POD or the entire EOC, set up a group in advance, and assign all the members of that group. Then, when you need to send a message to only those people, follow GroupTweet’s instructions.

            2. For training exercises and real emergencies, it’s helpful to set up accounts for the different NIMS roles (e.g. ISDH_INCMD is the Incident Commander for the Indiana State Department of Health). As the shifts change, make sure the new people have the username and password to the Twitter account.

            3. If you are using a special term or keyword during the incident, like “ISDH” or “anthrax,” you can use a program like Tweetfeed to monitor Twitter traffic. This will pick up all traffic with that keyword, so you may be inundated with more traffic than just your group.

            4. Set up a laptop running TweetDeck or Twhirl (or both), with an LCD projector to show the message windows on the wall. Make sure everyone can see it, but try to squeeze as many tweets on the wall as you can. (Use the display settings in the Control Panel.) Everyone working in the EOC is using the EOC software, as well as their own Twitter account, but they will be able to see the Twitter stream on the wall. They will also be able to respond to the messages from their own station.

            5. Have the PIO could have a separate, public Twitter account that he or she can use to contact the media and public directly, rather than waiting for the TV news and newspapers. Updates are immediate and can be made as needed. Information given to a TV station could be obsolete 15 minutes after the news van has left.

            Also, use the # hashtag if you’re talking about a more common term AND your timeline is public. This will let other people, like the media and concerned citizens, also monitor what you’re doing. Anyone who is using the #hashtag will show up in the general Twitter timeline through Twitter’s search function at search.Twitter.com or TweetFeed (they show the same feed. There are not separate feeds for each program). This is an important way for the PIO to monitor Twitter traffic on the incident.

            Here’s how Twitter can work during an emergency.

            Scenario: During a POD deployment in Clark County, you’ve got too many volunteers in one POD, you’re running out of medication at another, and a TV news crew is on site, but the Clark County PIO is not available.

            Normally to handle this, the Operations Officer from Pod#1 would have to call the EOC to find out if they need to redeploy the volunteers. Someone else would call to get more medicine. A third person would frantically be trying to track down the PIO, and running around to find her. I’ve been in the scenarios where all these things are playing out simultaneously, and it’s often hard to get an answer because everyone is searching for their own answer, or working on their own part of the incident, and can’t be found.

            While Twitter won’t eliminate this problem, it can help alleviate some of this chaos by making information more readily available. Here’s how:

            The volunteer supervisor sends a Tweet, followed by a response from the EOC Incident Commander

            Clark_VOLSUP: Clark County POD #1 has 12 too many volunteers? Send home or send elsewhere?

            ISDH_INCMD: POD #3, First Haven Church, needs new volunteers. Send 8 there. Rest can go home.

            Clark_VOLSUP: They’re on their way.

            POD#1_OPS:We’re running low on doxycyclin. Will be out in 2 hours. Does anyone have more?

            POD#3_OPS:We have plenty. Will send volunteer with 5 cases.

            POD#2_OPS:Sorry, we’ve got just enough. Might run short near end of day.

            POD#1_OPS:Channel 4 from Louisville is on site. Can’t find @Clark_PIO. Does anyone know where she is?

            ISDH_PIO:@Clark_PIO is caught in traffic. I’m on site, and can handle.

            POD#1_OPS:We’ve just sent processed our 10,000th person. How’s everyone else doing?

            POD#2_OPS:We’ve had 8,000.

            POD#3_OPS:We’ve had 12,000.

            ISDH_PIO:Can I share this with the media? Any talking points I should give?

            EOC_OPS:@ISDH_INCMD says Yes. 30,000 people through PODs, everything running smooth, enough meds for all. All PODs should finish by 10 pm today.

            ISDH_PIO:Understood. Will contact @ISDH_INCMD when interview is done.

            This short exchange has accomplished a number of things:

            1. They saved a bunch of phone calls, and chasing down different people to get an answer.
            2. It allowed for flexibility of someone else answering for the Incident Commander. The IC could have been standing nearby, unable to type out an answer, so someone else was able to do it for them. By using the @ reply feature, the IC can also see that someone has done this. It’s not lost in the shuffle.
            3. Using the @ symbol also delivered messages to the intended people, but publicly, so others can answer. The person who received a reply answer (@IDSH_PIO) was able to get the information they needed, but so did everyone else. Now, if someone needs to know where the PIO is, they have that information, instead of racing around again, trying to find out.
            4. It creates a record of what happened, which will help write the After Action Report (AAR), plus it gives a written transcript of the conversation, if needed. Just copy and paste all the Tweets into an index as part of the AAR.
            5. Each POD Ops director was able to share the number of people processed through POD with everyone. Best of all, they did it without sending an email. The information was immediately accessible, visible, and available to everyone. Emails tend to get buried and forgotten.
            6. The ISDH PIO was able to pick up some useful information – the number of people through each POD – just by following the general timeline. He would not have found this out otherwise, because the Operations.
            7. The Incident Commander was able to give the most important talking points to the PIO in a matter of seconds, not minutes on the phone. Or worse, the PIO never being able to reach the Incident Commander on the phone.

            There are many more ways health departments and first responders can use Twitter. In fact, there are several social media technologies that health departments can use:

            • Ning social network engine to create a closed social network for all local health departments;
            • create a blog to give the public quick news updates, post press releases, address any rumors, and serve as a news source to the media. (Blogging can also help you keep the public updated without waiting for news channels;
            • and, using a a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki_software”>wikito create and share information (password-protected, of course) among health departments concerning large scale events, such as pan flu.

            I’ll write about these technologies in future posts. In the meantime, if you have any comments, questions, or stories about how you’ve used these technologies, leave a comment.

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              Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : How Health Departments and First Response Agencies Can Use Twitter to Monitor Emergencies, Part 2  •  Keywords : crisis communcations, Indiana State Department of Health, local health departments, public information officer, swine flu, TweetDeck, Twitter  • 
              Filed Under: Crisis Communication, Social Media, Social Networks, Tools, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , , ,

              How Health Departments Can Use Twitter to Monitor Public Health Emergencies

              October 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment

              This post was originally published at the DeckersMarketing.com blog

              A couple years ago, I worked at the Indiana State Department of Health as the Risk Communication Director, otherwise known as “Oh shit!” PR. (Because that was my first reaction every time one of the epidemiologists called me with an emergency like this recall of lead-contaminated children’s library toys (my first incident, two weeks after I started the job. I swore a lot that week). Or this. Or this. That’s when I had to deal with the media, who sometimes had the same reaction.)

              When I was the ISDH, we still had our feet firmly planted in the 20th century. Sure, we were using email and BlackBerrys to communicate with each other, but it was 2006 and we were, well, using email and BlackBerrys to communicate with each other. To make matters worse, if we had to email each of the state’s 94 local health departments (LHDs) – we had a distribution list, which made life easier – it could quickly get clogged with Reply Alls, email threads that were miles long, and 94 people all chiming in at once with a their thoughts about what to do about this particular incident, or what everyone’s response should be.

              We occasionally did exercises with the Indiana Department of Homeland Security, and they had an expensive piece of software that was supposed to monitor this sort of thing, but it was heavy and cumbersome and a general pain in the ass to learn, let alone use. You could put in information, sort of like a wiki, but it was awkward to access, and you couldn’t easily find the information if you weren’t familiar with it.

              Enter Twitter. It slices, it dices, it lets you easily follow as many people as you want. For free. (And since state and federal government budgets are being cut, especially those in the Preparedness world, free is about the only way to get new technology now.)

              With the increased popularity of Twitter, this has become an important tool for anyone in the crisis response business to use. And since many first responders use BlackBerrys, this is still a viable option.

              So how can 94 LHDs hop on the Twitter bandwagon and use it to keep up with what’s going on in your district, the state, or even the country. Here’s a step by step process of what to do, what to use, and where to find it.

              1. Set up a Twitter account for your LHD. Go to www.Twitter.com, and sign up for one using your county and title. If you’re the Local Public Health Coordiantor (LPHC) for Clark County, register as Clark_LPHC. If you work for the state, use the agency acronym and your title (ISDH_RiskComm)(Government types LOVE standardized naming systems, and this makes it easy for people to see where you’re from, and what you do. Plus, it makes you NIMS compliant.)

              Be sure to fill out your bio, including your role and the name of your local health department. Be sure to include the name of the state too. (You’ll see why in a minute.). Try to avoid abbreviations like LPHC, in your bio.

              “Bob Smith is the Local Public Health Coordinator for the Clark County Health Department in Indiana.”

              If you want to set up a personal account, be sure to use your home or private email. Don’t tie it in to your work account. If you leave the position, you don’t want to lose access to this account.

              IMPORTANT: During setup, click the Protect My Updates box if you want to keep your Tweets (Twitter messages) private. This may be important during a public health emergency. If you want the public to be able to follow you, consider setting up an account for the whole department (ClarkCounty_HD).

              2. Go to http://search.twitter.com or www.Twitterment.com and do a search for other LPHCs. Use “Public Health” and “Indiana” in your search terms. Follow those people. You will also receive an email whenever someone follows you. You’ll need to approve them, since you protected your account.

              3. Download TweetDeck, a Twitter client you can use on your computer desktop. You can create different columns to collect groups of people you follow. Create a group for your district, and one for your county emergency response departments (because you’re going to get them to use this, right?).

              I also like Twhirl, a client that lets you run several accounts in several windows at once (TweetDeck doesn’t). However, Twhirl only has a single column view, not groups, like TweetDeck. You may have to make a tradeoff, or during an incident, run both programs on two different computers or monitors.

              Tomorrow I’ll discuss how health departments and first response agencies can use Twitter to monitor public health emergencies.

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                Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : How Health Departments Can Use Twitter to Monitor Public Health Emergencies  •  Keywords : Indiana State Department of Health, local health departments, Social Media, social networks, Twitter  • 
                Filed Under: Crisis Communication, Social Networks, Twitter Tagged With: , , , ,

                Resources for Crisis Communication Through Social Media

                October 20, 2009 By 2 Comments

                Originally posted at the DeckersMarketing.com blog

                I just had an article published in a special report for members of the International Association of Business Communicators to communicate during the swine flu pandemic. (Cue the “Proud Moment” music!). Anyway, this inspired me to find other resources related to using social media for crisis communication. (And yeah, this includes a few of my blog posts.)

                Useful Social Networking Apps for Crisis Communication

                • TweetDeck – Browser for Twitter. If you’re new to Twitter, get this!
                • NearbyTweets – Website search app to find Twitter users in your city or state.
                • bit.ly – URL shortener. Use it on TweetDeck, and then track it with Twitalyzer or Bit.ly’s click tracker.
                • StatCounter – Measures website or blog traffic from minute to minute. Google Analytics is great, but they only update stats around 2:00 am EST. StatCounter may give you the numbers you need for rapid response during a crisis.
                • Blogger.com/Blogspot.com – Blog software hosted on their servers. Easy to use, especially if you’re not technically savvy. Owned by Google.
                • WordPress.com – Similar to Blogger: hosted on their servers. Not as easy to use as Blogger, but still pretty easy to use.
                • WordPress.org – Regular WordPress software. You download this and load it onto your server. You either need to be technically savvy, or know someone who is.
                • GoDaddy – Inexpensive server space and domain name (URL) registration. Not the best, but for cheap price and ease of use, it’s a pretty a good way to go. This blog is hosted on GoDaddy and uses WordPress.org.

                 

                Blog posts, PDFs, and PowerPoint slide decks

                If you can think of any others, please feel free to add them. If you add enough, I’ll do an addendum to this post.

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                  Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : Resources for Crisis Communication Through Social Media  •  Keywords : blogging, Crisis Commincation, Social Media, swine flu, Twitter  • 
                  Filed Under: Crisis Communication, Social Media, Social Networks, Tools, Twitter Tagged With: , , , ,

                  How Social Media Can Help the Public Avoid the Swine Flu

                  October 19, 2009 By 3 Comments

                  Originally published on the DeckersMarketing.com blog.

                  I used to be the Risk Communication Director at the Indiana State Department of Health and one of the things we prepared for over and over was “pan flu.” At the time, we thought it was going to be the H5N1 bird flu, and we prepared by practicing drills, simulating events, writing tons of press releases, and creating processes to get information out to the media and public. Quickly.

                  The problem is the old model of sending out press releases via email was fast enough three years ago, but since the explosion of Twitter and social networking, and the decline of the traditional newspaper, people just aren’t getting their news through traditional methods anymore.

                  With social media, the public is getting their information as it happens, rather than waiting for a newspaper to publish day-old news, watching network news at certain times of the day, or cable news that only has time for a national focus, but nothing deeply local.

                  I’ve been using Twitter to get national news from sites like CNN, the BBC, and USA Today.

                  I’ve been watching the Google Maps case markers, the CDC’s swine flu investigation, and even listened to a couple of the CDC swine flu podcasts.

                  There are a few ways public health and first responders could use social media to educate the public, and get ahead of the rumor mongering and bad information that many people seem to perpetuate, whether accidentally or otherwise.

                  Create a Twitter account.

                  Someone posted a tweet today that the Twittersphere was talking about swine flu the most, so this is the place to start. Use Twitter to quickly answer questions, debunk rumors, and give out good information and news links.
                  1) Use the name of your agency AND the emergency (for example, IN_SwineFlu.)
                  2) Download TweetDeck from TweetDeck.com.
                  3) Set up a search column for “#swineflu and swine flu.”
                  4) Use Twitter’s Find People function to find media outlets and journalists in your area, and follow them. They’ll follow you back.
                  5) Use NearbyTweets.com to find other people around your area. Search for the city AND keywords like “#swineflu” and “swine flu” to find local people talking about those topics. Follow them, and they’ll follow you back.

                  Set up a blog

                  Don’t screw around with the rigamarole of getting your IT department to set up a blog on your agency’s server. They’ll have to ratify it in their bi-weekly committee meeting, and want to create a mission statement and all that crap. Use blogs to publish press releases, send out quick updates and stats, give information that can’t wait (i.e. locations of hospitals and medication).
                  1) Go to Blogger.com, and set up a blog for your agency (i.e. http://youragency.blogspot.com). You COULD screw around with WordPress, which is actually better, but we’re going for speed here. Plus you can’t do this. . .
                  2) Set it up so you can send emails and texts to your blog. If you’re one of the lucky people who has a Blackberry, you can send blog updates that way. Ditto with photos.
                  3) Go to TwitterFeed.com and have your blog automatically update your Twitter account.

                  Monitor your traffic

                  It’s important to monitor your traffic so you can know what messages are getting the most attention, what ones are being repeated, and where your biggest traffic sources are from.You need to know how many people are coming to your blog, reading your tweets, and paying attention to what you’re saying to know which areas you need to improve on.
                  1) Set up your TweetDeck URL shortener to use bit.ly, not Tiny.url or any of the others.
                  2) Go to www.Twitalyzer.com, and enter your Twitter ID. Scroll to the bottom of the page, and click on Return on Influence. You’ll be able to measure how many people have read your Tweets.
                  3) Install StatCounter into your blog. I usually like Google Analytics, but they only update around 3 am EST. StatCounter updates minute to minute.

                  Those are the basics of using social media to communicate with the public. If you have any questions or suggestions for best practices, post them here in the comments. I’ll put up new blog posts to answer big questions

                  In the meantime, please take a few minutes and watch this video to learn how to avoid spreading colds and flu, not just swine flu.

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                    Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : How Social Media Can Help the Public Avoid the Swine Flu  •  Keywords : crisis communications, emergency response, Public Health, Social Media, swine flu, Twitter  • 
                    Filed Under: Crisis Communication, Social Media, Social Networks, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , ,

                    9 Things Government Agencies Can Do To Improve Emergency Communication

                    May 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

                    I was sitting in a local restaurant a couple weeks ago when I saw the news that a swine flu outbreak had been confirmed in Mexico and California. It was the news I had been afraid of for the last three years, after spending more than a year as the Risk Communication Director at the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH), training for a flu pandemic, and learning how to communicate to the public during a major crisis.

                    So I waited for an official response from the ISDH, since we had worked on this for so long. And I waited. And waited.

                    I didn’t hear anything until Sunday, and after that, I didn’t hear as much as I had hoped for. I got most of my news from the national news outlets, and occasionally the Indianapolis news stations and Indianapolis Star. I saw barely a blip on social media, and a Google search for local information showed that more information was coming from the county health departments, rather than the state one.

                    It’s easy to Monday morning quarterback, but as a professional communicator and someone who helped develop the ISDH’s crisis communication plan, I can see where there is room for improvement. So, these are nine tips any state agency, or even large corporation, can use to communicate during an emergency or crisis.

                    1) Jump out in front of the communication wave. When the first news of the swine flu — excuse me, H1N1 — hit on that Friday, there was no news from the state until Sunday afternoon, 48 hours later. After that, they seemed to spend the rest of their time playing catchup, rarely pushing news out to the media, and letting the local health departments get their news out first. As the state’s voice for public health, the ISDH should have been the primary source for the news, not the locals.

                    The core principles of CERC (Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication) are Be First. Be Right. Be Credible. They’re the guiding principles anyone trained in crisis communication understands and practices. By missing out on the first one, the ISDH never had the chance to be the other two. (You can download a PDF of the CDC’s CERC – First 48 Hours Checklist here.)

                    2) Create a series of communication and press release templates. Or at least a formula. Most of the initial communication in any crisis is pretty standard. You can guess what the situation is going to be (“swine flu has been found in the state; this is what we know; this is what you can do to prevent getting it”), create a basic press release with some fill-in-the-blank answers, and fill them in when the crisis finally hits. This will save time in trying to write one in the heat of the moment. If you just have a formula, you will at least know what information should go into the press release, and can write it with a minimal effort.

                    3) Call the emergency what other people are calling it. People and the media started referring to this outbreak as “swine flu,” and it was only financial concerns from the pork industry that made the news people change their designation to “H1N1.” Calling it the “North American Human Influenza” strain will not improve your search engine rankings, and will only confuse the public. At the very least, stick with “H1N1,” so people in the news media recognize what you’re talking about. Use the language people use, not the scientific jargon the scientists are using.

                    4) Set up a Twitter account for only one agency. The ISDH and the Department of Homeland Security (IDHS) split up an account, which made it unclear to the public who was actually controlling the message, and who was the best resource for information. As a result, nothing was posted very frequently, and the ISDH missed out on a valuable communication outlet. Twitter would have been a valuable tool in the communication toolbox, but it was used improperly and too infrequently, and thus, they missed a huge opportunity to counter public misperceptions and misinformation.

                    5) Follow the public on Twitter. The ISDH_IDHS Twitter account only follows 21 people, while it has 500 followers. The 21 Twitterers they were following? News sources — some local, some national, including the Associated Press, New York Times, and a health reporter. Problem is, the AP has had no updates that I could see, the health reporter rarely uses Twitter, and the New York Times is, well, in New York. What this tells me is that the ISDH is getting their news from the news sources, not the other way around. Meanwhile, I created a group on TweetDeck for people talking about swine flu in Indiana. I answered questions, referred people to resources, and countered bad information. Something the ISDH should have been doing from the outset.

                    6) Use social media to communicate directly with the public. It’s important to use traditional media, because they’re still an important way to reach people. But newspapers are failing, there are too many radio stations, and TV news is not always on at a convenient time, while people use social media all the time. They use their computers throughout the day, when they can’t watch TV or listen to the radio, and newspapers are only published the following day.

                    7) Create a website specifically for the event. An issue-specific website will contain updates and much-needed answers, and it becomes the information clearinghouse for everything related to the issue. The Indiana State Health Department (ISDH) created a website at http://h1n1.in.gov, but it doesn’t have very much information, and usually points people away from the site to sites like the CDC. In essence, it says “we’re not the experts, everyone else is.” So much for “being credible.”

                    8) Get an issue-specific domain name. If possible, purchase a domain name with the issue and your state or city: www.indianaswineflu.com, www.fortwaynehepatitis.com, etc., and send everyone there. An issue-specific domain name helps with name recognition and search results.

                    9) Use a blog. Seventy-seven percent of all Internet users read at least one blog, so these things are here to stay. They’re a great way to create short, quick updates that don’t require five levels of editing and committee approval. Post press releases, figures and statistics, and answers to frequently asked questions. Tie that domain name into the blog, and you’re all done. Blogging can be done in 200-word posts that can be done quickly and easily, by anyone who has a modicum of writing skill. In the crisis communication model, a single writer can work with a subject matter to write a post and be done with it. Or in some cases, write one paragraph updating the number of confirmed cases and tagging on the boiler plate language of prevention and flu hotlines, and you’re done. Takes 10 minutes tops, and the public and the media now has a source for news they can rely on.

                    Another CERC principle is to create the communication plans and procedures NOW. Don’t wait until the emergency is on you to start these things up. The relative weakness of the swine flu was a shot across the public health bow. And for the most part, public health responded admirably. While the number of cases are growing, we’re not facing a raging outbreak, because of the extensive planning and response by the CDC, the Public Health and Emergency Response, and the local health departments and hospitals. We’re not out of the woods yet, and there’s still a lot to do, but it’s not too late to respond to this threat, and there’s plenty of time to get ready for the next one.

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                      Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : 9 Things Government Agencies Can Do To Improve Emergency Communication  •  Keywords : CERC, crisis communication, social media, government, first responders, H1N1  • 
                      Filed Under: Citizen Journalism, Crisis Communication, Facebook, Social Media, Social Networks, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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