Web 2.0 & Social Media: From Definition to Deployment

1. Web 2.0 & Social Media: From Definition to Deployment Cheryl Bledsoe Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency (CRESA)

2. Social Media Experiment Play along to help us illustrate the power of social media in the following three ways during this presentation: • We will launch a fan page for OEMA Conference Experiment to see how many fans we can acquire in 90 minutes • Share your lessons learned about social media on a wiki site at any time during this presentation http://sites.google.com/site/wsema2009/ • Twitter your presentation feedback to us @CRESA or via hashtag#oema09

3. Introduction:Power of Social Media Why Should Emergency Managers Care?

4. Virginia Tech on April 16th, 2007 • Use of texts and social media was widespread among students • Photos on Flickr were uploaded within minutes • First-hand Student Accounts blogged on LiveJournal within 24 hours • Number of accurate victim lists spawned in the following 33 hours prior to actual release of the information • Wikipedia Entry with collaborative timeline of events started within 2 hours of initial events • 9,000 video postings on YouTube related to the massacre within first week • 160 tribute groups on FaceBook

5. Fargo, North Dakota in March 2009 • FaceBook Group page regarding incident had 4,550 members within 24 hours • Twitter Feed posted river levels every hour to 300+ field-level followers • Text message regarding individual’s home flooding brought 20 volunteers within 3 hours

6. Portland, Oregon on July 15th, 2009 • Dave Chappelle, comedian • Twitter Comments started at 4:58 p.m. • Crowd estimated between 4K-12K people • Show was at 1:00 a.m.

7. Session Objectives • Understanding the Tools • Clarifying Your Needs • Recognizing the Policy & Practice Changes

8. Objective #1: Understanding the Tools

9. Key General Terms • Viral Marketing~ techniques that rely on social networks to produce increases in awareness through self-replicating viral messages • Web 2.0~Facilitated information-sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration using applications which exist on the World Wide Web • Social Media~ (Video Explanation by www.commoncraft.com)

10. Blogging • Contraction of Web-Log • A typical blog combines text, images, videos and links to other blogs and media related to its topic. • The ability to leave comments can be an important part of a blog • Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. • Host on your own website • www.blogger.com • www.wordpress.com • www.LiveJournal.com • Notes on a FaceBook Page • Blog on a MySpace page What is a Blog? Where Can You Blog?

11. Reasons to Blog • It’s easy and doesn’t require advanced HTML or web-design training • Opens a regular and more legitimate communication channel to your followers and the community as compared to websites which often have a tendency to remain static • Provides an ability to provide real-time updates for a dynamic or changing situation

12. Micro-Blogging • Delivery of a text message that is less than 140 characters • They may include links to web addresses, pictures or videos • Most Common Places to Micro-Blog are: • www.twitter.com • Status updates on FaceBook or MySpace Website Shorteners: • http://bit.ly/ • www.tinyurl.com Sharing Pictures: • www.twitpic.com Tracking Trends: • www.monitter.com Twitter Directory: • www.govtwit.com Aggregator: • www.tweetdeck.com What is Micro-Blogging Helpful Tools

13. Reasons to Micro-Blog • More real-time way to communicate with the public • Messages may be “re-tweeted” (RT) and spread more quickly through the community • Receive input or feedback quickly from the community • Connect with subject-matter experts for advice, best practices or information • Very useful tool for observation of gossip, rumors or other key happenings within your community

14. Social Networking in Plain English

15. Social Networking • Functionality includes: status updates, link & photo-sharing, comments, blog/note development, and calendar/event invitation capabilities • Sites allow agencies to have “fan pages” or “groups,” but not personal page. • www.FaceBook.com has 250 million active users (8/09) • www.LinkedIn.com has 40 million users (5/09) • www.MySpace.com has 124 million active users (3/09), but declining Other Attempts of Mention: • www.GovLoop.com • www.all-hands.net/network/ What is Social Networking? Popular Sites

16. Reasons to Engage in Social Networking For the Agency: • Provides enhanced visibility of the program, events and protective messages For the Emergency Manager: • Can enhance professional relationships outside of emergency context • Provides group of trusted community spotters at a glance both to provide information and “retweet” your key messages

17. Wiki in Plain English

18. Wiki: Collaborative Work • Basically an electronic white-board that people can update and collaborate. www.wikipedia.com Sharepoint sites are examples Free, limited use wiki are available at: www.sites.google.com Remember our Conference Experiment? http://sites.google.com/site/wsema2009/ What is a Wiki? Known Wiki Sites

19. Really Simple Syndication (RSS)

20. RSS: Really Simple Syndication • Notifies you of changes to either a website or updates to a blog • It aggregates data into one location for your review www.google.com/reader www.rssreader.com www.feedreader.com What is RSS? Where do I get my RSS Reader?

21. Reasons to use Wiki & RSS Readers It will save you MASSIVE amounts of time on research and collaborative outcomes

22. Objective #2: Clarifying Your Needs

23. Key Question #1: • What problem am I seeking a solution for? • Understanding your need will help define the mission/scope of the tool employed.

24. Cautions: • Don’t Upload Everything: There are many web-based tools available. Very few of them will do everything you need them to do. • Be very cautious of new or emerging applications.If they are useful and accepted to the online community, you will hear a LOT about them. If you’ve never heard of them before, likely they are relying on you for their marketing plan and possibly be dangerous. • Seeking Advice:Technology-interested people like technology-related solutions and may not be as helpful as you would like them to be. • Beware of social media presentations(particularly those which cost money). Often, they are too generic to be meaningful or too technical to make sense of. Talking with people you know who use the technology will often be more rewarding.

25. Key Question #2: • Who is my audience? • If your audience is a particular group of stakeholders, there might be variances in the type of tool deployed. • Proprietary tools, for example, will rarely be used by a broad audience.

26. Objective #3: Recognize the Policy & Practice Changes

27. From a “Human Resources” Perspective… • Consider whether social media use is an essential function/condition of employment for all positions or just certain positions within your agency • Evaluate existing “communications” and “privacy expectation” policies to see how they address internet / social media usage • Ensure that employees who are expected to use social media receive adequate training to do so

28. From an “Info Technology” Perspective…. • Are there any restrictions on web-based applications within your agency? • Are there any procedural inhibitions on the type of applications utilized (blog, twitter, etc)? • Does your IT department have any infrastructure concerns (security, load capacity, or platform interaction)?

29. From a “Legal” perspective…. • Any restrictions in the web-application against commercial use? (StumbleUpon.com) • Records Retention Issues: Ensure agency protocol/practice include plan for archiving communications on 3rd party sites. • To archive Twitter, consider www.tweetake.com • Blogger.com has an “export blog” feature in its settings

30. Let’s Check Out the Progress of our Experiments…..

31. Social Media Experiment Play along to help us illustrate the power of social media in the following three ways during this presentation: We will launch a fan page for OEMA Conference Experiment to see how many fans we can acquire in 90 minutes Share your lessons learned about social media on a wiki site at any time during this presentation http://sites.google.com/site/wsema2009/ Twitter your feedback to me @CRESA or via hashtag#oema09

32. Helpful Tools Best Practices for Social Media Policies: Http://govsocmed.pbworks.com Fun Calendar and Poll Collaboration Tool: www.doodle.com Contact Information: Cheryl Bledsoe, EM Manager at CRESA Email: Cheryl.Bledsoe@clark.wa.gov Website: www.cresa911.org Blog: www.cresa911.blogspot.com Agency Twitter: www.twitter.com/CRESA Personal Twitter: www.twitter.com/cherylble Find Me On: FaceBook, LinkedIn, GovLoop Phone: 360-992-6270

33. Any Questions???