Technologies are significantly changing how governments and citizens communicate during emergencies, increasing the speed and amount of information shared and driving real-time decisions for governments at all levels.  The transformation of this two-way citizen and government communication raises several questions on how citizens validate the alerts information they receive from governments and how governments validate the streams of information they receive by citizens.   It is clear there are no one-size solutions for governments to alert the public or for citizens to decide how they wish to receive alerts messaging.   

As reported by the National Academy of Sciences Public Response to Alerts and Warnings on Mobile Devices, “citizens will often search for additional information to confirm the alert or warning before taking action.”  Realizing how different tools and information sources influence public behavior, alerts and warnings officials are investing more attention into understanding the analytics of emergency information to gauge which tools are best to disseminate the “official” alert to citizens.

Using analytics to balance communications

While recently speaking with the editors of AWARE, Ms. Merni Fitzgerald, Public Affairs Director for Fairfax County, Virginia, informed “analytics can paint a picture that confirms the way governments must think about, distribute, and encourage, the sharing of information.”  As mentioned in our September 19^th AWARE posting, Fitzgerald’s Office of Public Affairs is at the forefront of using metrics to guide county officials on what investments are needed to ensure the right balance of communications tools are being used to disseminate all information related to major incidents.

• As an example, during the historic mid-Atlantic rainfalls, September 8-9, Fairfax County received more than 12-15 inches of rain inches in less than two days, washing out roads and bridges.  Fitzgerald’s team analyzed data from multiple tools to develop a metrics report on how emergency information was published and shared with members of the public during the preparation, response and recovery timeframes.  Analysis compared the day and half rainstorm to the four days of Hurricane Irene, August 25-29, documenting how often the public used official Fairfax County on-line platforms such as the Fairfax Emergency Blog, Facebook and Twitter accounts to receive and share information: Fairfax County Virginia Social Media in 2011 Flood Metrics.pdf

Currently, the AWARE Team is working with alerts and warnings stakeholders across the country to learn more about the important relationship between the tools used to disseminate information and the analytics being used to understand how citizens are responding to such information.  Tracking the tools used by citizens to communicate following the release of alerts and warnings information improves situational awareness of events and helps governments make effective real-time decisions on directing resources and managing communications.

How are you using analytics?

Moving forward it is important for governments to recognize not all citizens have equal access to the multiple tools being used today to disseminate alerts information.  While the AWARE Team continues to investigate the impact this two-way communication has on alerts and warnings capabilities and functions, we encourage you to share insights on how your agency or department is using analytics to improve the way alerts and warnings information is originated, disseminated, and updated for the public.

Questions to consider:

• Do you believe citizens initially act on content or the platforms being used when receiving and exchanging information?
• How are you using social media tools – to disseminate alerts information or to post additional information following an incident or both?
• Given how different emergencies have different advance warning timeframes, how are you measuring the impact of your alerting tools and the response of the public.
• For instance, does a person receiving an alert via Twitter react differently than receiving the alert via SMS, or the crawler at the bottom of the TV screen?
• How are you using surveys and/or crowdsourcing software to understand data?

As always, your ideas and comments are always welcome and appreciated.