X24 Final Report Social Media Focus v111210.pdf - Google Drive

©2010 Buzz Manager, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Table of Contents: Overview

2

Exercise24 ‐ What, Why, How

3

Strategic Approach to Social Media: Knowledge Management

3

Social media Goals

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Where Did Our Integrated Team Begin?

4

Integration of Social and Traditional Media

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Multi‐directional Messaging

6

Aggregate, Analyze, Announce

6

BuzzMgr™ Executive Dashboard

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Exercise24 By the Numbers

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Influencers: Shaping the Truth and Perception

8

Conversation Themes

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Triaging Messages and Redirecting for Action

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Branding the Digital Assets: A Unified Voice

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Key Takeaways and Next Steps

12

Conclusion: More to be Done

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Addendum: Social Media ‐ Extraordinary & Growing Impact

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During the Four Stages of Crisis: a Social Media Map

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Managing the Torrent: The X24 Story in Graphics

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Exercise 24: Executive Summary

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Footnotes and Contact Information

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©2010 Buzz Manager, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Social Media Overview

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Social media has transformed backyard, intimate communications into global outreach with as little as 140 characters, or a snap shot by a cell phone. There are people and organizations that deny its viability, ignore its existence and distrust its intent. In large part, that seems to describe many in the Humanitarian and Disaster Relief communities. However, in the words of Pepsico’s Global Director of Digital & Social Media B. Bonin Bough, “social media represents the democratization of people’s ability to create and use communication channels.” When in crisis people grab for any accessible means of communication. Based on our participation and review of Exercise24, a major International humanitarian and disaster relief drill, as well as extensive conversation with high level government, NGO and citizen participants before and afterwards, there is major work to be done, best practices to be determined and education to be developed, and widely adopted regarding the skillful use of social media during disaster. And when millions use social media as a cry for help and a means to disseminate it, it simply can’t be ignored. Like the dam on a river, when the wall breaks, the torrent can be devastating in terms both real and perceived. The only smart answer is to evaluate the flow, at times redirect the social media river and prepare for anything and everything. The figurative sandbags used by some are temporary at best and at worst, woefully inadequate. We at Buzz Manager™ have little experience in humanitarian and disaster relief. We have extensive experience in social media. Coming to this initiative with fresh eyes and ears and with only three weeks lead time, we were determined to contribute what we could. We quickly called on Velocidi to partner with us on branding the social media experience of Exercise 24. Through their unique expertise and leadership we believed that we could better grasp and further extend the social media reach of this much needed exercise. In the end, we predominantly experienced one way social media communication‐ the public reached out to officials and each other sharing information and hoping for answers. Rarely did the answers come back to them via social media or for that matter, at all. The following report details our experience and “lessons learned”. We hope to stimulate discussion not for discussion sake, but for actions’ sake.

Kathleen Hessert Founder & CEO Buzz Manager, Inc.

© 2010 Buzz Manager, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Exercise 24 (X24) What, Why, How

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On September 24, 2010 the coast of Huntington Beach, California, USA shook so hard that it generated a tsunami in Baja, and a catastrophic oil spill affecting two countries. Deaths and injuries mounted with a series of aftershocks that crippled the All American Canal, roadways and bridges, power lines, other key resources and critical infrastructures in Southern California and Northern Baja. Fires raged, power was lost, and thousands were evacuated. With good reason, communities began to brace for equally crippling ripple effects including the potential for widespread disease. Fortunately, it was all a part of a preparedness drill designed to test the humanitarian assistance and disaster relief communities and the tools and technologies at their disposal. In particular, Exercise24 tested how well organizations can quickly and efficiently tap resources and expertise around the world through cloud computing despite the disaster’s geographic footprint. Buzz Manager, Inc. was contacted by X24’s host, San Diego State University’s Viz Center, which is part of SDSU’s Homeland Security Masters Program led by Professor Eric Frost, PhD. The intent: to use our proprietary “listening” tool (BuzzMgr™) to monitor, aggregate and analyze all associated social media. Beyond monitoring, the BuzzMgr team recognized the need for a Strategic Social Media Plan to adequately test how people would use Twitter, Facebook, text messaging, digital video and photos etc. during the mock disaster and real events in the future. The BuzzMgr team also recognized the need for best in class partners to breathe further life into the event, develop branding and fully realize the event’s potential. Not inconsequential to our efforts, Exercise24 was an exercise in collaboration and cloud computing which meant that we would also interact with international partners, government agencies, NGO’s, citizen groups and individuals who were interested in and/or using social media in Humanitarian and Disaster Relief.

Strategic Approach to Social Media: Knowledge Management Within this document we will examine one major component of Exercise24: how social media is used to launch a shrill and persistent cry for help during disaster and conversely, how it can be used to reassure a frightened public that help is on the way and hope within reach. The Haitian tragedy in particular, demonstrated that technology is changing the way organizations can and are expected to respond when disaster hits. According to renowned social media practitioner and author Stephanie Agresta, “Social media removes communication barriers as never before in history.” With that said, it was our job to determine how to harness this incredible new power.

“Social media can be used to reassure a frightened public that help is on the way and hope within reach.” © 2010 Buzz Manager, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Social Media Goals for Exercise24: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7)

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Develop a social media strategic plan to maximize the preparedness drill Duplicate social media use in a real world disaster Test responders & disaster relief agencies use of social media Involve the public Avoid panic Monitor, aggregate, analyze & measure all social and traditional media around the event Determine how to best leverage the power and influence of social media in future crises

Where Did Our Integrated Team Begin? Together with our partner, Velocidi, Inc. we launched and branded all Exercise24 digital assets. Branding the Exercise was crucial to building credibility outside of the normal disaster preparedness community and in particular with the public and the media. Think of the following steps as a timeline: branding was the initial step followed by messaging, distribution, media outreach, and finally aggregation, analysis and measurement. More on the valuable branding efforts later in this report.

Event Injects

Social Media Injects

Most importantly, our team developed and incorporated social and traditional media messages as official components of the Exercise24 (see chart above.) They were distributed along with the mock events (injects) to participating parties via email, and to the world at large through InRelief.org, official X24 Twitter and Facebook accounts. Then BuzzMgr monitored, analyzed and measured the social and traditional media exposure.


Integration of Social and Traditional Media To build momentum and lend a high level of credibility, BuzzMgr reached out to Twitter and CNN to officially communicate to people around the globe three key messages: 1. On September 24, 2010 you may see a flood of social media messages about a mock catastrophic disaster of international scope 2. X24 was well planned, valuable and included among others, high level participants from the US and Mexican governments, disaster relief agencies and other NGO’s as well as private citizens

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3. Participate and DO NOT PANIC

“Social media can influence the rhythm, velocity, direction & sentiment of public opinion which organically changes the crisis & its subsequent ripple effects.” Like a force of nature, social media packs a powerful punch. Its influence can and does change the rhythm, velocity, direction and sentiment of public opinion and that effects the crisis and its myriad of ripple effects. It often increases communication among people and organizations that never connected before. Appropriately used, social media can dramatically decrease the time required to respond to and recover from disaster. That acceleration ultimately can save both lives and resources. However, the growing influence of social media aside, trying to separate social from mainstream media is like trying to unscramble eggs. It can’t be done. In collaboration they can affect more people where and when it counts.


Multi‐directional Messaging The fabric of public communication during events can be woven with threads from and between official and unofficial relief organizations, response agencies, and every day citizens. It’s anything but a clean, well defined process and there’s a myriad of tools to use. It’s not as simple as calling 911 or turning on the local television or radio station when you’re facing an emergency. The widespread use of social media has made communication in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief both easier and infinitely more complex.

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Lesson Learned: Integration and collaboration of social and traditional media can broaden and enrich vital communication during crises. Development of a global social and traditional media crisis plan agreed upon in advance and including all major players can become an invaluable tool to reduce and blunt inevitable rumors and amplify the most valuable information expeditiously.

Aggregate, Analyze, Announce… In crisis, those in charge are beleaguered by mountains of verified & unverified information, huge levels of stress and the need to deal with ambiguity in fact and perception. They must carve a path to quickly gather and assess information to feed into their decision making and the unrelenting adjustments required then communicated to critical stakeholders in a timely manner. The biggest challenge: to manage an ever changing crisis, communicate to constituencies and focus on recovery simultaneously no matter what resources are available. Being able to listen, understand, believe and act on information under those circumstances is vital to success. Technology can help.

BuzzMgr’s Executive Dashboard enabled organizers to listen to, understand and factor public communications into decision making and speed response. The technology: ‐ monitored millions of internet sites 24/7

‐ aggregated results ‐ triaged posts & redirected to appropriate organizations ‐ filtered the noise from the relevant conversations ‐ delivered results in a web based Executive Dashboard Report near real time (widgetized reports too) ‐ translated from & into multiple languages BuzzMgr’s Conversation Activity Chart enabled X24 organizers to immediately determine where people were talking. Are they talking more on Twitter or is there was a spike in YouTube activity because of a recently posted citizen video graphically showing escalating panic at overcrowded hospital emergency rooms that they were previously unaware of. Why is this important? When an organization is communicating in one environment‐ on or offline but stakeholders are carrying on conversations somewhere else, it doesn’t matter how correct, you are. It doesn’t matter how vital your information is, it’s reach will be severely limited. Once you identify what is being said where, you can go where the conversation is and ultimately identify the Influencers on each platform.


Buzz Rating See changing

volume & influence of chatter

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Trend Chart Know & understand peaks & valleys

Activity Chart Where are they talking? Source & % of conversation

Word Cloud Know what

people are talking about

Sentiment immediately know how they feel

Tags break out your highest value topics by %


By the Numbers X24 created thousands of online conversation before, during and after the event September 23‐25, 2010 • 4,791 unique social media posts; peak= 3,301 on Sept 24, 2010 • 4,678 (97.6%) on Twitter • 82 (1.7%) on Facebook • 20 (0.4%) on Blogs • 11 (0.2%) traditional news The overwhelming response on Twitter is due to several factors. First, the nature of Twitter is to spread information at an exceptionally quick rate. Twitter's search engine receives around 600 million search queries per day1. While Facebook has the larger community, people are still sectioned off into community “networks” and custom privacy settings are much more common than on Twitter. However, Facebook has over 900 million objects (events, pages, groups, etc) for users interact with. The average user is connected to 80 of these objects and generates 90 pieces of content per month2.

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Lesson Learned: There were over 4,500 social media posts in the 48 hour span of Exercise24. During a live disaster, with constant national & international attention, social media exposure explodes at an exponential rate. Within the 1st 48 hrs following the Haiti earthquake there were an estimated several million tweets, starting within minutes of the quake. Facebook accounts for 1500 posts per minute within 5 days after it hit. There are 24 hrs worth of general YouTube videos posted every minute. Data aggregation tools are critical to expertly handle the tidal wave of social & traditional media posts so the information gathering is time‐ sensitive, easily filtered & mindful of trends in the making. Results need to be visible in executive dashboard reports which are graphic for easy consumption, understanding & action, i.e. assigning responsibilities and responding to critical posts.

Influencers: Shaping the Truth and Perception

BuzzMgr identified key “influencers” enabling organizers to assess the quality & direction of the conversation and reach out as needed to correct or amplify even further. A dedicated core of the volunteers generated over half of X24’s social media discussion (58.25%) of posts. BuzzMgr systematically identifies those who comment most on the topic as well as the most influential sources and authors. (This requires proactive, two way communication.) This information should be used to disseminate information to reach larger and more engaged audiences. Key Influencers: • Feed “key influencers” critical information early on and subsequently, help shape the truth. Because those influencers tell their communities something is so, it cloaks the information with a mantel of believability. Sometimes it’s debated but it’s always passed on. As the influencers’ “facts” gain momentum within their social community, they become self fulfilling. • Shape perception early regarding the response & the agencies involved ‐ Perception is reality: o If the perception is that organizations are failing, slow to move, or moving the wrong way criticism is harsh o Criticism is spread in traditional and social outlets o Requires resources to refute & correcting. o Resources diverted from crisis management to PR


Individual victims: • When they reach out on social media they expect to be heard and solutions provided‐FAST • Communication voids exist when agencies don’t acknowledge that they heard, understand, believe and will take appropriate action based on what people • Fear deepens and spreads. Trust erodes. • Negative ripple effects accelerate the downward spiral of events

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Lessons Learned: Key Influencers shape reality and perception. They can and do rally the public. They are biased by what they know and don’t know and when they know it. Building relationships prior to disasters helps build trust, forge alliances and build communication channels for later use. OEO (online editorial outreach) enables you to seed important information for Influencers to spread when and where you need it most.

Conversation Themes

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Prior to & early in the drill, much discussion involved “retweets” (redistribution of original twitter messages) warning people that X24 was a drill. People were willing to help the exercise and promote detailed information to their “followers” (personal or organization’s Twitter community)

•

Content type during X24: 18% ‐ Actionable Posts 77% ‐ Informative/Warning posts 5% ‐ Response from organizations Common Words used in online discussion: o Earthquake – spread of initial inject o cnntech – copy of CNN message o Viequesbound – Humanity Road volunteer o damage/injured –much less attention

•


COMMON WORDS

real

earthquake cnntech

today california tweets staid panic major prep coming story tsunami don’t water report diego viequestbound reports day emergency info quake hopsital damage injured cnn los baja simulacro

Lessons Learned: There are cultural considerations and language translation challenges. It’s not simply a matter of sending a tweet in Spanish, English or Urdu and having it understood. There’s also the issue of how well the language of social media and cryptic tweets are interpreted by old school responders who don’t know that “C U” means “see you” or that a hashtag like “#X24” can be vital in tracking chatter regarding an incident. Nevertheless, great trials make possible great triumphs and X24 was designed to lay the groundwork for those triumphs.

Triaging Messages & Redirecting for Action 10

A team of BuzzMgr analysts reviewed incoming messages, (social media injects) and from within the technology platform redirected triaged messages to designated participating organizations. For example, when a mock victim’s Twitter or Facebook message called for help, or alerted authorities to something troubling, the messages were flagged and emailed to participants as a Red Alert. The intent was to help participating organizations quickly receive, listen to and act on the information that the public was sending them via various social media channels. Lessons Learned: In reality, and despite requesting the information in advance, the organizations either 1. weren’t aware that they had received the Red Alert message posts, 2. didn’t trust the social media messages or people who sent them, 3. weren’t willing to consider the information in their decision‐ making or 4. simply didn’t acknowledge receipt of the information and/or respond to the concern. The result was one way (public to responders) communication and a resulting vacuum of communication from the other direction. Social media isn’t for broadcast; instead it’s for conversations which need two parties. It simply didn’t happen. In an actual emergency that vacuum often creates greater despair and escalation of panic.

Branding of Digital Assets: A Unified Voice Initially, the X24 web presence was fragmented. Buzz Manager’s partner company, Velocidi brought overall branding and a thorough suite of design that were deployed across all of X24‘s digital properties. This unified the look, feel and voice, and brought a deep sense of professionalism (translated “trust”) to all X24 efforts. The official website housed on InRelief.org as To strengthen the X24 social & well as Twitter and Facebook communicated a unified, digital outreach, Velocidi recognizable and duplicable story. They became integral developed… parts of the brand and strategy to engage with partners, • An overall brand to sharpen the X24 the public and to drive traffic to the X24 site. They message served as unique points for calls to action and • A thorough plan for all of the X24 social media outlets/messaging engagement. This allowed the Twitter community to • A strong design profile with visual engage with the injects in real time with requests and cohesion at all of the Exercise points of mock calls for help, while the Facebook community was engagement used as a discussion space and an area for debate and • A viral sharable tool for the X24 event deeper understanding of the event and its impacts. • A social media partner with a focus on immediate corporate and individual donations


Additionally, a viral element was added to the X24 plan. Velocidi created a sharable countdown clock (and the corresponding code) as a tool to empower partners and the public to promote the event on their own digital properties and to drive traffic to the official X24 site. The clock also created anticipation and excitement around the event launch, and ultimately served to extend the overall reach of the exercise through the reach of the official partners, the interested public and their social networks. Two recommendations moving forward but not adopted for X24, pertained to online donation collection and Search Engine strategy. Partner with a global platform to mobilize a streamlined donation network portal. Ammado enables companies and individuals to donate in a safe curated environment creating a scalable online donation solution for future events & exercises.

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When disaster hits, people automatically google for the latest results. Prudent search engine optimization and marketing can push the most credible, relevant and immediate results to the top of the public’s Internet search rather than allowing rogue sources of information or discussion to dominate the search page. This effort will be integral to raising the relief effort’s digital profile and cover a basic (yet imperative) digital strategy. Both would have been completed for X24, but due to a lack of lead time, were unable to be cultivated with the search engines. Exercise24 Countdown


Key Takeaways and Next Steps: What does this mean to you and why should you care? After all the talking is done, and systems tested, social media has become part of the fabric of disaster communications. It needs more study and clearly more defining and refining of best practices. And if we are to increase the speed in which we respond when crisis hits, we need to educate both the public and the disaster relief communities on how to best communicate with each other under the absolute worst conditions. Much work as already been done but more is required. Because one thing is clear, real disaster can hit anytime and anywhere and we are not ready to leverage the power and influence of social media.

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•

Educate key stakeholders including agencies and the public. Both the public and their assisting organizations must learn how to communicate with each other in the most efficient and trusting manner. Capitalize on the adoption of social media games and in particular mobile applications to create unique social media education tools geared to humanitarian and disaster relief then create an ongoing campaign for widespread accessibility and adoption.

•

Use data aggregation tools (i.e. BuzzMgr) to expertly handle the incredible quantity of incoming messages. This tool must produce easy to read, quick to digest reports so that organizers can make their critical decisions as soon as possible. Additionally, it can help identify the relevant voices/information from the cacophony separating the valuable information from the whirlpool of information.

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Develop strong branding for disaster communications in advance to facilitate strong public and partner involvement. Without a strong clear brand, basic feelings of trust and a desire to engage can be lost. X24’s visual and strategic branding created trust and a clarity of message that activated the public and the media to engage more. NGOs and disaster relief agencies should be connected via social media. These connections should be a part of these agencies holistic digital strategy. It is the mobilization of this varied and complex network of agencies that becomes paramount once a disaster strikes.

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Social media outlets should be standalone entities as well as a complementary part of the overall strategy. To use Twitter and Facebook as simple echo points for external communications ignores the real opportunity that these sites provide. Strategy first, tactics second.

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People strongly prefer specific communication platforms. Many were willing to use Twitter to participate in X24 however, when redirected to Facebook for more in depth conversations than allowed with Twitter’s maximum 140 characters some people balked. They didn’t belong to Facebook nor did they want to. Some requested other vehicles to share their thoughts others kept them to themselves. People were provided the email address of a member of the Buzz Manager team to contact and they did. *Multiple platforms should be provided for ongoing communication.


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Establish a recognized and respected social media 9‐1‐1. It could be a reputable hashtag (with appropriate penalties for misuse such as the real 911 system). There needs to be a standard language (i.e. Tweak the Tweet, widespread/appropriate word abbreviations, and technical terms). Develop crisis language & protocols for easy understanding. Best practices must be developed to better ask for and respond on social media in times of crisis for the greatest understood.

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Build a two‐way communication relationship Organizations must communicate openly, forget broadcasting and engage in communication.

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Verify social media accounts for key volunteers. If volunteers comprise the core of a relief effort’s communication plan, they can get locked out by social media sites. There were two instances during X24 in which volunteers for Humanity Road got momentarily banned from sending Tweets because they were sending out too many in a short period of time. This is commonly used to prevent spam attacks, and Twitter & Facebook will automatically disable an account that reaches a certain threshold in a designated time period. Approach key social networks to officially verify accounts that will be instrumental in disaster communications to avoid automatic disabling of accounts.

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Integrate multiple communication verticals. Many voices can help and hurt. There must be a singular, unified voice within and across response agencies. During X24, all of the exercise injects were released to the public via Twitter and Facebook. There, the conversation took root and spread. Shortly after the beginning of the exercise, photos began arriving from the scene. These were added to the information posted on social media sites and were readily consumed by the public. This kind of digital and social media integration is key to 1) commanding the public’s attention and 2) keeping the public’s attention. If an organization (or multi organization effort) has multiple voices, the public’s attention will become disjointed and information will be lost.

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Geolocation and Geomapping maximize its use & aggregate it with other social media. It adds significant value to relief agencies and the public. X24 had several valuable partners dedicated to providing constant, up to date visual information to the team. NEOS’s Team Mosquito provided aerial pictures, as did Inmarsat, with unmanned drones. Sahana provided detailed maps of affected areas based on the injects as they were published.

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A picture is worth 1000 words. To reemphasize how important visuals are to quickly understand and relay ideas and communications (like geomapping and aerial photos/videos), relief organizers do not have the time to read all of the reports coming in from an effected area, from other organizations and from the general public. Instead, focus should be on visual depictions of the conversation.) The quicker masses of information can be accurately digested, the better for all involved.


Conclusion: More to be Done

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More research must be done to verify a pattern of social media behavior during an emergency or disaster. Several more disasters must be monitored for an extended time period – ideally beginning the day of or before the disaster – to properly evaluate their social media impact. One of the most important learning objectives should be to recognize the typical social media response pattern to an emergency or disaster including variations based on geographic location, time elapsed from initial messaging to pubic response & action, cultural differences, social media platform preference by region, what engenders or destroys trust, etc. Technology has changed society and, social media has created a window into the public’s mind and provided the Humanitarian and Disaster Relief communities new ways to understand people, make them feel heard and ultimately speed response. In the case of these life and death issues, it would be horrendous to underestimate the extent to which social media drives human behavior now and in the future.


Addendum: Social Media by the Numbers3‐ Extraordinary & Growing Impact as of June 2010

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• • • •

Twitter had 105.7 million registered users Facebook exceeds 500 million users. 70% of Facebook’s users are outside of the United States Twitter’s global growth skyrocketed 109%4

Twitter Worldwide increases:

• • • •

Latin America (305%), Asia Pacific (243%)5, Middle East (142%), and Europe (106%) Asia Pacific with 25.1 million6 7 listed Latin American nations beat the World Wide average (70.4%) for social media reach rates7 United States has 25 million users

Facebook

• • • • • • •

500 million+ Facebook users log on at least once a day 700 billion+ minutes a month spent on Facebook 30 billion pieces of content shared in that same time period 100 million+ external websites integrated with Facebook 150 million users connect with Facebook via mobile phones o 2 times as active as the average user 200 mobile service operators in 60 countries adopt& promote mobile Facebook Facebook translated into 70 different languages

Red Cross Survey: “Social Media Use in Disasters and Emergencies”

• • • • • • • •

3 of 4 people use a social networking site 89% of 18‐34 yr olds use social media, as do 65% of 35+ 1 of 6 have already used social media to receive information about an emergency ½ of respondents would sign up to receive social media alerts or emergency information if available 52% would send a text message to a response organization if they knew it would be read 49% would use social media to contact loved ones during an emergency 69% feel response agencies should monitor for posts asking for help, without prompting 3 of 4 respondents expect help to arrive in less than an hour when requested via social media


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Social Media During the 4 Stages of Crisis What? Look for? Where? 2. Acute Crisis What? Flashpoint/ dramatic occurrences Look for? Expect repetitive, chaotic information sharing Where? Twitter primary source. Facebook users will share more extensive details Expect more traffic from YouTube & photo sharing sites with visual impact 3. Chronic Crisis What? Living with the aftermath. Can go on indefinitely. Look for? More organized social media outreach, philanthropic efforts, challenges to status quo Where? Facebook & blogs should shine. Twitter use will dwindle compared to previous stages. 4. Resolution 1. Pre‐Crisis What? It’s over for most people & they’ve moved on What? Forewarning; Needs vigilant thinking & monitoring Look for? Precautionary information including what to Look for? Hints of impending problems buried in general discussion prevent & how to deal with future incidents Where? Blogs & Facebook sporadic queries on Twitter Where? Blogs & social platforms with no character limit Note: There’s real opportunity for more rigorous and sustained study regarding how & where people organically use social media in all stages of crisis from early warnings to “it’s over let’s move on”. © 2010 Kathleen Hessert


Managing the Torrent • 79 participating nations • 90 US Gov, NGO, public/ private partners • 12,500 individuals

Social Media Injects

A Working System X24 Lessons

Mirrored event flow throughout. Replicated cries for help, echoed concerns, criticism etc on Twitter, Facebook

Traditional Injects

Social Media By the Numbers

Designed to challenge real world response capabilities. Mock events were extreme & designed to “push to failure” to ready for the worst

• 4568 unique posts • 97.7% on Twitter • 18% Actionable • 5% Org responses • Volume will be dwarfed in actual event

Emergency Responders

Comprehensive monitoring & aggregation of massive amts of social media discussion can speed the velocity of response

Trusted Communications

Historically comes from familiar, reliable sources & channels. A system historically is in place to collect , decide, & act .

Not urgent Urgent Aggregator BuzzMgr™ mined & aggregated online social & traditional media in web based Executive Dashboard. Posts were triaged & redirected to appropriate agencies.

Social media responses What Now? Social media is a growing public outreach tool. Best practices need to be understood & used by responders. Education is key.

Mistrusted Social media is largely unfamiliar, distrusted, & disregarded by responders. If they were listening there was no Evidence & no response.

Executive Summary The Immersive Visualization Center (VizCenter) at San Diego State University hosted a two-day virtual humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercise September 24-25, 2010 called Exercise24 (X24). This was the first time a collaborative HADR exercise of this scale has ever taken place online and integrated into real events. This precedence-setting event was conducted using the VizCenter-managed, US Navy-funded, collaborative cloud computing platform "InRelief.org," which was successfully employed during the Haiti earthquake response. X24 was more than an exercise, it was and will continue to be an openly inclusive bridge between nations and communities around the world. X24 involved over 79 nations including Mexico, Colombia, Somalia, India, Pakistan, and Tribal Nations in addition to 90 U.S. government, non-government organizations (NGOs), and public/private partners including US European Command, FEMA, DHS/Science and Technology, US Customs and Border Protection, Red Cross, and Google in a collaborative environment using crowd sourcing (a method of gathering information or assistance from the global online community), social media, cloud computing applications, real-time chat, visualization maps, and live streaming video. Over 12,500 people visited the X24 dashboard during X24 with 46,475 page views, and a prolific social media participation with over 5000 individual posts to Twitter and Facebook alone during the exercise. One of the exercise observers, Mexican Navy Admiral Gomez, Commander of the 2nd Naval Region, plans to develop and host an X24 Mexico. While there is a lead agency/government during a crisis, experience has proven governments, NGOs and public/private partners must work together to ensure that response is rapid, coordinated, and efficient. X24 tested the ability of multiple organizations to work together in an online environment. Participating organizations were able to collaborate openly through a variety of resources including multiple-user real-time document editing, chat tools with real-time language translations to breakdown language barriers during a conversation, Google Map visualizations with real-time damage assessments, casualties and SMS posts, and numerous flavors of VTC capabilities. Since the exercise took place in the cloud, users were able to participate around the world from any laptop computer, smartphone, and cell phone. All events in the X24 scenario were participant-requested. The X24 Team consulted with NOAA, Pacific Disaster Center, California Seismic Safety Commission, and other experts to determine as many science-based causes as possible to foster realism. The scenario initiated with an earthquake off the coast of Huntington Beach, California, USA, generating: a catastrophic subsurface and surface oil spill; a tsunamigenic event off the coast of Baja California, Mexico; a large inland earthquake within the first hour resulting in notional reports of deaths and injuries;

damage to the All-American Canal, roadways, power lines, and other key resources and critical infrastructures in Southern California, USA and Northern Baja California, Mexico; a series of aftershocks, fires, loss of power, loss of water, disease concerns, and other challenges continued throughout the exercise to facilitate participant objectives. The 150+ persons physically present at the VizCenter were able to connect with thousands around the world using the Internet and social-networking tools via Google, Twitter, Facebook, Ustream and many others—very much like the Haiti crisis response. The broad global community adoption of social media for communication has generated the necessity for social media aggregation and filtering of two-way social communications, which can become vital for decision making during an actual event. By linking appropriate technology such as smartphones, back-end cloud computing and visualization, and all for decision support to the front-line responder, X24 helped nurture and optimize solutions for complex emergencies in difficult settings. By doing this in a real-play format where the intensity of emergencies and controlled chaos takes place, this was really an orchestrated conversation of global players to better prepare for and already begin the response to the next major disaster. X24 as a template for enabling people, organizations, and countries to prepare for and respond to very difficult challenges will make a significant difference in future disasters and raises the bar of disaster collaboration in a wonderful way– but also raises the intense desire from highly motivated people to continue to work together and facilitate solutions in an increasingly challenging world. What is needed now is a specific roadmap for follow-on X24's around the world. Sincerely, X24 Team http://exercise24.org/

For further information please contact:

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Buzz Manager, Inc. 7300 Carmel Executive Park Ste 120 Charlotte, NC 28226 704.541.5942 www.buzzmgr.com [email protected] Velocidi, Inc. 156 Fifth Ave Suite 925 New York, NY 10010 212 884 9990 www.velocidi.com [email protected]

Footnotes: 1 From Huffington Post’s report on Chirp – Twitter developer conference. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/14/twitter‐user‐statistics‐r_n_537992.html 2

Facebook’s official usage #s http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

3

Facebook’s official usage numbers http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics + Twitter developer conference. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/14/twitter‐user‐statistics‐r_n_537992.html 4

http://www.dailynews.rs/news/2010/01/twitter‐statistics‐by‐country. For excellent information on how Twitter usage spikes during a global event (i.e. World Cup) see this post http://blog.twitter.com/2010/07/2010‐world‐cup‐global‐conversation.html 5

In Japan, Twitter is more popular than Facebook. http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/03/19/facebook‐may‐ have‐surpassed‐google‐in‐the‐us‐but‐what‐about‐other‐countries/ 6

All of these statistics are for web use only – does NOT include SMS, phone apps or TweetDeck‐like

apps. http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/8/Indonesia_Brazil_and_Venezuela_Lead_Global_ Surge_in_Twitter_Usage. 7

http://www.slideshare.net/neoconsulting/estado‐de‐internet‐en‐latino‐amrica‐comscore
