After the huge Tornadoes in Alabama in May of 2011, which left nearly 200 people dead, there were some success stories.
It turns out that the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa used crowdsourcing, and social networks to create smart mobs of first responders.
Only the first responders were college students who were using their iPhones, and smart phones to get together in organizing groups to go out and help people.
This was well documented in the news, and it makes a lot of sense.
Many years ago at our think tank we had considered the ability to use smart mobs to prevent terrorism, and to help out in natural disasters.
However, perhaps we thought too much on the strategy, it seems that these ad hoc groups seem to form themselves using the social networks.
It's almost as if you don't have to plan in advance to get everyone together.
These groups form "on their own" automatically.
The best thing that FEMA or our first responder administrators can do is welcome the help, and get out of their way.
Indeed, not long ago there was a very interesting article that I happen to read in Emergency Management Online News titled "Crowdsourcing the Disaster Response" by Eric Holdeman published on May 8, 2011.
Eric states; "Just a few blog posts ago I blogged on Diminishing Resources and what the future holds for us.
One of the things I recommended is leveraging citizen responders.
Then today at idisaster 2.
0 Kim Stephens has a great blog posting on Crowdsourcing and also provides links to the testimony that Craig Fugate gave to a US Senate Subcommittee last week on the topic of social media use in disasters.
" Will this be the wave of the future? Yes of course, and I've been involved in natural disasters before, such as the Northridge earthquake, and I watched hundreds, actually thousands of people stop what they were doing and going to assist those that needed help.
Many companies jumped into action, delivering water, food, and assistance to the parks where people were camping out after their buildings had collapsed.
Ad hoc networks of helpers just occurs, so, FEMA and other groups should use these networks of individuals and Army of people, which has pre-mobilized themselves to speed up rescue and relief efforts.
Remember, after a natural disaster, we are all in this together, and therefore we all need to work together and leverage all of our tools, and that includes our smart phones, iPhones, iPads, and our network of friends.
Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.
Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
It turns out that the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa used crowdsourcing, and social networks to create smart mobs of first responders.
Only the first responders were college students who were using their iPhones, and smart phones to get together in organizing groups to go out and help people.
This was well documented in the news, and it makes a lot of sense.
Many years ago at our think tank we had considered the ability to use smart mobs to prevent terrorism, and to help out in natural disasters.
However, perhaps we thought too much on the strategy, it seems that these ad hoc groups seem to form themselves using the social networks.
It's almost as if you don't have to plan in advance to get everyone together.
These groups form "on their own" automatically.
The best thing that FEMA or our first responder administrators can do is welcome the help, and get out of their way.
Indeed, not long ago there was a very interesting article that I happen to read in Emergency Management Online News titled "Crowdsourcing the Disaster Response" by Eric Holdeman published on May 8, 2011.
Eric states; "Just a few blog posts ago I blogged on Diminishing Resources and what the future holds for us.
One of the things I recommended is leveraging citizen responders.
Then today at idisaster 2.
0 Kim Stephens has a great blog posting on Crowdsourcing and also provides links to the testimony that Craig Fugate gave to a US Senate Subcommittee last week on the topic of social media use in disasters.
" Will this be the wave of the future? Yes of course, and I've been involved in natural disasters before, such as the Northridge earthquake, and I watched hundreds, actually thousands of people stop what they were doing and going to assist those that needed help.
Many companies jumped into action, delivering water, food, and assistance to the parks where people were camping out after their buildings had collapsed.
Ad hoc networks of helpers just occurs, so, FEMA and other groups should use these networks of individuals and Army of people, which has pre-mobilized themselves to speed up rescue and relief efforts.
Remember, after a natural disaster, we are all in this together, and therefore we all need to work together and leverage all of our tools, and that includes our smart phones, iPhones, iPads, and our network of friends.
Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.
Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
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