Real World Stories of using the internet for outreach,

collaboration, and disasters

Carol Dunn, Caroldn

• Used social media web tools with: – Non profit: Red Cross tracking

flooding, wind storm damage– Local government: Office

Emergency Management

• Creator:– www.resilient2disaster.com– 3 Days 3 Ways Be Ready for

Disasters and Emergencies

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• Outreach

• Collaboration

• Situational Awareness

Our Brains

• Behavioral shortcuts:– In group vs. Out group– Social Hierarchy

– When threatened: • Engage/Avoid• Hyper vigilance• Seeking Patterns• Magical

thinking/Suspending disbelief

Marvel Comics

Outreach

Super Comics

Social Media has specific advantages

• It is possible to create materials that are more accessible

It is important to plan for accessibility

• Add captions to youtube videos• Learn how to make accessible PDFs• You don’t need to add fancy flash parts• Keep language short and clear• Build accessibility into your budget from the beginning

• Think of your outreach material from the perspective of the person overcoming the communication challenge.

Web based resources have advantages

Able to hyper-localize

Google Earth

Possible to locate great images for presentations and posts

Social Media has definite disadvantages for outreach

• Can be easier to reach a lot of people that are outside of the group you are tasked to reach.

• Easy to get a skewed view of reality.• Important to build in ways to step back from

time to time.

Social Media sites have a Lifecycle

The Onion

• Google Wave• DodgeBall• Windows Live Space• MySpace*

Traps

• Not understanding our minds on risk

Traps

• Not being ready to handle communal trauma – Hyper-vigilance– Ready to switch

allegiance– Magical Thinking

Traps• In Group– Only talk to the In Group– ‘Trust us’ vs ‘Why’

• Out Group – Can feel OK to exclude– It’s OK to ‘dumb down’

content– ‘Don’t be like them’– Can feel ok to impose

solutions

Sites useful in Outreach: tinyurl/SmileCon13

• Learning about your jurisdiction/target:– US Census, American Family Survey, MLA Language Map– Google Earth– Parcel Maps, Public Records

• Youtube, slideshare, blogger, wordpress, pinterest, tumblr, flickr, instagram, Lockerz

• Facebook, Twitter, Google+, 4square• Animation generator: http://www.xtranormal.com/

Collaboration

Marvel Comics

Made via Twitter and Flickr

Traps• Intergroup collaboration– “Us vs. Them”– Exclude good information

• Internet Sleuths– Hyper-vigilance– Patterns– Magical thinking– Group Think: forget what

they don’t know to embrace the favored narrative

Situational Awareness

John Severin Cracked Magazine

A lot of useful tools

Flickr mapped search

Image properties: Right Click

Youtube filters

Online Traffic Cameras

ESRI

bing.com Twitter map app

bing social

Topsy

GeoChirp

Free Network maps

Simple Mapper

Flowing Data

Traps– Hyper-vigilance– Patterns– Magical thinking

• Paradoxes:– Often the people ‘doing’

don’t have time to post updates.

– Entirely possible that you don’t ‘friend’ or tweet with the people you are closest to.

Worth Remembering

• Browsers may transfer very specific information about identity and location– Use a different browser than personal use– Chrome: Incognito Window, IE inPrivate Browsing– Create specific ‘User’ on computer for

investigation use– When you can search without logging on, do so– Assume that ip address=location

Thank You

• Carol Dunn• carol@resilient2disaster.com• @caroldn• All links at:

http://tinyurl.com/SmileCon13