Cities, governments, institutions slow to adopt mass notification
It's no secret that the young people of
today are obsessed with their cell phones,
mobile devices, and text messaging as a
primary form of communication.
Step into a secondary school classroom and at least a quarter of teenagers
are peering down into their mobile
devices. During family dinners, post-pubescent thumbs are flying over tiny
keyboards. Even in movie theaters, many
youngsters check out to sit in the dark
and text their friends.
Most governments and companies
have not kept pace with these developments. City, state, and local governments
rely primarily on television and radio to
communicate emergency information to
the public. The same can be said for
many colleges and universities, where
students must have access to electricity
and actively "tune in" to receive alerts.
Mass notification is a better way. Among
the many modern tools available for notifying
citizens of emergency situations are
SMS alerts. This approach, which sends
emergency alerts to users via text message
or mobile device, operates under the
assumption that time is of the essence.
Other mass notification strategies include
automatic e-mails, digital signage,
IP-controlled sirens and more. In an emergency,
these strategies notify users of danger quickly
so they can respond accordingly.
The downside: Few organizations have
adopted this approach, at least according to a recent study from CDW•G
(www.cdwg.com).
The study, titled "This is a Test—Updating
America's Emergency Alert Infrastructure,"
was published earlier this year. Across
the board, fewer than 5 percent of 1,448
respondents reported that their city,
state, or local government, or their
school, relays emergency information via
text messages and mobile phones.
Some interesting statistics:
- Sixty-four percent of all respondents
said they turn to the television first for
gathering information and getting instruction from authorities; 18 percent said
they turn to the radio.
- Only 39 percent of respondents said
their school or office is "very strong" or
"good" at relaying emergency information.
- Of parents with children at home, 55
percent said they see room for improvement or
can't rate their school/office
emergency notification systems.
Why these low marks? For starters,
emergency communication systems are
not evolving in line with changing American
media and information consumption
habits. What's more, fewer people were
watching the major television network
newscasts in 2007than in 2006.
Other factors: Wireless subscribership
is at an all-time national high—1billion
text messages were sent daily in June
2008—and satellite radio subscriptions
are at an all-time high. Heck, according
to the CDW•G survey, more than half of
Americans aren't even sure if their city
has a modern emergency alert notification
system in the first place.
Transforming these habits certainly is
not out of the question. Approximately
three-quarters of all mobile-device-owning
Americans have text-messaging capabilities
on their devices and a full 60 percent of
college-aged survey respondents
indicate they rely on text messaging as
a regular way to communicate.
Of those who admitted to texting regularly,
27 percent of respondents said they
did so to get a message to friends in a
noisy environment, 9 percent said they
did so to get a message to someone in a
business meeting, and 38 percent said
they did so to send a quick message not
requiring full conversation.
Only 15 percent of respondents said
they have used text messaging in the
case of an emergency.
Together, all of this means that the time
for text-based mass notification is now.
To take advantage of this technology,
cities, governments, and higher education
institutions must:
- Evaluate existing emergency notification
systems to determine if they are
reaching citizens with accurate information
within an acceptable time.
- Recognize constituents' changing
media consumption habits and examine
the relative advantages of new and
advanced communication tools.
- Establish a layered continuity of
operation (COOP) communication strategy
that includes the means to "push"
focused and targeted emergency information to
constituents, with or without
regard to the user's location.
At the same time, users must know
how their communities and education
institutions disseminate information in an
emergency and sign up for local emergency
alerts if they are available. Users
must also establish emergency communication
plans should an incident arise
when they are apart from their families,
and communicate their emergency information
wants and needs to their local
government officials.
As the educational technology world
learned during shootings at Virginia Tech
and Northern Illinois, quickly getting the
right information to the right people can be
critical to the safety of thousands. It's never
too late for cities, governments, and higher
education institutions to change their ways.
The question is: Can you keep up?