Butt-Dialing: What if it had been a Real Emergency Response?

The occasional ‘butt-dial’ usually brings forth a sense of confusion or awkwardness, but for one man it brought a SWAT team to his place of work. On January 4, 2011 a woman received a call from her husband around 5:00 PM. Instead of hearing his voice, the woman was greeted with muffled sounds paired with rap music. Alarmed, the woman reported what she somehow assumed was a hostage situation to 911. Unknown to her and the police force, the man had actually accidentally ‘butt-dialed’ her while driving. Within a short period of time, thirty members of the Lake County SWAT team arrived at Carlton Washburne School in Winnetka, IL. After searching the school, the SWAT team discovered that there was in fact no hostage situation.



While this couple was lucky with a false alarm, it doesn’t always end up this fortunate for those in a real-life crisis. Social media has moved far from the Facebook status update about your New Year’s Eve plans and has become a life-saving device for disaster victims. For example, those affected by the 7.0 earthquake in Haiti were able to communicate to loved ones. “Phones are working somewhat in Haiti. Can't get a hold of my family though," was one post Tweeted among the many others.

As we continue to utilize the benefits of instant communication, more and more people believe in the power – which is both positive, but a serious challenge to emergency response organizations like the Red Cross. In an online survey of 1,058 adults conducted for the American Red Cross found that if they needed help and couldn’t reach 9-1-1, one in five would try to contact responders through digital platforms (such as email, websites or social media). Further, a high percentage of 74 expected help to arrive less than one hour after their tweet or Facebook post. As the rate of socialization increases, the time frame for emergency workers to respond decreases.

The Red Cross held an Emergency Social Data Summit last August to discuss the reality of the public expectations when it comes to using social media as a form of emergency response.

The following questions were asked and are still being discussed:

• What can we do to prepare in advance of a crisis?
• Who should have custody of social data? How should it be used?
• Can we codify a solution?
• What about issues of accessibility?
• How do we avoid a duplication of effort?
• What is the best way to authenticate requests?
• How do we manage citizen expectations for response?

What do you think - would you use a traditional phone call or social media to find help during a crisis? Have an opinion? Be sure to join the online discussion by using the Twitter hashtag #CrisisData .

Posted by David Roth, Katie Wilkes & Lauren Snyder

The Red Cross Movement -- It's Alive

Yesterday, a blog post by Sam Davidson put the smack down with the Red Cross.

I reacted the way I usually do. I gave myself permission to be upset for a minute, then I tried to truly hear what Sam had to say so we could talk.

Sam listened and approached the dialogue with an open mind and heart. Many of Sam’s other blog posts explored topics that are close to the heart of many Red Cross staff. He discussed the difference between making a living and making a life, finding happiness through a purposeful and present life, and a number of other topics that ignite the right kind of fires in people. As I read his other blogs, I couldn’t help but notice how much he resembled some of our best volunteers – the ones who hold the Red Cross accountable to become a better organization and challenge us.

I chose to work at the Red Cross mostly because I like people like this and want to be around them for more hours out of the day. I am inspired by front line volunteers, entrepreneurial board committee members and leadership volunteers who partner with us to turn a very, very big and heavy ship. I observe daily that the Red Cross agrees that the we all need to raise the ante in non-profit, and in order to do this we must organize solutions that keep us moving forward, in spite of the drag that can be created by 130 years of carbuncles. The magnificent, historic ship keeps moving in part because of volunteers who resemble Sam.

The Red Cross movement is behemoth. It takes entrepreneurs, bravehearts and big thinkers to fuel it. It also takes people who want to work within a large, complex, and decentralized ecosystem to make it continue to breath, live and evolve.

I often joke that the Red Cross has been crowdsourcing for 130 years, and I challenge people to consider the implications of that. Take a minute to really consider the implications of achieving more that 90 percent of your work through volunteers and preserving the breadth and reach of international organization that truly has to touch every corner of the world without government ties. Our staff is comprised of millions of people and our customers are everyone.

Sam and my conversation reminded me that the Red Cross system is alive and richly symbiotic. We do change, but it is much more like an evolution, because all of humanity is part of our system and our earth shakes and reeks havoc.

Sam, we'll make your ideas matter if you keep sharing them and continue to honor the size and scope of our movement. Change happens here… differently. Organically and open-heartedly. Like a weather system, it will build, then unleash furiously and extraordinarily. And when it does, new dawns break and new shoots surface. Sometimes it strikes awe when thousands of people help thousands of people in unimaginable situations that demand something new. Sam, I think you’d like it.

One of our volunteers, Hala, fled extreme dangers in Baghdad and volunteered with the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement in Syria when she was in her mid-teens. Now a Chicago Red Cross volunteer who is helping us extend the reach of our free humanitarian law class by offering it online, Hala describes her volunteer experience with the Red Cross and Red Crescent Society as "what allowed me to move from victim to volunteer."

Just last night, one of our volunteers was personally devastated by losing his family’s home in a fire that stuck at midnight. When I listened to him today, he shared with me that his work with the Red Cross has been healing for him during this first, most difficult day. He didn’t feel helpless.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, we invite you to challenge us and change us. Sam already crossed that line into volunteerism as soon as he talked with us, listened, then talked again. By the way, we liked Sam's second blog -- the one about how we listened. But we have to confess, we liked the first one, too. Sam and millions of other people are what makes the Red Cross better.

Let’s all keep talking and witness the evolution unfold.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Given the conception of our newest Facebook page for the Mission Red event, I’d like to dedicate today’s blog entry to the social media phenomenon.

On my first HAPPY FRIDAY blog, I alluded to the prevalence of social media, and the fact that everybody’s involved. In fact, Facebook currently has more than 200 million active users worldwide, followed by MySpace at 106 million users, with Twitter quickly gaining ground as the fastest growing social media site with 55 million users.

And you’d be surprised who’s plugged in. The fastest growing U.S. demographic segment on Facebook is women age 55 and over. On a side note, Oprah is now Tweeting. In her opening tweet, she inadvertently insulted Twitterers everywhere by writing in all-caps and calling us “TWITTERS.” But she’s forgiven – she’s Oprah! And her gaffe is a sign that she’s actually writing the tweets herself, which may have changed since her initial slip-up. But I digress.

This phenomenon has really taken off, and it’s not exactly a new thing. What is new is that it’s not just us youngsters dominating this space anymore. Mommy bloggers talk about everything from diaper rash creams to tips about how to schedule a weekend quickie with the hubby. Clearly this social media thing has turned into a utilitarian tool for everyone. What used to be a venue for IT geeks and gamers trading tips and tricks about their esoteric world has turned into a true marketplace of ideas, where you can subscribe to whomever you’d like (and their theories or outlook, or whatever) and follow their every move as they posit and prose about what they think stuff means, and interpret the world from their point of view.

Meanwhile, those of you not interested in following some lame, self-absorbed raconteur can use this same social media platform to (re)connect with old friends whom you actually want to chat with, and catch up. Given the regional mobility of the US population, most of us are not living in the same place where we grew. And for those of you who are, most of your old friends probably aren’t. In that case, you can see what they’re up to and how fat, or skinny, or hot, or successful (or not) they’ve become. You can Google people and find their “social footprint” online, and even find out what other people think about them.

It’s a mixed bag, this social media thing. I personally love it, but some may find it too intrusive. A classmate did a presentation on how college football and NFL recruiters make fake Facebook pages to friend possible recruits to get the real story about them before committing. And a funny thing about this guy, someone made a fake Facebook page about him! And he’s not even a college football or NFL candidate.

And then you have people who ruin it for the rest of us, by posting stuff like the Domino’s Pizza video, or Ashton Kutcher and his ridiculous attempt at beating the biggest presence on Twitter, CNN, by advertizing to try to get more followers, which he did. This kind or blasphemy flies in the face of what it means to have a social network. If a powerful media personality or a news source uses their resources to penetrate into the social media sphere, it ceases to be genuine and it will lose its best quality – being user-generated.

The point is this social media thing is a moving target. We’re making the rules as we go, and it’s a fun ride. The best thing is that there’s something for everyone. We all have our space online, and we’re making the most of it.

One last thing – before you log off from your computer, come follow us on Facebook. It’s a bare bones page right now, but we’re working on it. We welcome any suggestions, and please, no fake profiles. There’s no dirt here pal!