Comments on: Manage Your Online Reputation When Disaster Strikes

By: Rhea Drysdale

Rhea Drysdale — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 03:06:37 +0000

Spoke with the Mayor today and he said they already have this implemented, but it’s over too broad of an area. I don’t have a landline, so probably why I wasn’t aware of it!

By: Stray Farce

Stray Farce — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:46:37 +0000

I actually hadn’t seen the page until Irene hit, but I’m glad I found it. Having it legitimized as an official page would be a good idea, but I gave it the B.O.D. and accepted and appreciated the information provided.

By: 40deuce

40deuce — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 16:53:13 +0000

Wow! Great story and great advice.
It seems like Troy was prepared and knew exactly the best ways to reach their key audiences and that’s good practice for any and all businesses.

Cheers,
Sheldon, community manager for Sysomos

By: chris harvey

chris harvey — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 15:19:05 +0000

@Tim, you are right, of course, everyone acted with the best intentions and admirably; sorry i come off kranky. i’m inherently skeptical of e-tool worship, but a conversation about what emergency preparedness really means is a good thing. when i saw the “mandatory evacuation” reference on FB, i was more dismayed by seeing it there than by the notice itself, which i instinctively questioned owing to its context. for EBS a cross-platform presence is the only online solution that makes any sense to me. reverse 991, SMS hotlines, and update links on the City page are great ideas. clarifying the “official” status of the FB page could go a long way too, but as a fairly active FB user i’m naturally aware of what FB is not and who is not there. it’s not a reliable EBS precisely because it has a casual randomness built into it and the user base is encouraged to exploit that to “personalize the experience”. i use it as a kiosk, but the blog-like structure makes it more like a river, and it gets flooded too.

By: Sully

Sully — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 15:06:59 +0000

PSNH (Public Service of New Hampshire, the largest electricity supplier in the state) does an AMAZING job of using social media for disaster notifications. No land lines here – all Twitter & web.

During major outages, like those caused by Irene, they update regularly with what areas are being addressed and ETR (Estimated Time of Restoration). If your phone is smart enough to access the web, there is always their online map.

Even better than just the broadcast messages is the ability to Tweet at them to notify that your power is out. Sure they have an online form & 800-number, but I can’t use the former and don’t know the latter. Plus, during a crisis they’re as active as @TroyMayor was over the weekend.

Did I stir the pot with my comment? Yes, but Troy tried the traditional channels of alerting its citizens, but was able to get the message out faster (to 10% of the population) much more quickly via Facebook & Twitter.

Furthermore, why doesn’t it have a government resource that tells me the news, why not just a trusted source (e.g. friend, neighbor, etc)?

By: Matt Varney

Matt Varney — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 13:27:26 +0000

I wonder what they mean by their ‘FT person is maxed out’. I’m guessing they can’t be a web designer because adding a twitter feed or a facebook feed takes all of 5 minutes. Heck, I could walk to city hall and help them if they wanted it.

Also, their website does appear to have a CMS installed as there is a login page to it: http://troyny.gov/admin/ They could have stopped using it though and changed to hardcoding.

By: Rhea Drysdale

Rhea Drysdale — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 03:52:32 +0000

LOL, talk to Jeff Pirro and Ken Z. Sounds like both are interested in a way to fix the site.

By: Rhea Drysdale

Rhea Drysdale — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 03:49:19 +0000

Psst… share your ideas here. Not everyone’s on Twitter. :P Would love to know more about how PSNH alerts everyone. My only concern is that it requires a landline? What about the folks that have abandoned those for cell phones? It’s why Verizon was just on strike. Less and less of the population is bothering to install landlines at all.

By: Rhea Drysdale

Rhea Drysdale — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 03:41:11 +0000

Really excited about Reverse 911 right now. Dug up some info (cough, Google > Wikipedia > Manufacturer site). Requested some more info to see what the cost/requirements of a system like this would be.

By: Angelos

Angelos — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 03:27:02 +0000

I don’t have the energy to deal with any of the arguments. But as someone without TV (and I didn’t have my battery powered radio with me, like a dummy), @TroyMayor and the Troy Facebook page were invaluable resources, the most real-time information I could get.

I don’t care if “not everyone is on twitter/Facebook/whatever.” It’s 2011. The news media long ago proved themselves incompetent to cover anything of significance.

Also, 10k? I can beat that.