Guide to Social Media and Emergency Management Exercise Planning A Building Block Approach
Social Media and Emergency Management Exercise Planning
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Contents Social Media and Emergency Management (SMEM) ........................................3 The First Social Media Exercises........................................................................3 Types of Traditional Exercises ...........................................................................5 Types of Social Media Exercises (SMX):............................................................6 Social Media Exercise Elements .........................................................................6 Seminars, Workshops, Tabletops and Games ....................................................................................... 6 Drills, Functional and Full Scale Exercises ............................................................................................. 6
Examples of types of social media exercises ...................................................7 Social Media in Workshops and Seminars: ........................................................................................... 7 Workshop Game and Crowd Engagement #QuackAttack ....................................................... 7 Workshop and Crowd Simulation #ZombieEMNZ: ................................................................... 7 Social Media in Tabletop Exercises ....................................................................................................... 7 Tabletop Exercise ......................................................................................................................... 7 Social Media and Games ...................................................................................................................... 8 Social Media in Drills:........................................................................................................................... 9 Crowd Drill for Drop, Cover, Hold #Shakeout:............................................................................ 9 Social Media in Functional Exercises and Simulations........................................................................... 9 Functional Exercise/Simulation “CAUSE” USA Canada Cross Border Experiment ................ 9 Social Media in a Full Scale Exercise ................................................................................................... 10 Full Scale Exercise Operation Resilient Response .................................................................. 10
Starting A Social Media Exercise (SMX) Program ..........................................10 Ten Social Media Exercise Program Tips ........................................................11
Social Media and Emergency Management Exercise Planning
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Social Media and Emergency Management (SMEM) On August 6, 2006, a small earthquake struck the San Francisco area. The event triggered a discussion instantly in a new tool called “Twitter”. In that defining social media moment, twoway communications inspired the public not only to communicate status in real time but also to be active in their own preparedness and recovery planning. The rapid growth of public dialogue on social media platforms presents challenges as well as opportunities for the emergency management community. Exercise planning should include testing the effectiveness of mechanisms to coordinate the response of different sectors and agencies in emergencies. Agencies also must test plans as well as evaluate, adapt, and update them before and after an actual event.1 Social media using new interactive communications presents multiple challenges for effective exercise planning. Social media offers a broad option for surveying the impacted population as well as guiding those who wish to help. The outpouring of aid offered as a result of the publicity social media generates can overwhelm governmental entities and organizations if they are not prepared to handle the inundation. Any time there is an opportunity to crowd source there is an opportunity to influence the crowd and reach them before donation management issues arise. This document will share a few examples of social media and emergency management exercises and points to consider when conducting social media exercises. In just a few short years, emergency management agencies jumped many hurdles to start their social media monitoring, practice and engagement. Craig Fugate of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) championed the cause by encouraging government agencies to empower the agency’s presence in social media. “People respond to emergencies the way that they have trained. This puts the onus on governments and organizations to implement their social media policies and procedures and exercise their plans before an emergency occurs. Participating in exercises provides staff and volunteers the opportunity to validate and make corrective actions or improvements to their emergency operations plans, and to identify any staffing or training deficiencies.” Allyson Kuriger, Humanity Road Emergency Management Team Lead.
The First Social Media Exercises The first notable social media exercise was a drill for the Great California Shakeout launched in 2008 and implemented in Twitter in 2009. Public engagement via social media with a short, simple safety goal, “Drop, Cover and Hold,” contributed to the Shakeout’s rapid growth since its inception. Using social media in daily operations is still a relatively new process. Public Information Officers who wish to learn how to inform the public but also engage the public have a lot of options today. However, information available in social media can help improve disaster response if effectively monitored and reported. Thus, social media exercises and drills are critical to operationalizing emergency management in this new venue. Humanity Road was launched in early 2010 as a digital public charity to help fill the gap as emergency management and response partners began to learn the power of Twitter and social media. In September of 1
PAHO Simulations Guide Social Media and Emergency Management Exercise Planning
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2010, students at the Immersive Visualization Center (VizCenter), San Diego State University in California conducted an experiment on how to use new methods of communication by hosting a virtual Humanitarian Aid/Disaster Response (HADR) event in Twitter called Exercise 24. In response to their event, over 12,500 people from 79 nations responded. Their responses were simulating offers of aid to the community. Humanity Road collaborated with San Diego VizCenter providing media monitoring for simulated situational awareness, identified simulated urgent needs and publishing information on what to do before, during and after an earthquake, including tsunami standard safety messages from the American Red Cross and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This experiment shined the light on the challenges and uses of social media in disaster.
Christoph Dennenmoser, Paramedic with the German Red Cross and Humanity Road Team Lead for Urgent Needs sets up a situational support tent for the RIMPAC HA/DR Crisis mapping exercise on Ford Island, Hawaii July 21, 2012.
Including social media operational partners in exercise, planning and design can enhance an exercise by bringing additional elements such as crowd and crisis map simulation. One example of Humanity Road activations supporting social media in a full-scale field exercise took place at Ford Island, Hawaii in 2012.
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Types of Traditional Exercises
OPERATIONS BASED
DISCUSSION BASED
The Homeland Security Exercise Evaluation Program (HSEEP) describes the different types of exercises and includes discussion-based exercises such as workshops and seminars, as well as operations based exercises such as drills, functional and full-scale exercises. Social Media design elements can be included in all types of traditional exercises. The HSEEP manual recommends the use of a building-block approach to exercise planning. The building block approach (see figure below) focuses on specific capabilities in a cycle of escalating complexity and thus, lends itself well for building a plan to include elements of social media monitoring and response.
Seminars and conferences are informal discussions unconstrained by real-time portrayal of events and led by a presenter. Seminars help orient key participants on strategies concepts and ideas. Workshops are similar to seminars but include hands on interaction and can be designed with a goal toward building a product such as assisting exercise development. Tabletop Exercises involve key personnel discussing hypothetical scenarios in an informal setting to assess plans and procedures. They help participants understand concepts, identifying strengths and shortfalls Games are simulations of operations that often involve rules, data and procedure to depict actual or assumed real-life situations. The goal is normally to explore decision-making processes and the consequences. Drills usually have a narrow focus, a drill is a coordinated supervised activity employed to validate single specific operation or function. Functional Exercises evaluate individual capabilities, multiple functions, and activities within a function or independent groups of functions. Full Scale Exercises are multiagency, multi-jurisdictional, multi-organizational and usually focus on implementing plans, procedures, agreements.
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Types of Social Media Exercises (SMX): Social media training elements can be included in all areas of traditional exercise types. Whole community partners, stakeholders and the public are all participants who should be included in the planning phases. When planning workshops and seminars, including classes designed to train individuals and teams on social media skills is one way of improving capability and effective coordination with all response partners. Traditional exercises have engaged the public in volunteer roles for accident simulation. There are many ways of including the public during drills, functional exercises and full-scale exercises. The following is just a sampling of social media elements.
OPERATIONS BASED
DISCUSSION BASED
Social Media Exercise Elements Seminars, Workshops, Tabletops and Games -
Lectures on emerging trends and technology SMEM Introductory Classes for disaster responders, CERT teams, Citizen Corps Classes on Virtual Operation Support Teams (VOSTS) Table tops, workshops and games that include roleplaying elements Public chats on what mobile tools are available to them Public chats on who to follow for what type of disasters Games for honing skills such as data mining or situation reporting
Drills, Functional and Full Scale Exercises -
Scene setters that simulate the crowd Master Scenario Event List MSEL’s that include simulated crisis map or simulated social media messages Including beta testing of technology into functional and full scale drills Data Mining practice for response teams Drills to practice situation reporting Drills for VOST teams to practice skills Drills for the public to practice their mobile tech skills Functional exercises with SMEM partners such as Humanity Road
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Examples of Social Media Exercises Social Media in Workshops and Seminars Social media workshops and seminars can be tabletop sessions or can contain some functional exercise elements for comprehension testing and class assessment. These sessions are relatively simple to design and execute and are a good choice to consider using for new social media engagement programs. They build awareness and understanding of the importance of social media in emergency management in a relatively low-pressure environment. They are discussion-based sessions or classes and may have gaming elements to monitor and extract information in social media. Below are a few examples of Humanity Road’s past workshops that included live social media elements in the exercises. Workshop Game and Crowd Engagement #QuackAttack: Type: Conference with data mining game for Public Information Officer PIO Attendees Goal: Attendees were emergency management professionals from the local, county and Location: Florida Governor’ Hurricane Conference. state level. As participants maneuvered through the conference trade floor, dubbed “Duckville”, they were encouraged to tweet situational awareness on the location of ducks and to assess the relevancy and usefulness of emerging tweets. A simulated Twitter account called the “City of Duckville” was created for the event. Workshop and Crowd Simulation #ZombieEMNZ: Type: Workshop and Crowd Simulation Goal: SMEM training for emergency managers that included a one-hour live exercise Location: Emergency Management New Zealand (EMNZ) Zombie Apocalypse, Feb 28, 2013 12th Annual Emergency Management Workshop. Participants were provided the scenario; a Zombie attack in Wellington, and asked to find missing puzzle pieces hidden in social media to solve a puzzle to save lives. Humanity Road provided planning support in exercise components, graphics and surge support role-playing as zombies and locals tweeting under the hashtag #ZombieEMNZ.
Social Media in Tabletop Exercises Social media tabletop exercises (TTX’s) are popular and relatively easy to include during a conference or regional meeting. TTXs offer an opportunity to discuss how social media procedures and protocols might fit into different hypothetical scenarios. Using games during conferences introduces participants to the different types of social media concepts and can improve skills for decision-making and response. Tabletop Exercise Type: Crowd Simulation Mapping Goal: Pacific Endeavor is an annual exercise hosted by the Pacific Command Multinational Communications Interoperability Program (MCIP). The vision of MCIP is communications interoperability that supports multinational humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations. Overview. Pacific Endeavor is one of the best examples of exercises utilizing the building block approach. Each year, over twenty nations in the Pacific basin meet for this multinational communications interoperability exercise. The aim of the exercise is to enhance communications interoperability between participating nations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the international humanitarian community in order to enable greater collaboration. Their plan is a fiveyear exercise program that builds each year in complexity. The exercise planners include discussion, knowledge management-based workshops and operational assessments. Each year
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this program incorporates different aspects of social media including situational reports, crowd simulation and crisis mapping. They have also added social media elements into their functional exercise and to the dialogue portion of their knowledge management sessions. The scenario working group and white cell helped to develop injects for Pacific Endeavor’s annual capstone event. Industry and NGO’s helped by bringing operational expertise and real world scenarios into the exercise.
Social Media and Games Games create a fun learning environment that engages participants to assess and improve skills and critical thinking processes. They can be goal oriented for specific outcomes. Social Media games can be designed to increase public engagement, such as the “30 Days – 30 Ways” campaign developed by Clark County Washington Government, or they can be designed to teach emergency management personnel, such as the Broward County Citizen Corps seminar, which utilized the EM Deck for a tabletop class. The EM Deck is a deck of role playing cards developed by Humanity Road, Inc. The cards help quickly create scenarios for emergency management exercises. These cards can create game elements for workshops, seminars and tabletop exercises for CERT, Law Enforcement, Emergency Management, Emergency Operations Centers, Voluntary Agencies Active in Disaster (VOAD), Local Emergency Planning Committees (LEPC), or virtual operations support teams (VOST’s). The deck consists of 78 cards that include 15 disasters, 31 stakeholders, 25 challenges, and includes instructions on how to hold three practice assessments and two roleplaying exercises. Broward Citizen Corps Conference VOST Seminar and Tabletop Game Type: Game and Seminar Goal: Introduce VOST to Citizen Corps and CERT team members Overview: On February 1, 2013, the Broward County Citizen Corps Conference included a class on social media and VOST’s for their Citizen Corps teams attending the conference. The seminar and tabletop class included an overview on emergency support functions and virtual operations support team reporting and incorporated a tabletop game for participants. The tabletop discussion included role-playing using the Humanity Road EM Deck.
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Social Media in Drills Drills can provide training on new equipment, develop or test new policies or procedures, or provide practice and maintain current skills. Typical attributes of drills include a narrow focus, which works well for some social media exercise goals. Social media drills can be geared toward training emergency management teams or the public on preparedness and response. Crowd Drill for Drop, Cover, Hold #Shakeout: Type: Crowd Drill for Drop, Cover, Hold Goal: Improve public response during the moment of shaking in an earthquake Overview: Great Shake Out Earthquake drills are an annual opportunity for people in homes, schools, and organizations to practice what to do during earthquakes, and to improve emergency preparedness. Millions of people worldwide register and practice how to Drop, Cover, and Hold On materials include multimedia, audio, video, banners and kits to help local and regional partners engage faster. Each year Humanity Road supports this drill in social media.
Social Media in Functional Exercises and Simulations Functional exercises allow personnel to validate plans and readiness by performing their emergency duties in a simulated, operational environment. Activities for a social media functional exercise are scenario-driven, such as the failure of a critical function or a specific hazard scenario. Functional exercises test specific team members, procedures and resources (e.g. communications, warning, notifications, equipment set-up, etc). Effective social media elements engage academic, industry and emergency management partners to collaborate and assess processes and tools. To enhance realism, exercise designers can include simulated crowd content and simulated crisis mapping that can include more than one mock media source such as social media, blogs, newspaper and radio/ television spots. Social Media partners can be included to support the planning team. Partners can provide various services including crowd simulation, crowd sourcing and crowd map development. Functional Exercise/Simulation “CAUSE” USA Canada Cross Border Experiment Type: Simulation and Exercise Crowd simulation and live media monitoring Goal: Testing social media surge support and cross border coordination. Overview: The CAUSE exercise included situation report support, development, and live surge support. The first phase of the exercise tested new methods of engagement and information sharing for a simulated major hurricane affecting the United States and Canada. Humanity Road volunteers wrote 400 simulated Twitter and Facebook posts, which were used in the simulation.
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Social Media in a Full Scale Exercise A full-scale exercise is as close to the real thing as possible. It is a lengthy exercise, which takes place on location. Full-scale exercises use teams and equipment normally deployed in a real event and may often include participation from local businesses. Social media elements appropriate for full-scale exercises include items for public participation as well as multiagency, multi-jurisdictional and multi-organizational response teams. Live chats in social media can engage the public, improve followers for appropriate official accounts, dispel rumors and gain public participation in best practices. Social media emergency management teams can practice and hone their skills through mock activations where they can perform live social media monitoring and prepare social media situation reports. Organization and academic partners wishing to demonstrate and test social media technology tools can be included in a full scale exercise. Full Scale Exercise Operation Resilient Response Type: Live Media Monitoring and Assessment Goal: Monitor for situational awareness Overview: Humanity Road provided surge Support during “Operation Resilient Response”, a Port Authority Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Security Exercise. More than 100 maritime and emergency response professionals participated in this multi-agency exercise. Humanity Road volunteers monitored social media, including Twitter and Facebook, for emerging information and provided a situation report. The DMML lab at ASU launched Tweet Tracker and tracked all traffic in Broward County. Volunteers monitored Department of Transportation (DOT) broadcasts, Twitter traffic, and then identified two mass gathering events near the simulated WMD zone as well as roadside vehicles and traffic incidents that would have impeded evacuation.
Academic and NGO partners can help with data visualization for social media traffic. Arizona State University’s Decision Machine Learning lab partnered with Humanity Road for the Operation Resilient Response to provide data visualization of current twitter traffic in the region.
Starting a Social Media Exercise (SMX) Program One key step to including social media in emergency management exercise plans is to identify where social media information fits in the Emergency Operation Center (EOC). Start small by including a simulated social media situation report as part of exercise injects and discuss it in planning steps to determine if the social media capabilities should be included in logistics, operations or other functional support teams. Numerous emerging tools and community partners can assist in creating effective social media elements for disaster exercises. Utilizing key stakeholders during exercise development and including the public, especially those with special needs, is a whole community approach that can empower the public to help themselves and others during disasters. Exercise planners should research options and include whole community partners from the outset.
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Ten Social Media Exercise Program Tips 1. Keep it simple – consider one or two goals for drills or workshops and build on it each year. If social media elements are new to or have not yet been included into emergency plans, add a few injects to regular exercises to stimulate thought and discussion about social media’s potential impacts on response and recovery. 2. Keep it short. Social media exercises and drills work best when they are limited to a few hours in duration. 3. Research and engage emerging technologies and social media operational partners at the onset and take advantage of their expertise. 4. Avoid using real disaster scenarios in live social media. They can be confused as a real world emergency. 5. Include all local emergency-planning stakeholders in social media planning and reporting. 6. Social media is a copycat environment. Therefore, never use terrorism as an exercise element for a public social media exercise. 7. Make sure participants have completed basic training and orientation on social media before the exercise. 8. Social Media posts can be a fishbowl environment where the national and global public can see all content. For clarity, specify your town, county and state clearly in public messaging and in your twitter account profile. 9. Use hashtags and standard exercise terms and encourage all exercise partners to do so. Using hashtags help clearly track the discussion, and can announce the start and end of an exercise (i.e. #Startex and #Endex). 10. Inform the public how they can engage and invite them to participate if possible.
About Humanity Road Humanity Road is a worldwide leader in social media emergency management, response and social media exercise planning. We deliver disaster preparedness and response information to the global mobile public before, during, and after a disaster. Providing aid information helps individuals survive, sustain, and reunite with each other and with their pets. Humanity Road strives to close the disaster communications gap through process improvement, collaboration, partnerships, education and training. To learn more visit www.humanityroad.org, if you need assistance for your exercise, would like to request a guest speaker for your conference, or if you have questions contact us
[email protected]
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