The Path Forward – ARC Crisis Data Summit Wrap-Up
Last August, Zoetica helped the American Red Cross (ARC) host the crisisdata conference here in Washington, DC. The effort sparked hundreds of fantastic conversations on the social web, and many have been waiting for the final white paper findings from their creative input. Today, the American Red Cross published those findings on Scribd.
There are several critical takeaways from the conference. The need to reach out to communities to train, build expectations, identify possible solutions, and find answers in advance of a disaster were the overarching themes from the roundtable discussions at the August 12, 2010, Summit. From my own experiences at the conference, there was a great deal that needed to be worked out with governance, protocol, and setting expectations with the general public.
For next steps and to help foster that process, ARC is setting up five working groups to address them. Those working groups are:
- Public Awareness and Education
- Next Generation of Emergency Management Tools
- Collaboration, Processes and Governance
- Citizen Helping Citizen
- Overcoming Barriers to Access
The Red Cross is looking for leaders in each of these areas. Further, it will moderate and host #crisisdata chats on Twitter in the near future. #crisisdata remains a hashtag for general public discussion of this issue as well.
Thanks again for all of those who participated in this critical conference, with its impact on our society as a whole. I hope you will reach out the American Red Cross and continue to support their valiant effort to better understand and support social media generated data in times of crisis.