The Weekly Read

Emory's Excellent Crisis Communications on Facebook
Agnes + Day
August 25, 2014

A deadly, highly contagious disease spreading across western Africa. Medical aid workers from the United States contract that illness. A decision to bring them back to the United States for medical treatment.

It almost sounds like a great start to a thrilling book, but it was the reality faced by the Centers for Disease Control, Samaritan's Purse and Emory Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.

An ambulance carrying one of the Ebola infected workers arrives at Emory Hospital

While the hospital is well equipped to handle patients infected with diseases such as Ebola, their system to handle public information through their social media outlets - especially Facebook - was untested. How would the public react to the decision to treat these two patients at a hospital in one of the country's largest cities? Would rumor and fear win the day?

This article, written by Melissa Agnes, analyzes how the hospital's brave decision to maintain its social media engagement helped to prevent rumor from taking control, kept the community connected to what was happening and - ultimately - won the respect and approval of the public.

Tom Iovino, Public Information Specialist
Pinellas County, Florida
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomiovino

The Weekly Read

Emergency Managers Stress the Need for Social Media Volunteers

Emergency Management Magazine

May 16, 2014

At this past spring's Governor's Hurricane Conference held in Orlando, David Merrick and the rest of his virtual operations support team (VOST) from Florida State University conducted an exercise to demonstrate how information could be effectively shared via social media. Creating a fictional event - flooding in the city of Duckville - conference attendees were given specific tasks to accomplish with their smart phones. The data was collected and analyzed to show just how effective these tools could be during an actual emergency.

While the exercise went off without too many glitches, one interesting challenged was posed by the National Hockey League. At the time of the conference, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks were in the hockey playoffs, using the same hashtag - #quackattack. While this proved to be a little confusing at times, it showed some of the potential snags using social media.

Tom Iovino, Public Information Specialist
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomiovino