Virtual Operations Support VOS

After reading Scotts blog post I felt the need to tell you all out there that VOST is the real deal. VOST is like Gracie JiuJitsu, in the sense that you can prove it really works, but only if you practice it, but the results are immediate. I had the honor, privilege and opportunity to be part of one VOSTofficial effort and it was for the Zozobra Celebration in new Mexico. I worked alongside Jeff Phillips of the Los Ranchos EM and also along other big VOST players Scott has already mentioned. My ultimate opinion of what I experienced was of fulfillment and accomplishment because I felt I was making a difference and watching out for all the individuals postín their concerns (and happy thoughts) on social media platforms. @smemchat @smem

think disaster: a blog by Scott Reuter (@sct_r)

Inaug13

I really enjoyed participating yesterday in a Presidential Inauguration 2013 social media monitoring exercise.

This came about because of a conversation between colleagues during our weekly twitter #smemchat. A few of us discussed the possibility of monitoring social media during the inauguration, then set up a Skype chat room and invited all who wanted to participate to join us there to discuss what we’d like to do.

We set up monitoring tools and saved all official social media accounts related to the inaugural event and important websites to one handy document so that the monitoring team could share and have access to them. In that same document (called a “workbook” when we use it for official activations), we also shared our contact info and logged major actions taken, as well as things that we noticed were happening during the event on social media.

We kept in touch about what we…

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Business Continuity and Crisis Management

Today Dr. Gregory Shaw Co-Director of the Crisis, disaster & risk management of the George Washington University, Washington DC, taught us the difference between Business Continuity (BC) and Emergency Management (EM) , and I narrowed it down to: BC as being the proactive approach to responding to, recovering from and returning to the normal state of operations prior to an incident; versus EM as being the reactive approach to responding to an incident where plans have been made, but may have lacked the exercises needed to measure performance.

I will keep posting more on Business Crisis and continuity management throughout the semester. Hoping I can come up with a good practical Business Continuity Program for the Honduran Consulate in Washington DC.
#businesscontinuity #emergencymanagement

Please post your opinions and comments about the topic.

Why are we always so Unprepared? Reminder of why to prepare.

Its 9:20am and as I walk from the parking lot to the nearby coffee shop in Downtown DC, I notice most people unprepared for a possible snow storm that may or may not shut down the city and surrounding DC Metro area for a couple of hours.

Even though we are all aware of the weather forecast, we yet again miss out on the important details like: PREPAREDNESS, READINESS, CONTINUITY PLANS. What if you can’t open your business tomorrow, or can’t commute to work? As a worried and responsible citizen we are all responsible for preparing for the unexpected to later fulfill our responsibilities as service providers to society. 

Identifying the resources and dedicating significant time to plan and prepare will be very rewarding thus minimizing the effects of an adverse event. Thanks to our friends @FEMA http://www.ready.gov/winter-weather ready.gov provides #preparedness tips for you to stay safe and prepare for the unexpected. It’s never to late to prepare. 

@AmericanRedCross also provides very useful resources for preparedness http://www.redcross.org/prepare/location/home-family 

iDisaster2.0 Interesting and worrisome

iDisaster2.0 Interesting and worrisome

Kim Stephens has recently published this blog post that caught my attention. Why did this specific Social Media operative not pass on the important information down to the competent authorities? WMATA Twitter Operatives have a responsibility towards its users. Please give it a thought.  http://idisaster.wordpress.com/2013/01/14/managing-public-expectations-or-not/