In my blog post yesterday I discussed how I felt we were working at two different zoom levels when it came to social media information management. After a good discussion on twitter with @Kim26Stephens and @jgarvin we identified one potential reason why we keep working at these two zoom levels

A point @jgarvin made was that we who have emergency management background are always looking at social media as a way to get citizen generated common operational picture (COP), which explains why we want to see trends at the neighborhood/village level.

At the same time those who come from other backgrounds are looking at social media as a method for citizens to help their neighbors. As such this “911” approach works because if I see a message from my neighbor needing assistance I can reach out to him and help him.

And that is where the question about the hammer comes in. Are we developing tools for common operational pictures or are we developing a citizen driven 911 system? Are we trying to develop tools that allow us to do both things? Does that even work? Do we maybe need different tools to handle and disseminate those two things.

Love to get your feedback…

Published February 24th 2011 at DisasterExpert