Blog Posts

Six weeks ago the devastating force of mother nature reminded us again how things can change in a matter of a few minutes. For the first time we were able to watch live images of the destructive power of tsunamis as they struck the coast of Japan following a massive 9.0 earthquake. I have spent Read more

NetHope, Microsoft, Dell, HP and InterConnection Partner to Deliver Laptops to Rescue Workers in Japan Guest post By Gisli Olafsson, NetHope Emergency Response Director Communication is the lifeblood of rescue operations in Japan. Without the ability to share information and collaborate in real-time, rescue workers struggle to coordinate the delivery of food, water, medicine and Read more

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 Read more

Ten years ago, the humanitarian community came up with the concept of Humanitarian Information Centers (HIC) as a common information management service provider during conflict or natural disasters. The concept became widely used, although not always called HICs in the period 2002-2006. Following the Humanitarian Reform (HR) in 2005 the concept lost traction and was replaced by the Operational Guidance Read more

In my previous blog post I described the three different uses of social media during disasters. One of them was utilizing social media for crisis information management purposes. In crisis information management we commonly split it up into three different phases, data collection, data processing and data analysis. While I see tremendous opportunities in outsourcing data processing Read more

When it comes to the use of social media in disasters then this can be split up into  3 purposes: Advocacy and Fundraising – utilizing social media to interact more closely with people donating and influencing public opinion Information Sharing with affected communities – reaching out during disasters to the affected community with information about services, threats, Read more

In my previous posts I have discussed the importance of having access to key baseline information and a place to share it (the Crisis Information Repository). While having access to baseline data is crucial, it is also very important to have information about who is participating in the response, what they are doing, what they are Read more

As the world remembers one of the most devastating natural disasters in recent times I thought it would be fitting to look forward and dream of what disaster preparedness and response world would look like in the future. As with many dreams the sequence is in no particular order. I have a dream that one Read more

When you ask those responding to a crisis what one of the key challenges they faced over 80% of them will mention information overflow as the main issue they faced. With improved connectivity this problem has just become more difficult to handle. In an email to OCHA staff one month after the earthquake, John Holmes, Read more