Public Safety Signals

A “Duh” Moment

2009 Aug 20 Posted by Mark

Ever have a “duh” moment? It seems to me the older I get, the more of those moments I have. I thought I would share my most recent “duh” moment with you, because it truly relates to public safety. If I do my part of acting on it, and you do your part of acting on it, we can better prepare the common citizen.

Just this morning I finished a research paper, and I was proud of my results. As I read through the paper one last time, I thought to myself “I need to share the results with my friends and family!” I thought it was important to warn others about the deficiencies I found and the importance in preparing. While trying to figure out how, it hit me and I had my “Duh” moment.

How many friends and family do you have on Facebook? I know I have over 700 friends on Facebook, and that grows daily. If I want to share the results, why not list the Abstract on Facebook? What about Twitter? Twitter is another popular social networking site. I then began to wonder how many other social networking sites do we all belong too?

It was then I realized that social networking should be one of the tools in our public safety toolbox. From now on, when we want to warn someone about a possible pandemic, why not post a link to the story on Facebook with instructions of what to do? If a blog on Public Safety Signals catches your fancy, why not send a link to your friends on Facebook so they can grow with you or be enlightened by the blog?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized the implications. If I socially network with my 700 people, and 200 of them share it, and 200 of their friends share it again, we are looking at 1,100 people who got the message from one person being socially responsible. If Dr. Mosser or Dr. Tiffin speaks about something important in a blog, and you follow the same lead of sharing it with others, we could potentially reach 10,000 people from one blog in a reasonably short amount of time! If you are in law enforcement and you have a network of citizens in your area, how quickly could the word get out about a lost or stolen child just by social networking? If you are a firefighter in an area and you need an evacuation, it could possibly be sped up by the use of social networking.

We are in a new era, and the field of public safety is constantly changing. We need to be innovative and change with it, or we will be left behind. By using new technology and by socially networking we can change the landscape of preparedness and mitigation.

As always, your ideas and comments are welcome. What do you think about social networking as a whole? Is it something we should be using to prepare others?

Mark S. Warnick
Capella Learner
Retired Asst Chief

August 20, 2009 | Filed under: Capella, Capella University, Charles Tiffin, Law enforcement, Public Safety Signals, Public safety, disaster, education, homeland security, immigration, online college, online degrees, online university, police, school safety, terror, terrorism, violence, violent crime
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