of latebreaking information. If something happens at three o'clock in the afternoon, there's a chance it may make it into a late edition newspaper, and I can probably watch it on the six o'clock news that evening. Cable stations like CNN and Headline News brought us into a new era of news as it's happening, but even today, time and time again, large global news agencies are "scooped" by the common bystander in their smart phone. Twitter tweets, pictures, and even video usually make it into the social media stream at the same time, or even well before, news agencies are alerted to an incident.

The other week, during the earthquake that hit the eastern seaboard, I was on a conference call with several people in the Washington DC area, and as soon as I heard about a possible earthquake, I was able to immediately confirm that on Twitter. There are hundreds of applications for just about every device known the man that allow you to monitor hash tags about a particular event. During the recent hurricanes, watching for #Irene, resulted in the feed scrolling across the screen so fast, it was difficult to read.

But what about Social Media and the Emergency Services network? We know that NG 911 is quickly being deployed and implemented, but we have a little ways to go before the public will be able to interact with that with their smart phones and other devices. But in the past, public safety officials were quite often cautious about promoting multimedia communications outside of the normal 911 network.

This week I sat down with Erik Endress, who is the founder and CEO of Share with 911. The intent of his application is not to replace citizens calling 911 in an emergency, it's his intent to augment emergent events with additional media streams that normally wouldn't be available to public safety. Normally I try to keep my podcasts short and to the point, but my conversation with Erik could've probably lasted for an hour or more. We did manage to keep it down under 20 min., and you can listen to that podcast here.

Coming from a public safety background as a dispatcher as well is a first responder, and a former local school board member, Erik brings a unique perspective on dealing with emergent situations and lockdowns in our school systems. Public education, and public safety are becoming more aware of Social Media, and the progressive communities are looking how to integrate this new form of communication so that today's students are more engaged and aware of emergent events close to them.

Although integrating Social Media with emergency services is not a new idea, it is, however, an idea that is being more openly accepted today, and I talk with Erik about his views on why that's happening.

OMG! DIS 911 APP IS THE SCHIZL FOR POPO!

Or for the older generation

"My goodness! This mobile device application for contacting emergency services is certainly a great benefit to all for summoning police assistance!"

 

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