You gotta sign up for Dodgeball.com before next disaster!
I heard a long piece yesterday on Weekend America about what people did and thought after 
the bridge collapse, including excerpts from people’s calls to and from the bridge trying to either reassure friends and relatives, or to find someone who might have been on the bridge.
As in countless other disasters of recent years, the volume of calls eventually brought the network to its knees.
What’s wrong here?
If they’d simply followed one of my “21st- century disaster tips you won’t get from government,” none of the agonizing wait to hear from friends and relatives would have been necessary, and the wireless bandwidth would have been available for those with real emergency needs.
If you don’t follow any of my other tips (and, IMHO, the others are all important as well) you really owe it to yourself, your family and friends, and to your community to do at least this one:
9. Get all your family and friends to join Dodgeball.com.
In a crisis, you’d only have to send a single text message to let them know you’re alright. Pheeder works the same way, and is good if you are uncomfortable texting, but requires a conventional voice call to a number in NYC, so:
- you may not be able to get through in a disaster because so many people are doing the same thing
- since NYC may be the focal point of the disaster or terrorist attack, that number may not be available at all.
This is part-and-parcel of my whole networked homeland security strategy:
on one hand, using cellphones and other mobile personal communication devices has become second-nature, so it’s inevitable we’ll also use them in a disaster. However, on the other hand, it’s necessary that we use them responsibly, to be part of the solution, rather than willynilly, which will only confuse things.
DO IT!
PS: I’m really
excited about a related project: I began production Friday on a series of PSAs based on the “tips you won’t get from officials,” which will air originally on my local cable access station and on YouTube (you’ll see the first within a few weeks!).
They should make the tips really take flight by adding the video component and a bit of salesmanship (oh well, I guess once a P.R. consultant, always a pitchman…).
We’re still looking for sponsorship and distribution partners,
drop me a line if you’re interested or have a suggestion!
Stay tuned!
