Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2011 > March > 13 > Entry
SXSW Core Conversation: Communicating on the Web During a Crisis
Time/Date: 5 p.m., Sunday (hashtag: #webcrisis)
Panelists: Chris Latham, The University of Texas at Austin; Nyleva Corley, The University of Texas at Austin
The gist: Latham and Corley, who both work on the web sites for the University of Texas, talked about how, for nine hours, they handled a shooting incident at UT that took place on Sept. 28. Latham said that the team, which has plans in place for emergency situations, was lucky to have the incident occur during a weekday when staff were already working; it tested their network and emergency response. Latham and Corley advised having different dynamic plans in place, to think about where people might be if a crisis happens (remote access versus being in-house) and how conditions like network outages, cell outages or other problems might affect communication. Latham and Corley said there are challenges to coordinating these efforts as well as crafting emergency messages on formats like Twitter.
Quotes: “It was coming more from ground-up than top-down in terms of taking advantage of what Twitter can do.” - Corley. “The important thing for me than getting information out quickly.” - Corley “It really felt like a test of our system.” - Latham.
Takeaways: It’s important to have am emergency plan and infrastructure in place for when the unthinkable happens. A text alert system can still be staggered in when the messages are actually delivered. A campus P.A. system can have similar problems - some people may hear it well while others not so well. If you’re relying on cell phones to connect with your team, there could be major problems.
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