I'm really admiring how the American Red Cross is pushing to have, albeit maybe a bit timidly for now, a dedicated social media component embedded in their communications and outreach efforts. It highlights well their field operations, engages affiliated citizens, and provides sensible calls for action and updates. The platform is important but not critical: Twitter, YouTube, FaceBook... A number of them (and I mean a combination of them not just one) can do it. But consistency and dedication make all the difference in fostering those using the platforms as reliable resources.

The District of Columbia alert system (Alert DC) has just notified me that Tropical Storm Fay is no longer a threat to Washington D.C. The problem is that it never bothered to tell me in the first place that it could be one.

When we developed the beta version of a fully functional Disaster Assistance Component Kit, including disaster preparedness curriculum, and resources on a website that ran off of a USB drive, we immediately knew that there would be much work needed to foster, and sustain a network of users. And just as important as supporting this community, it would be critical to expand the functionality and self-actualization of the data in a crowdsourcing fashion.