Nobody could have predicted the huge success of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in how they have reshaped the world. In fact, it’s an understatement to say the internet and modern technology has changed the way we communicate—and quite drastically, too. News conferences have become a thing of the past, especially when it comes to emergency and disaster management. “For us from crisis communication and an emergency alert standpoint, it’s been the biggest game changer since the telephone, even more so than the Internet,” South Carolina Emergency Management Division spokesman Derrec Becker told Government Technology.

Using social media as a platform to spread awareness during emergencies and calamities has become the new norm. This means that emergency management officials no longer need to wait for traditional media to report news, as information can be posted on Twitter and Facebook. And social media is fast becoming the primary source of news for many people. In a post by Maryville University on their communications degree, they report that in 2016 there was already a 63% increase in global media traffic. This shows how rapidly the world is adopting mobile technology, which will only increase social media use, and change how people receive information.

The combination of artificial intelligence and social media has effectively enabled rapid disaster response. The well-rounded support of both these technologies has allowed emergency management officials not only to develop situational awareness, but to bridge the gap between communication and infrastructure failures, too. Medium notes that even relief efforts to those most prone, benefit from social media, as they are more likely to be alerted about natural disasters that are happening without a warning.

The emergence of social media in disaster management helped communities make sure that they have an effective communication plan during emergencies. On Tresit Group we talked about the importance of having more than one way to communicate, as this gives people more chances of dealing with a crisis or emergency effectively.

There’s no better example of this than the Facebook Safety Check, which has proven itself quite useful in times of emergencies. It was first launched in 2016 and was immediately tested that same year when a 29-year-old security guard killed more than 40 people and injured more than 50 in a mass shooting in a nightclub in Orlando. Worried family members and friends of people in the area clung to Facebook’s Safety Check to make sure the people they love were safe. David Moran who was a regular at the club explained that at first he could only vaguely recall what Safety Check was, but as more and more people marked themselves safe, he kept returning to the page. In the same article, Wired spoke with humanitarian crises and technology expert Patrick Meier. Meier said Safety Check serves a great purpose: to give people answers about the specific individuals they care about—and at a scale and speed that was never possible before.

Facebook’s crisis hub said they promise to make Safety Check bigger. The company aims to turn it into a “crisis hub” or a live and centralized repository of information about any given disaster. Friends and family will not only be able to check on their loved ones, but they will also be able to follow news and chatter, monitor live videos via Facebook Live from the scene, and even coordinate ways of responding. As the community learns to grow and as technology continues to evolve, disaster response will grow and evolve with it.
 
 
Article specially written for TresitGroup.Com
By: Evelyn Niamh
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Enjoy your holiday season. Make memories. Be safe.

For the full story of Benjamin Franklin's famous axiom click here:
​https://www.ag.ndsu.edu/news/columns/beeftalk/beeftalk-an-ounce-of-prevention-is-worth-a-pound-of-cure/

Bottom line. A redundant plan that connects all the right people initially, during and after an incident happens.
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Article written by: 
Cole Smith
CEO Tresit Group
Former Military Officer

Special thanks to the Ch. 4 News team! Here is some great coverage and an amazing article written by Andrew Reeser. 
COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS, Utah (News4Utah) - With the push of a button, Canyon View Elementary school principal Kierstin Draper alerted every teacher and student in the building they needed to lock the doors, turn off the lights and get out of sight. 

The message was sent and received in two seconds. The school was locked down and deemed secure in two and a half minutes. 
It was a drill, but in a real-life situation, lives could have been spared. 
The security application DIR-S (pronounced "duress") acts as a virtual panic button and allows teachers and administrators to alert the entire school in the event of an emergency. Example: a suspicious person enters the building; a student comes to school armed; a domestic dispute spills over into a school classroom. With the app, which costs about $3,100 per school that uses it, the adult who notices suspicious activity can press a button to alert teachers that it's time to lock down their classrooms. Teachers turn off the lights, lock the doors and get students out of sight. 
Tresit Group is the Utah company that developed the application, which is now being used in school districts around Utah, Idaho and other states. 
"The teacher's job is just to select their location, and [indicate] if they are safe or unsafe," says Tresit marketing director Preston Keller.  "If they're safe the room goes green...and if they're unsafe the room goes red." (Teachers press a red or green button on their smartphone or computer to indicate whether or not the classroom is safe). 
The alert also goes to local law enforcement. Some police departments around the state have started using DIR-S to better communicate with teachers during emergencies. An instant-messaging feature allows teachers to type messages to each other during an incident, indicating if anyone in their classroom is missing. Missing persons can also be reported on the application. 
Canyons School District performs regular drills using DIR-S. It can also be used for fire and earthquake drills. Draper goes around the school and makes sure all classroom doors are locked. A dangerous job in an real-life event, but keeping children safe is paramount. "Seconds count," said Draper. "There's also the ability on the app for teachers to indicate whether they need medical help."
The Canyons School District Board made obtaining this app for local schools a priority project this year. It costs money, but as technology grows, so does the ability for those who would want to do harm to circumvent it. Draper said DIR-S helps schools stay ahead of the curve. 
"Knowing that we have to do this to prepare our students, it's definitely a two-sided coin," Draper said. "You wish you didn't have to live in world where you have to prepare for this type of emergency, but...it's a top priority."
DIR-S can also be used on an individual level, but the company's current focus is on schools and corporate environments

Thank you to Channel 4 news for the great story!  All credit and content are provided by Channel 4 News.
​Sources Cited:
​https://www.good4utah.com/news/local-news/-panic-button-app-helps-connect-teachers-law-enforcement-during-lockdown/1495232952

​Mom..Dad, what should I do if someone at school starts shooting? How would you answer? 
Unfortunately, this question may be asked and you will need to rise to the occasion and have an answer. The day has passed that you can brush it off and respond, “not to worry.” We are living in it now.

We suggest the following basic responses to your children by helping them understand three encompassing scenarios:

1. See but CANNOT Hear 
2. See AND Hear
3. Hear but CANNOT See.

Above all, your child needs to understand that if at any time they feel unsafe or in danger, they need to do all in their power to get safe and out of danger. In discussing this, it is important for your child to understand the difference between cover and concealment. Cover protects you from harm. Concealment hides you from harm. Below, are the three scenarios and ways in which you can help your child know how to respond appropriately.

Scenario 1 – See but CANNOT Hear
If you can see a weapon but CANNOT hear anything (it is not being used), do 
the following: 
Leave the area immediately and get somewhere where big, heavy stuff (cover) is between you and the person with the weapon. 
Your kids need to know if there is something that can potentially harm them, they need to get somewhere safe. This step creates distance and cover between them and a potential threat. 
Report it immediately to a teacher or responsible adult.As soon as possible, while leaving the area, kids need to know the importance of reporting to the first adult they see. 
Get as safe as possible. Continually get as far away from the danger as possible and keep as much big, heavy stuff between you and the person with the weapon. Being truly safe is a continual process. 
As things change, so does the level of safety. Teaching this correctly allows for kids to have the mindset of always getting to a safer and more secure position, keeping a few steps ahead of potential danger at all times. 
If you can’t leave, stay quiet and hide. If you are not able to go anywhere or do so safely, secure and barricade your location as much as possible.
​

We strive for simplicity. We have spent countless hours testing and developing, and testing and testing and more testing to create the simplest user interface for school security.

"...Recognize that under stress you’re not going to be at your best, and you should put systems in place."
- Dan Levitan 
​
In this post you can read an interesting article below to see how the brain reacts under stress, this will help you understand why we go to great lengths to give our end-users (teachers and first responders) the easiest and simplest way to communicate in an emergency.
​As you can see in the image, in three simple steps you can send out a custom alert to teachers, administration and law enforcement. In a matter of seconds, DIR-S relays the locations of users, critical information about the alert and access to electronic emergency plans. Simplicity plays a key role in our company - Get safe. Stay safe. 

At a TED talk in September, neuroscientist Daniel Levitin told a story of how a few years ago he broke into his own house.

After having driven home around midnight in winter, Levitin found that he didn’t have his keys.
“In fact, I could see them through the window, lying on the dining room table where I had left them,” he said. “I ran around and tried all the other doors and windows, but they were locked tight. I couldn’t go back to my friend’s house for the night because I had an early flight to Europe the next morning, and I needed to get my passport and my suitcase.

“I found a large rock and broke through the basement window. I figured that in the morning, on the way to the airport, I could call my contractor and ask him to fix it. Now, I know a little bit about how the brain performs under stress. It releases cortisol that raises your heart rate, it modulates adrenaline levels and it clouds your thinking. So the next morning, when I woke up on too little sleep, worrying about the hole in the window, a mental note that I had to call my contractor, the freezing temperatures, and the meetings I had upcoming in Europe, my thinking was cloudy.”

Needless to say it wasn’t until he got to the airport that he realised he didn’t have his passport. So he raced home in the snow, got his passport, raced back to the airport, and made it just in time – due to his late arrival however, his pre-booked seat had already been given away to someone else.

“Well, I had a lot of time to think during those eight hours and no sleep,” he said. “And I started wondering whether there were things I could do that would prevent bad things from happening. Or at least if bad things happen, will minimise the likelihood of it being a total catastrophe. But my thoughts didn’t crystallise until about a month later. I was having dinner with my colleague, Nobel Prize winner Danny Kahneman, and I told him about having broken my window. Kahneman shared with me that he’d been practicing something called prospective hindsight.

“It’s something that he had gotten from the psychologist Gary Klein, who had written about it a few years before, called the pre-mortem. Now, you all know what the postmortem is. Whenever there’s a disaster, a team of experts come in and they try to figure out what went wrong. Well, in the pre-mortem, Kahneman claimed you look ahead and you try to figure out all the things that could go wrong, and then you try to figure out what you can do to minimise the damage.

“There are some things we can do in the form of a pre-mortem. Some of them are obvious, so i’ll talk about the not so obvious ones. Remember, when you’re under stress, the brain releases cortisol. Cortisol is toxic, and it causes cloudy thinking. Part of the practice of the pre-mortem is to recognise that under stress you’re not going to be at your best, and you should put systems in place...

To read the entire article click here:
https://realbusiness.co.uk/hr-and-management/2015/12/30/how-to-stay-calm-when-you-know-youll-be-stressed/