Video: 'How Americans use social tools in emergencies'
In this 80-second video, the American Red Cross explains how the new center works. See how social media is being used to listen and connect with online communities to provide life-saving education and make better decisions about relief efforts.
The Digital Operations Centre is only staffed in the event of a disaster
The command center is located in Washington DC at Red Cross headquarters. The center is not manned list to data 24/7, but the analyses and data visualizations are performed every hour. As soon as the need arises or when a disaster is declared, the employees flow in.
In the Center, Radian 6 software tracks the most popular blogs and networks: Facebook , Twitter , YouTube and Flickr . Newer networks such as Google+ and Pinterest will probably be added later. Employees have access to 6 screens and an 'engagement console' that relate the information from the different channels. The 'heat maps' show directly what is happening at the moment.
Take a look around here with the 360 degree tour in the Digital Operation Centre .
Crisis expert Patrick Meier explains what happens behind the scenes
Patrick Meier (PhD) is an internationally recognized 'thought leader' when it comes to the application of new technologies and warning systems in crisis situations. In Behind the Scenes he explains in detail how the center works with 6 screens and the 'Engagement Consul'.
The screen above in the middle shows the main theme areas that the Red Cross follows, such as: 'American Red Cross', 'Disaster Services' and the 'Early 2012 Storms' (hurricane Sandy). The circles are a reflection of messages from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and blogs. They continuously change shape, size and color, reacting almost in real time to that flow of messages. The size of the circles around a theme indicates the amount of messages. The color codes (red, green and beige) reflect the results of the sentiment analysis (beige = neutral). By clicking on the categories within the theme circles you can see the keywords that make up the circles.
The 'heat maps' are geographical maps with the most common messages at this moment. In this image you see the heat map with 'Activity around Late 2012 Storms from the last 3 days'.
'bios' (name and description) of the 50 most active people tweeting about the topic on the heatmap.
The data on the six screens is generated from the 'Engagement Consul', a web-based tool similar to Tweetdeck . With this tool, employees can retrieve very specific information from the system by entering tags (search terms), priority levels and type of emotions (negative or positive). Users can also create custom timelines, graphs and Wordl images to visualize and better understand trends.