Caution urged in drawing lessons from: 'Learning from twitter in Mumbai' posting

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: paul foldes <pfoldes () eidmgt com>
Date: November 27, 2008 1:16:58 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Caution urged in drawing lessons from: 'Learning from twitter  
in Mumbai' posting
Reply-To: pfoldes () eidmgt com

Dave, For IP if you so choose, happy Xgiving to all, we have much to  
be thankful for.


While I agree that we can learn from response to Mumbai terrorist  
attack regarding use of mobile technologies ... I urge public policiy  
makers not to get too carried away too soon with the glitter of the  
'high tech' response-ability of available technologies.

Please dont forget the ultimate users: the tech un-savvy public, and  
their skeptical (reasonably so) impressions of some of these attempts  
to use sms for emergency notificaiton.

As a former consumer protection attorney who was at one time  
responsible for creating notifications that average consumers could  
understand, and hopefully notice! for important products - I am  
personally cognizant of the wide gap between assumptions by public  
policy makers when designing well meaning and useful public  
notification campaigns - and the ability, desire, willingness of the  
public to use such good intentioned warnings.

As more than 35% of the adult population is functionally illeterate  
and as a very large majority of adults using cell phones are not  
twitter users; but, are barely sms users - one should not jumpt on the  
bandwagon that sma notifications are a panacea.

Notably, experience with emergency notifications via sms have not all  
been succesful.

Quite recently in Montgomery County, MD - just outside Washington, DC  
- there was an emergency.

Unfortunately the sms warning did not go out, because the people in  
charge of sending out the sms emergency messages were:

1) first responsible person , was on vacation
2) second responsible person, was never trained how to do it

Thus, the average citizen may be a tad skeptical about the reliability  
of such sms text messages being sent, and received on time.

Remember that on the much ballyhood night when Obama's campaign sent  
out  his long awaited sms message and email regarding his choice of vp  
- some recipients who signed up to get such message: 1) never got it,  
2) got it  but the message was delayed by several hours !

The capacity of senders and carriers to deliver sms messages timely is  
not reliable - based IMHO, based on such public reports, and my  
personal experience.

I have a digital vm/pbx service, which also services major enterprises  
(as backup emergency notification system) set to let me know when I  
have received a vm. Previously they sent notification to my phone via  
sms, now have switched to sending via email; as does comcast also.

It is not uncommon for me not to get notification for 30 min to  
several hours after vm having been received by comcast, or my vm/pbx  
supplier.

Given my experience, and recent publicity about Mongtgomery County's  
screw up with emergency notification - I would not be putting my faith  
in effectiveness of Twitter, and other mobile notification systems yet  
to timely, and reliably notify me in case of an emergency.

Public policy guru's and high tech folks often forget that the average  
shmo -  the average user of technology - is not tech savvy, tech  
curious, and is not sitting on a high speed broadband connection all  
the time, or is necessarily on the latest greatest cell phone with all  
the nifty features, or has the money, or desire to pay for txt message  
service.

I have been on the 'bleeding edge' of 'high tech' for over 35 years as  
an early adopter of personal computers, cell phones, etc - and my  
frustrations caused by the wide gap between promise - and my  
experience is endless.

paul foldes



David Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
> From: "Tim O'Reilly" <tim () oreilly com>
> Date: November 26, 2008 7:47:11 PM EST
> To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
> Subject: Learning from twitter in Mumbai
> Good piece by W. David Stephenson:
> http://stephensonstrategies.com/2008/11/26/us-officials-must-monitor-learn-from-use-of-web-20-in-mumbai/ 
>  Once again, the first news of the Mumbai attacks came not through  
> the media, but through Twitter. India is extremely sophisticated in  
> use of mobile devices, probably more so than is the case in the US,  
> and many Indians are active users of Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and  
> other mobile social networks. It’s imperative that US officials  
> closely track how Indians are using these services during the  
> continuing attacks, and try to glean ideas on how they could be  
> adapted to the US.
> I can’t stress enough: people can and will use these devices and  
> apps in a terrorist attack, so it is imperative that officials start  
> telling us what kind of information would be relevant from Twitter,  
> Flickr, etc. (and, BTW, what shouldn’t be spread: one Twitter user  
> in Mumbai tweeted me that people were sending the exact location of  
> people still in the hotels, and could tip off the terrorists) and  
> that they begin to monitor these networks in disasters, terrorist  
> attacks, etc.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tim 
>  O'Reilly, Founder & CEO O'Reilly Media
> 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472
> tim () oreilly com, http://radar.oreilly.com
> -------------------------------------------
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--
Paul Foldes
Email: pfoldes () eidmgt com
Phone: (703) 370 0009
Cell:  (703) 585 5112




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