The Digital Operations Center at the American Red Cross is an important and exciting development. I recently sat down with Wendy Harman to learn more about the initiative and to exchange some lessons learned in this new world of digital humanitarians. One common challenge in emergency response is scaling. The American Red Cross cannot be everywhere at the same time—and that includes being on social media. More than 4,000 tweets reference the Red Cross on an average day, a figure that skyrockets during disasters. And when crises strike, so does Big Data. The Digital Operations Center is one response to this scaling challenge.
Sponsored by Dell, the Center uses customized software produced by Radian 6 to monitor and analyze social media in real-time. The Center itself sits three people who have access to six customized screens that relate relevant information drawn from various social media channels. The first screen below depicts some of key topical areas that the Red Cross monitors, e.g., references to the American Red Cross, Storms in 2012, and Delivery Services.
REDACTED: Multiple Screen Shots and Related Commentary
As argued in this previous blog post, the launch of this Digital Operations Center is further evidence that the humanitarian space is ready for innovation and that some technology companies are starting to think about how their solutions might be applied for humanitarian purposes. Indeed, it was Dell that first approached the Red Cross with an expressed interest in contributing to the organization’s efforts in disaster response. The initiative also demonstrates that combining automated natural language processing solutions with a digital volunteer net-work seems to be a winning strategy, at least for now.
After listening to Wendy describe the various tools she and her colleagues use as part of the Operations Center, I began to wonder whether these types of tools will eventually become free and easy enough for one person to be her very own operations center. I suppose only time will tell. Until then, I look forward to following the Center’s progress and hope it inspires other emergency response organizations to adopt similar solutions.
Phi Beta Iota: This is not real — it is what the beltway bandits can vaporware, or viewgraph engineering. It appears to be a local initiative that is completely removed from the Geneva operations center that follows 30+ wars at a time. It is the germ of a good idea that is heavily reliant on non-existent volunteers, and disconnected from all other information outside the social sphere. It also appears to have overlooked the value of Twitter in identifying specific individuals at specific locations who can be queried via Twitter for an eyes-on answer.
See Also:
2012 PREPRINT FOR COMMENT: The Craft of Intelligence
1989 Webb (US) CATALYST: Computer-Aided Tools for the Analysis of Science & Technology
Open Source Agency: Executive Access Point
THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth & Trust
World Brain & Global Game 101-104
