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Preparedness: Be Aware…Be Very Aware
There are three steps to disaster preparedness. We’ve talked about the first two…Make a Plan and Get a Kit. The last one is Be Informed. It is essential to know what disasters are likely for your area and prepare accordingly. Your preparations may be different depending on the disaster. For hurricanes, you may need to plan for an evacuation. Snowstorms? You’ll need to be ready for days without power. Understanding the likely events in your area will make your plan better and easier to implement.
Before, during and after a disaster, you need to know how to get information. How will you know if a disaster is coming and how serious it’s likely to be? How will you know what help is available? Where to go if you need a shelter? Luckily, many locales now have alert systems set up, including e-mail, text and other technology to get the word out quickly. You’ll need to do some poking around because the information isn’t always heavily publicized, but start by checking with the emergency management resources in your state. You can find state emergency management information on ready.gov/america.
For example, residents of the Washington DC area can sign up for capitalert.gov, a messaging service that covers the entire national capital region and taps into state and local information in the same stream. Likewise, the San Francisco area offers the AlertSF notification system offering text and e-mail messages with emergency related traffic and weather warnings. (more…)
Is Google Selling the Alphabet?
Google is now telling us, A is for Amazon…
Google recently unveiled Google Instant, the new version of its search engine. Google Instant begins providing results as you type your search. So, for example, if you are searching for “current events” and type “c…”, search results for Craigslist pop up. When you get to “u…” currency converter results are displayed. When you have spelled out “current” in full, results starting with current start to show up. Google is touting the benefits of Instant as: faster searches, smarter predictions and instant results. I disagree.
As I played around with Instant in the last week or so, I began to notice something. When I typed in A, up came Amazon. B led me to Bank of America. C, Craigslist, and so on. In fact, almost every search based on just the first letter resulted in a leading U.S. business. L is for Lowes. T is for Target. “U.” (with the period) results in U.S. Airways. You get the picture.
In an article in PC World, IDC analyst Heather Reynolds called Google Instant “revolutionary” and a “dramatic break” from traditional search engines. Perhaps that’s true for Google, the marketers and big business. But not for the rest of us. Google is again taking more control over what we see and how we get information.
In a recent Fast Company article, Dr. Sid Shah, director of business analytics at digital marketing firm Efficient Frontier noted, “In some sense, Google is controlling what’s being searched. They can control the popularity of a certain term or definition.” Google is “guiding” our searches and perhaps giving the results to the highest bidder. If they can sell the first letter, why not the second and third as well. At what point are all searches purchased? Small businesses stand to suffer, and the rest of us are being led like lemmings.
All I can say is “caveat searcher.”
Preparedness: Your Kit Is Key
FEMA/Michael Raphael
When a disaster hits, don’t think you can just grab some cans from your pantry and go. You may not have time. Next up on our list for disaster preparedness during National Preparedness Month: the emergency supply kit.
Many disasters happen with little or no warning. Earthquakes and tornadoes pop up without any advance notice. Even for those emergencies that offer some warning, such as snowstorms and hurricanes, it is so much easier to pick up your two bins of supplies and head out, rather than scurry around the house trying to gather everything you need at the last minute. Whether you evacuate or stay: Easier=quicker=saves lives.
72-Hour Kit
The emergency supply kit is 72-hours worth of supplies to keep your family safe and alive — from food and water, to an emergency radio and flashlights, to even a tent and extra clothing — set aside and gathered in one, easy to access place. You can find lists and suggestions for a standard supply kit at redcross.org, ready.gov, and many other places. There are also a few apps that seem handy. One Android app that looks promising is the Emergency Kit Organizer. You can use the checklists in this app while you shop to keep track of your purchases; it also stores expiration dates and reminders so that the supplies in your kit will still be usable when you need them. Depending on where you live, there may also be more targeted apps available, such as the Hurricane Web App developed for Flor (more…)
Disaster Preparedness: What’s Your Plan?
September is National Preparedness Month in the U.S., a month dedicated to encouraging Americans to take steps toward becoming prepared for emergencies and disasters of all kinds. Every location in the U.S. is prone to some sort of disaster, yet only 57% of Americans say they’ve taken steps to prepare. And among that 57%, most of them are only partially prepared.
The importance of preparedness is near and dear to me, and I want to do my part to encourage everyone to take the few, simple steps to become prepared: Make a Plan, Get a Kit, and Be Informed. In a true disaster, you’ll likely be waiting awhile for rescuers to come to your aid. Your family may be separated. You may need to survive on your own, without electricity or most modern conveniences for 3 days or more.
In keeping with the topic of this blog, it also happens that there are quite a number of technology tools that can help. For today, we’ll focus on the first step: Make a Plan.
If your “plan” is to grab a few things out of the cupboard and “wing it,” you are in trouble. You and your family need to know where to go, how to meet up, and how you’ll let one another know you’re safe. Start with the planning tool at Ready.gov: http://ready.adcouncil.org/beprepared/fep/index.jsp. This site walks you through the steps to gather information for your plan.
Once your plan is set, work with family members to determine the “how,” that is, how you will get in touch with them to let them know you are safe, how you will get back together, or how you will execute an evacuation. Here’s where technology really kicks in.
While good old fashioned phone calls are first on the list, it may end up that the best way to get in contact is text messaging. During a disaster, the technology infrastructure may take a beating, but if there’s mobile service available, a text message is more likely to make it to the recipient than a call. (more…)
Put Down that Sandwich…
Have you ever enjoyed a good meal, only to find out in the news a few days later that the spinach salad that you enjoyed might have been contaminated with an unsavory food-borne pathogen? Or that your hamburger just might have been recalled? It’s happening more and more, and although we are far from fully safeguarding our food supply system, the government has at least started to bring updated food safety information to the public.
Recently, the USDA, CDC, FDA and a few others pooled their resources to launch Foodsafety.gov, a one-stop resource for information on food recalls and alerts, along with a wealth of information on keeping food safe and healthy in your own kitchen. The site includes information on food storage, food allergy and intolerance, food poisoning information (yuck) and more.
For handy web tools, Foodsafety.gov provides you several downloadable widgets and feeds with up to the minute recall information and the latest food safety tips. You’ll be amazed at how much stuff is recalled everyday. Hmm…now that I think about it…maybe I don’t need that hamburger after all.
Web Simple Author-in-Focus: Bob Nunnally
We thought we’d occasionally bring you a snippet to let you know who we are. First up…Bob “Nunndog” Nunnally.
Bob’s a retired Air Force Colonel and pilot (hence the call-sign). He’s also a writer, entrepreneur and wonderful chef, who’s had the opportunity, among other things, to live in Italy and Germany, and work as a liaison with the U.S. Senate.
But it’s his most recent endeavor that I want to highlight today. Bob is currently involved with a company called Your Wingman, offering motivational speaking engagements across the U.S. Now, Bob has been a great speaker for many years, but this one has an interesting twist. Your Wingman adapts the skills and techniques that Bob and his colleagues learned in their years of piloting fighter jets to the business sector. With his audiences, Bob shares how he leveraged his military experiences in surviving the heat of battle to lead teams to success in business. Isn’t that a cool take on team-building? I’ve seen the video of his seminar – very motivational stuff! I look forward to posting that when it becomes available.
New Tools for Personal Preparedness
With the 2010 Hurricane season well underway, it’s time again to make sure that we all stay safe and well-prepped for whatever comes our way. Are you prepared for hurricanes, severe storms, blisteringly hot weather? Or for that matter, snowstorms, hailstorms, tornados, and even man-made emergency events? Most of us are not, and yet these events happen every day.
The fact is, what happened to Dorothy could happen to you. Fortunately for tech-lovers, many groups, including state and federal agencies, non-profit organizations and others are turning, more and more, to technology as a way to get the word out on all things emergency: from mobile apps, to RSS, to text alerts and more. There’s still much to be done to better coordinate and inform the public during emergencies, but here’s a smattering of what’s available now: (more…)
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