The original site for this type of purpose, was set up just after the hurricane struck. Katrinasafe.org, which offered survivors and families the same type of online tool, was developed in four days by Microsoft database architect Jim Carroll. Microsoft says in the past year, over 340,000 people have logged onto the site to use the tool.

The Red Cross’ Safe and Well List mirrors that effort, also developed with Microsoft’s help, and intends the tool to be the standard for exchanging welfare information in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. The partnership hopes it will allow for faster communication during times of crisis.

Guidance for the tool’s development came when the Red Cross met with a technology consortium to address the lessons learned from Katrina. They identified flaws in infrastructure that were the most pressing for future disaster response, and looked to technology companies to help them solve those problems.

The Red Cross identified three key areas for increased technology investments, some of which was made by Microsoft:

“The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was a perfect example of a partnership in action and how the expertise of partners and volunteers can help create the foundation for future improvements in disaster response capabilities,” said Steve Cooper, CIO of the Red Cross.

Microsoft was heavily involved in Katrina relief. Aside from the website development, Microsoft employees helped with logistical communications by increasing the capacity of the Red Cross network by 400 percent and deploying three of Microsoft’s satellite-equipped “Across America” buses to Red Cross relief centers in Louisiana and Mississippi.

The company also pitched in to improve the logistics of medical relief efforts. Microsoft mobility specialist Dawn Gagnon enlisted the help of family and friends to program 180 Microsoft SmartPhones. The provision of the phones to 150 National Guard troops and 30 doctors at the Red Cross triage center in Baton Rouge enabled e-mail, instant message and phone calls for quicker emergency responses.

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From the seminar site…

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Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.

Hurricane Katrina exposed a serious and ongoing problem with misinformation. It was widely reported that more than 10,000 were dead, when the actual figure was a little over 1,000. A rampage of murder and rape was reported. Not true. It was estimated that it would take three months to drain the city. Within six weeks, it was largely dry.

The Dot Com Bubble happened during a period when investors never had as much access to information. Lots of information did not encourage rational decision-making but rather fuelled irrational exuberance.

Human beings are much better at dealing with scarcity than with glut. This is particularly true when it comes to information. It has long been accepted wisdom that you can’t have too much information. You can.

Too much information makes for bad investment decisions, according to a 1980s study by MIT. Some students were divided into two groups. Each group was given a portfolio of stocks to manage. One group could only see the changes in prices of their stocks. The second group had access to the prices as well as a constant stream of financial news particular to these stocks. Which group did better?

“Surprisingly, the less well-informed group did far better than the group that was given all the news,” James Surowiecki writes in his excellent book, The Wisdom of Crowds. Surowiecki goes on to give another example of a group of students that were asked to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar. The initial average guess of the students was within 3 percent of the actual number.

Then the students were asked to guess again. This time they were told to take into account that there was air space at the top of the jar, and that the jar was made of plastic, meaning that it could hold more beans than might be expected. With this new information, the students’ average guess was off by 15 percent.

It is absolutely wonderful that people today have access to information in a way they never did in the past. We just need to become better at managing it. How do we do this? One way is to better develop our ability to think in the long term. That means resisting reacting to a lot of the news we are exposed to on a day-to-day basis.

News by its very nature is immediate and exaggerated. The explosion in news tools-from blogs to video cameras-creates an even greater focus on the now. The vast quantities of information we are exposed to every day compels us to gather smaller and smaller snippets of information that relate to our immediate needs. It’s very easy to miss the big picture.

It is so hard today to think long term, yet it has never been more important. Your future career hinges on your ability to plan ahead. Resist becoming a news junkie. Resist churning out emails and web pages. Sit back and think hard.

In an age of information overload, what you don’t read-what you don’t write-is just as important as what you do.

For your web content management solution, contact Gerry McGovern http://www.gerrymcgovern.com

Subscribe to his New Thinking Newsletter: subscribe@gerrymcgovern.mailer1.net

… a 20-year veteran of communications, a top-ranked speaker and writer and a former Chairman of the Board of IABC and its Research Foundation. A native of New Orleans, Charles evacuated from that city following Hurricane Katrina and the total loss of his home and business premises. He is temporarily located in Arlington, Texas.

Our 28-minute conversation focused on Charles’ experiences from the evacuation and the challenges of communication when infrastructures including telecommunications fail – reflected in the less than optimal sound quality of our phone conversation carried out not via Skype but via a ConferenceCall.com session.

About our conversation partner:

A former chairman of the board of both IABC and its Research Foundation, Charles Pizzo is a top-rated speaker and Ragan contributor. He also serves as counsel to v-Fluence Interactive Public Relations. Pizzo has been speaking about media relations online, reputation management, and leadership, plus has written on a host of technology communication issues. He has led teleseminars for both IABC and Ragan on such topics as corporate social responsibility and cybersmearing: attacks on reputation that start online. (Bio and photo courtesy of Dallas IABC, where Charles will be a speaker at the Chapter’s Professional Development Day, Bronze Quill Awards & 35th Reunion on October 7.)

Download the conversation here (MP3, 14MB), or subscribe to the interviews RSS feed to get it and future interviews automatically. You can also subscribe to the full feed to get all FIR podcasts. (For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a podcatcher such as the free iPodder, DopplerRadio or iTunes, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon).

Interview Segment Time Points:

• 00:21 Shel introduces the interview
• 02:41 Charles talks about his immediate experiences following evacuation from New Orleans and locating in Arlington, Texas, and what he’s left behind
• 05:51 What’s happened to Charles’ property and that of his mother
• 07:55 Writing for the Ragan Postcard blog
• 08:44 Telecommunications have collapsed, isolated from the world, records and documents lost
• 11:53 Immediately following the hurricane, text messaging was all that worked
• 12:36 No inbound cellphone service for six days
• 12:56 Surge of ‘chain email letters’ on who’s missing and who’s been found
• 13:37 Groups taking photos of damaged homes in New Orleans
• 14:14 City and government websites down because the servers are under water
• 14:38 The difficulties for Red Cross staff and volunteers
• 15:40 Four weeks on and communication channels still not coordinated
• 16:08 All overwhelming
• 16:26 Email has been effective as a communication channel
• 16:55 Continues working thanks to great help from colleagues and friends
• 19:06 Advice for planning on managing communications and related infrastructures in such a crisis; what some companies have been doing
• 23:00 Thoughts on going back to New Orleans, or not
• 24:02 The charm of New Orleans was threatened by chaos and anarchy – will people feel safe in returning? More on infrastructures
• 26:46 Didn’t expect to lose everything so left with little in the evacuation, unprepared
• 29:40 The only thing we can do is press on and rebuild – the future is what’s ahead
• 31:06 Shel with concluding comments about the interview; how you can help Charles in his search for work
• 32:04 About this podcast and where to find For Immediate Release.

Links for the individuals and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the conversation:

Charles Pizzo, IABC, New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina, Kaye Vivian, Hurricane Rita, Ragan Postcard, Gerard Braud, American Red Cross, Ragan Communications, Dallas IABC, Shell Oil.

Podsafe intro music – On A Podcast Intrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)

Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.

… our colleague Steve Lubetkin has produced a podcast with John Deveney, another IABC stalwart who had to leave his home and business as Hurricane Katrina approached.

Produced in cooperation with PRSA, the podcast features Deveney talking with Steve Lubetkin about his experience and providing “advice for public relations practitioners reevaluating their own firms’ crisis communications preparedness.”

Deveney is now back in New Orleans-his home is in the quarter, one of the highest parts of the city and least affected by flooding-and working with the New Orleans Travel and Tourism Bureau where he is coordinating media relations from the Bureau’s crisis operations center.

Reader Comments…

Shel Holtz is principal of Holtz Communication + Technology which focuses on helping organizations apply online communication capabilities to their strategic organizational communications.

As a professional communicator, Shel also writes the blog a shel of my former self.

Research marketing firm ComScore reported NOLA.com, the web site for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, saw its traffic spike 277% over July to 1.7 million in August. The CBS affiliate, WWL-TV saw it’s site WWLTV.com increase 258% to 878,000 for August.

“Sites with specific local content rarely see this kind of growth, but the Internet allowed the entire nation to access information straight from the epicenter of the disaster,” said Peter Daboll, president and CEO of comScore Media Metrix. “This pattern underscores the continuing concern and support that all Americans have expressed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.”

One figure ComScore noted was that 39% of NOLA.com’s 1.7 million came from the eight states included in the south central region of the country, including Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. This means that well over half of the 1.7 million came from other parts of the country. They pointed to the Pacific region, which accounted for 10% and the upper Midwest states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin tallied up for 11% of the audience.

It goes to show the growing impact of the Internet in the meeting the news needs of the world. Whereas both print media and broadcast media certainly have their place in the world, the Internet, realistically providing output for both of those and its own original content is becoming a powerful force in not only delivery but in the creation of content as well.

John Stith is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Google has been working with Microsoft, Yahoo, the American Red Cross, and a number of other organizations to index Katrina databases for the public. One such database that Taylor points to in his post is KatrinaSafe.com.

It is nice to see that these rival companies can work together for a good cause, instead of trying to outdo each other. That would be an ugly situation.
Google’s new Katrina People Search allows users to search across all of the Katrina databases to more efficiently find information on people that have been affected by the disaster.

Taylor also said that Google has built a search index that only returns results from web pages related to the hurricane, so relevancy will be increased no matter what keyword the user enters.

Chris is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest ebusiness news.

As reported in the New York Times, Waltham, Mass.-based Lycos is updating its index every four hours from over 20 different bulletin boards and missing persons Web sites. Yahoo!’s spiders are crawling every hour from at least 15 such sites.

“This is not just about finding the missing or deceased. “It’s about families trying to figure out where their families went,” the Times quotes Steve Quince, director of engineering for Lycos.

The two search engines crawl the Family News Network of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Nola.com, Craigslist and CNN’s Katrina Safe List.

One blog, quickly becoming one of my favorites, is B.L. Ochman’s “what’snextblog” and she points out that the individual photographers aren’t beholdin’ to anyone and they are posting some rather disturbing images that larger organizations wouldn’t do.

One thing Ochman mentioned in the blog entry was an editorial by Steve Outing of the Poynter Institute For Media Studies and a columnist for Editor and Publisher Online. He discussed the impact of citizen photojournalists and the fact that they don’t adhere to all the ethical rules in journalism today because they aren’t professionals.

He pointed out FEMA’s request to new organizations is kind of moot:

Ergo, FEMA’s request that journalists “take it easy” with publishing images of dead bodies is really rather pointless. Such images will become public because members of the public will make them so.

FEMA and the federal government do have a vested interest in attempting to exercise some sort of control over the imagery. In some cases it could possibly affect their ability to do their job. Realistically, it also would continue to fuel the criticism the government at all levels has suffered as a result of this disaster and its response time. On the other hand, many would argue that “freedom of speech and the press” is something of an absolute in this country.

Regardless of the what FEMA wants, it would be extraordinarily difficult for them to monitor images that begin to show up on Flickr and other photosharing sites and citizens are already posting images of the dead and other gruesome sights and while this is just one example of how this citizen photojournalism is developing, in many cases, citizen journalism on the internet in general is one of the best sources of information because it’s refreshingly uncensored and unedited. Many lack polish certainly and there are other issues but all in all, blogs are becoming a legitimate source of news in and of themselves.

This situation is only going to grow in the future as many individuals interested in controlling flows of information will find it tougher to do. Whether you’re a government administrator, a corporate executive or just some dolt actor who’s trying to keep their homemade sex video out of the news, people want to be able to control, to an extent, their image and message. As citizen journalism continues to grow, they will lose some of their ability to do that.

John Stith is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Lunchmoney4Katrina.com was created by two brothers, Shep and Robbie Berg to allow children to talk about and help in the ongoing relief effort to help with the shock and awe left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. They believe that if every child could give up their lunch money for even a day, the impact would be enormous.

“We wanted to do something to help, and give other children the same opportunity,” said Shep Berg, 15. “There’s not much that one kid can do, but together, we can really make a difference. We hope that they will find this site and learn how they can be a part of this important relief effort.”

Children can chat, donate money and can contribute to the overall effort coming from around the world to help those victims of this horrible disaster.

The donations much be approved by parents and the funds go directly to the Bush Clinton Katrina Fund. The website give children an opportunity to express their view point and the brothers are hoping to get some children in the disaster to share their experiences.

“Many of the children from Mississippi and Louisiana are living in new homes, new towns, new states, and hopefully they will have Internet access,” said Robbie Berg, 13. “This web site encourages them to tell us about what they’ve been through and how they are managing.”

Design and support of the site were all provided free of charge, and all donations are made directly to the charity. According to the Bergs, the name lunchmoney4katrina was selected because they feel that other kids will understand the sacrifice of giving away a day or a week’s lunch money. The site also provides a chat area, where kids can talk about their feelings about the Hurricane, a photo gallery, general hurricane information and a welcome message from the brothers.

This is a great way for even the youngest to get involved. Many young people have wondered what they can do to help and this website, started by these two teenage boys could provide that opportunity.

John Stith is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.