Campus Security Task Force to Governor: First Responders Need Daily Campus-Alerting, Citizen-Alerting Communication Tools

ST. Louis, MO -- [EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION NEWS] -- August 22 - This was the clear message here today from the Campus Security Task Force: Rapid Response Subcommittee, part of 29-member task force on campus security, to Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt. Blunt commissioned the task force, consisting of mostly of higher education and law enforcement officials, after the shootings in April at Virginia Tech.

The entire report to the governor is here.

Communication between first responders and law enforcement agencies:
This issue is of critical importance for rapid response success.

Tactical and radio interoperability is an ongoing issue within first responder and law enforcement communities. Any emergency is rife with confusion and an inability for the key safety and security personnel to communicate effectively and efficiently only adds to the intrinsic chaos.

Interoperability of communications is essential. The State must lead the way and provide a statewide communications system that can be accessible by all first responders on a daily basis. It is also important that communication occur between the campus and the public. In an emergency situation it may be advisable to have the availability of satellite telephone technology to communicate with the public and first responders.

The campus security discussion is another in a long line of activities that represents
another component to the interoperability issue. Technological solutions exist and are being implemented in many cases to overcome t his obstacle, but this needs to be a continuing effort. Funding is important to achieve this goal.

• The Rapid Response Groups subcommittee report to the Governor is here.

campus-alert campus-alerting Campus Campus-Security citizen-alert Communication saint louis st. Gov Blunt Rapid-Response campu-security Task-force

Publishing a Press Release, Changes and Deletions

We accept vendors into our vendor library that have emergency notification 'Client-Success' releases, and announcements from related clients with 'Introduction of Service' press releases.

Our suggestion is for vendor and clients to collaborate for the most successful press:

1) Publish your Emergency Notification Implementation Announcement Promptly.

• Send us your original press release - if we don't have to search for it? It gets published faster. We don't publish releases from copyrighted wire services.
  
• Publish your press release as an HTML file without line breaks. PDF-only is a barrier to publishing and ultimately indexing.
  
• Vendor? See #2
• Client? See #3

2) Vendors: Help your clients succeed.

• How do e.n.n. prospects contact you if they want to engage your service or acquire your product?
• After purchase, provide your clients an FAQ and a standard press release so they can publish to their city/campus page. Include instructions to forward this to emergenews(at)gmail.com.
• Issue a real press release via HTML into your press section - not a "news" section accessible only via MS i.e 7 asp browsers with links to third party news.
• Be sure to include a test plan and test metrics that you can provide to your client to publish in a press release. Provide the test results in a clear statistical read-out and and an appropriate press release template.
  
• Please omit the hyperbole. The market leaders are obvious here.
  

3) Clients: Help your end-users understand emergency notification.

• By far - the largest amount of searches during the 2007 San Diego Fires were - "SIGN UP- OPT- IN - SAN DIEGO - UCSD - PEPPERDINE - MALIBU" - that is - disaster victims looking to “opt-in” to almost-impossible-to-find database entry forms. Where do the students/city residents log in to add their cell #'s? They and we, searched and for the most part couldn't find the correct opt-in pages.
• Ask your vendor for a generic press release that allows you to publish the facts and "where-do-i-go. " We daily track down many cities that rely on local news to publish the details - however, we can’t cross-publish due to copyright restrictions. Please help.
• Be sure that your vendor includes a test plan and test metrics that you can publish in a press release. Ask for previous client test results, a sample of the test to be provided, and finally the test results in a clear statistical read-out and and an appropriate press release template.
  
• How do your constituents opt-in RIGHT-NOW during the emergency ? Add the details in your press release. Make them clear. These instructions will index here and allow your citizens to the find them in an emergency.

Send Request-for-Changes, Deletions, Press Releases or Inquiries here.

Revsion .01 - Oct 28, 2007