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Mass Communication Technology
7 Best Practices for Emergency Notification
8/1/2007
THE OPT-IN QUEST
THE CHALLENGE FOR the emergency management committee at the University of New Mexico: Figure out how to get more campus community members signed onto the Omnilert service it subscribes to for emergency notification. Paula Loendorf, director of IT services, estimates that, currently, about 5,000 people have subscribed—still just a fraction of the 34,000 students and 20,000 faculty and staff at the university. But she expects the campus PR office to send out additional reminders to the campus community about the service, and to make it a part of freshman orientation.
Why not simply upload contact information already on record for the campus community? Says Loendorf: Database loads aren't part of the service, for a couple of reasons. Omnilert had initially offered the uploads when it started providing the service. "Schools would send huge data uploads," she reports. "But people weren't getting the messages because they hadn't updated information that might have changed, or because there were typos in the databases." Subsequently, the vendor explained to Loendorf that it had conducted focus groups with customers who suggested it would be better to have users sign up themselves. Once a subscriber signs up, the system sends out a validation code via e-mail or phone.
UNM has set a flag in the service so that subscribers will receive a message once a year, reminding them to update their contact details. "This was something so simple for us to do, and quite inexpensive," says Loendorf."We've had very good service from the company and we're happy that we've contracted the service." But, she says, the school will continue to look for newer, better means of handling emergency communications.
Like Omnilert, Roam Secure, the service used by the University of Maryland, is an opt-in program. In its first three weeks, about 4,500 people had enrolled; but Public Safety Officer Major Jay Gruber's goal is to get 25,000 people signed up. To that end, he's working on a campaign with the school's communication office, to ramp up participation.
"But having options at your disposal is essential: "If you've got a sniper, you're not going to send out people with bullhorns; they'll be a target," he points out. "Then you've got to shift as the emergency goes on. You might want to fill in [that first effort with] short detail via SMS, then get more detail out in an e-mail broadcast. In fact, you may need to use text-to-voice to make a phone call go out to those who live off campus, to tell them not to come to campus."
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