For a lot of people, especially younger people, life is lived out online. Today, just about anyone can pay bills, make restaurant reservations and get movie tickets, plan travel, keep in touch with friends all over the world and get the news faster than ever.

So it makes sense that government agencies — local, state and federal — would try to tap into the popularity and prevalence of the ultimate democratic technology for citizen communications, from emergency situations to drought-condition water restrictions,burn bans and city/county public meetings. There are a lot of opportunities!

For one, social media is often the first place people see things now; it’s one of the most direct ways to reach a very public audience. And well-executed social media posts can also become viral almost immediately, a boon for agencies hoping to make a strong impact with their news.

But despite those opportunities, there are actually many more challenges that go along with social media and can create obstacles to using it effectively for citizen communication. Here’s a look at the top five stumbling blocks government agencies can encounter:

1. Effort

It takes a serious investment of time and resources to manage multiple social media outlets — and provide enough coverage to reach as many citizens as possible. Logging into different social media sites and posting this information takes a lot of time, and it’s hard to be consistent. Are you equipped for that investment?

2. Security

Government agencies are in a tough spot here: You’ll want someone skilled and trained in social media management, but do they have the security clearance to be privy to all the information they’ll need to inform your citizens? And if an employee who had the passwords to all your social networks leaves the company, it can be a hassle to change the passwords and maintain your security.

3.    Accountability

It is difficult to track who sent the message to whom and when and how — and even harder to know who’s seeing it, and when and where.

4.    Brand protection

The gloves often come off in social media. It’s important to safeguard your agency’s brand and message, as well as protect its privacy where necessary.

5.    Analytics

It can be tough to determine which metrics are most meaningful for quantifying who you’re reaching with your posts, and how to make decisions based on those metrics. Do you have the staff and resources to dig into the numbers?

Amatra has the tools and best practices to help governments tackle the challenges they’re facing in implementing social media for their citizen communications. For more information, visit our website or email info@amatra.com. You can also like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter!

Photo: Ed Yourdon

FEMA IPAWS/PLAN/CMAS

Advantages of IPAWS

The following sub set of issues could be addressed as a result with Amatra’s partnership with FEMA when the need to communicate with large number of citizens.

• Dramatically reduce cost.
• Significant improvement in deliverability (priority messaging by carriers)
• No signup
• Geo location based notification. If you are in the affected area you would get notified even though you don’t live there.
• Potential grants. Future public safety communications (for Alerts) grants would require compliance to certain standards (Amatra is already compliant). See Section 5.3 : http://www.safecomprogram.gov/NR/rdonlyres/7C73CFA8-DC8B-487C-82A0-42BD7C06F3BA/0/FY_2011_SAFECOM_Guidance_121510.pdf

Available schedule/timeline of the FEMA IPAWS program:

• One June 15th FEMA will begin accepting applications from Public Safety Agencies to get access to the system.
• Initially the system will allow interoperable communication between approved agencies.
• During August 2011, the system will allow testing with the PLAN compliant protocols. Agencies can begin testing to make sure they can connect to the FEMA system with PLAN compliant messages (Amatra software will take care of this).
• The fully operable PLAN/CMAS infrastructure should be available for citizens outreach by end of the year or early next.

How can Amatra help?

Where Amatra comes in context of the above video is the “origination” of messages. Public Safety personals would require system like Amatra to trigger/manage messages. Amatra has signed a MOU with FEMA and has completed integrating with their infrastructure. Validation of the Amatra System was completed in June 2 and we are awaiting final report. We are aiming to be the first to integrate with FEMA IPAWS system

It is advised that interested public safety organizations quickly sign up for access to the system and receive their credentials. It typically takes 1 week now but and as more entities sign up the process time could significantly increase.

Amatra can help with the paper work and answer any questions you have.

A recent study by the Red Cross revealed some important information about the future of emergency communication and mass notification. In addition to confirming the tremendous growth of social media sites and social networking tools (84% of respondents use social media at least once a week), the study also found that citizens are ready to start using these sites to keep updated with emergencies and important information about the communities around them. More than half of the survey’s participants indicated they would sign up for emails, texts alerts, or web applications to keep them notified of emergency situations. From evacuation routes to road closures, a generation or web-savvy citizens are looking to keep instantly updated with the information they need to stay safe and secure.

As it turns out, these new communication preferences don’t just go one way. The Red Cross also discovered that 69% of survey respondents expected city governments and emergency responders to be monitoring social media sites like Facebook and Twitter in times of trouble to find those in need of help. Nearly three quarters of these individuals expected help to arrive within half an hour of their online request for help. Clearly, the public’s expectations are moving toward new ways for officials and aid organizations to communicate and collaborate with them, and local governments must respond to meet these expectations.

Gail McGovern, president and CEO of the American Red Cross, says the report reveals important findings that shouldn’t be taken lightly. “The social web is creating a fundamental shift in disaster response,” she says, “one that will ask emergency managers, government agencies and aid organizations to mix time-honored expertise with real-time input from the public. We need to work together to better respond to that shift.”

At Amatra, the Red Cross’s findings confirm the concepts that we’ve built our business and state-of-the-art Amatra SmartSource™ platform around. Creating an effective and efficient relationship between a local government and its citizens hinges on effective and efficient communication. As the public moves to new methods of preferred communication, governments must similarly adapt. In the next few weeks, we’ll be talking more about groundbreaking applications of social media for governmental and emergency response agencies. We’ll also discuss how the Amatra SmartSource™ platform can manage, control, and track a plethora of communication channels to ensure that when every second matters, everyone gets the message.

To see the complete results of the Red Cross Social Media in Disasters and Emergencies Study, click here.

For more information on the Amatra SmartSource™ platform, click here.

In our last article, we talked about the growing trend for local governments and emergency response teams to communicate with their citizens through social media tools. Using these new mediums of communication coincides with the public’s increasing expectations to be reached through channels such as text messages and social networking websites. The Red Cross’ findings affirmed need for the Amatra SmartSource™ platform, an all-in-one tool that puts important information in the hands of those who need it, exactly when they need it.

Traditionally, the process of mass notification in the event of emergency situations has consisted of broadcasting messages over television and radio, hoping that a large enough audience will be reached to effectively manage the crisis. With our SmartSource platform, however, mass notification isn’t left up to chance. Whether it’s reaching volunteer fire fighters through text messages, an entire neighborhood through immediate phone calls, or even a school of students through Facebook and Twitter, SmartSource reaches each individual in the fastest, most effective way.

In moments of crisis, it is essential that the planning stage of mass notification is already taken care of. Amatra SmartSource™ implements a plethora of innovative tools to make this planning process safe, secure, and thorough. First, the platform lets emergency management officials create pre-defined notification groups such as law enforcement or local school administration so they aren’t left scrambling to discern who needs information when an emergency arises. Second, pre-defined message templates make certain that complete messages are ready for distribution in an instant. Lastly, geographically-targeted notifications eliminate time wasted checking if an entire area has been reached through traditional communications by contacting its inhabitants through multiple channels.

Local governments are starting to understand what businesses have known for years: catering your message to the communication preferences of your audience dramatically alters the way it is received. As the number of communication channels increases, the all-in-one solution found with Amatra SmartSource™ has the power to transform these local governments into safe, secure environments through safe, secure communication.

Remember when phones had cords? If you ask the incoming collegiate class of 2014, the answer will be a resounding “no.” A recent report by Beloit College revealed a number of characteristics of this young adult generation’s mindset and many of the most startling findings related to the way they communicate and connect with the world around them.

It’s no surprise that corded phones and snail mail are lost relics to the class of 2014, but the study found another interesting communication trend: email is outdated. Less than two decades after beginning its rapid rise in mainstream popularity, email is already seen by the new generation as too slow and cumbersome. Social networking sites and text messages have moved in as the preferred method of reaching out and hooking up, providing a quicker, more streamlined method of communicating.

For businesses, this young generation represents an outstanding potential market, but their ever-changing communication preferences pose the daunting challenge of how best to reach them. Amatra SmartSource™ takes the dilemma out of your hands by equipping you with a platform that can adopt and adapt to the evolving landscape of communication technology. Connect through email, text, and social networking today. When something new comes along, don’t change your entire communication strategy to try to keep up. Let SmartSource™ take your existing strategies and adapt to new technology on the fly, so that you’re always a leader in reaching your audience, not a follower.

Your business is concerned with crafting the perfect message and finding the exact audience that needs to hear it. At Amatra, we’re passionate about how you send that message. Expending time and money to purchase new tools and retrain employees every time technology reshapes your audience will leave you scattered, spending, and slow to change. Through every communication channel and with every new technology, Amatra SmartSource™ will connect you to customers in a clear, consistent way.

The message and the audience doesn’t change, the way we communicate has. How are you keeping up with this change?

To see the complete results of the Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2014, click here.

To learn more about the evolving communication solutions of Amatra SmartSource, click here.

Social media and social networking websites haven’t just found a whirlwind of popularity with web users around the world; they’ve become serious business. The role of these social networking utilities for communicating with customers and connecting with the public has quickly changed from a novelty to a necessity for many companies. As enterprises have adopted these tools more and more, the need for guidelines and regulations concerning their use has become apparent, and one of the first developments in this area is the recent release of a regulatory notice by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) about the use of social media.

FINRA’s notice is targeted specifically at securities agents and brokers, but at Amatra, we believe the guidance and advice outlined in the notice is applicable and useful for enterprises in all industries. In a nutshell, the notice states that all firms must keep records of all communications made by broker-agents through social media sites and blogs. Any investment recommendations made through these sites are bound by the same rules and regulations as recommendations made in person or through other mediums. While firms are not held responsible for content posted on their sites by outside parties, they can still be held liable for any information they had a hand in creating. To see the full-text of regulatory notice 10-06, click here.

So where does Amatra come in? The answer is simple. FINRA’s new regulations are a sign of things to come concerning the use of social media within business, and without an organized foundation from which to launch your company’s online communications, keeping up with these regulations will be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. The Amatra SmartSource™ platform provides a single source to coordinate, launch, and record your social media presence. Basically, SmartSource™ stores and tracks every communication you send out so you don’t have to. In a year, are you going to be able to find that Facebook status update you just posted? SmartSource™ will.

FINRA advises every firm to adopt supervisory practices to make sure that outgoing messages and posts are reviewed and approved before finding their way to the web. This review process is streamlined with Amatra’s help, as all content passes through the SmartSource™ system before being sent out. This means you’ll be reading and reviewing all content in one location, ensuring that your company’s message is uniform, consistent, and compliant. To learn more about Amatra’s Enterprise solutions, click here.

If you’re trying to break into the world of social media, start smart. Don’t fall behind the rapidly changing rules and regulations concerning social networking sites and online communications. Amatra SmartSource™ provides you with a single, organized platform to build a successful and innovative social media campaign and realize the power of one source, infinite communications.

Amatra Team

When you think about a community, the most symbolic image that keeps coming to mind is a web. Dozens of unique strands—each anchored at different points and pulling in different directions—combine to form a solid web that is infinitely stronger than any single strand.

At Amatra, we recognize the diversity of every community and utilize that diversity to make our Amatra SmartSource™ Multi Channel Communication Platform technology as powerful and effective as possible. When a community adopts SmartSource™ for its mass notification and emergency management needs, it isn’t just City Hall or the local hospital that gain access to SmartSource™’s revolutionary technology. The numerous individuals and organizations invested in the public safety of a community each have their own niche to communicate with and serve. Each of these stakeholders is empowered and enabled with Amatra SmartSource™ technology.

Within the SmartSource™ database, governmental agencies, schools, hospitals, community organizations, and more can each manage independent contact lists. Not only does this result in organized and effective communication management for each entity, but allows for instant exchange of these contact lists in situations where every second counts. For example, in the event of a medical threat throughout the community, a hospital is able to quickly collaborate with city government to exchange communication information and inform every member of the community about the threat.

Without the centralized communication portal provided by Amatra SmartSource™, a community’s stakeholders have to work independently to encourage and promote public safety. At best, the organizations function like a slow-moving chain, where each entity receives information and informs their sector of community members individually. At worst, they act like dozens of strands pointing in dozens of different directions, each doing their best but losing all benefits of cohesive and unified communication.

Yes, a web represents strength and power. Amatra SmartSource™ is unlocking this power in communities and enabling them to communicate, inform, and protect like never before. To learn more about SmartSource™ and the benefits it can bring to your community, visit click here http://www.amatra.com/industries/government-industry/mass-notification.

Amatra Team

Wasted Data. It’s true. There is an enormous amount of wasted information every second of our worldly existence. Valuable data spews from billions of sources, but it is lost in the inefficiencies and inabilities of our communication systems, our society, and even our government. (Gasp!) How can that be? Hasn’t modern technology such as the Internet streamlined our communication? I mean, look at me! I can work from my laptop while sipping a mai tai in Maui. In fact, I now even have the ability to see my doctor through a television screen. Thank you Cisco.

Our communication technology is remarkable. There is no doubt about that. But it seems to me that we are only at the beginning of our technologically advanced world. Our innovations generate even more data each and every day. How do we capture all that data, sift through it and relay it quickly in order to create a better world?

There are visionaries, answers to that question. Innovators from around the world pulled together in what IBM has named “Smart City”. This collection of ideas would be brought together in a technological utopia. According to their website, they focus on areas such as public transportation, energy and utilities, education, economic development, and public safety.

But what does this mean? Am I the only one that gets confused when they say “Smart City”? For some reason I get images of a technological takeover. If this worries you as well then I would recommend Graham Brown’s article “What to Do When Technology Takes Over the Earth”.

The interesting thing is that the concept itself is very simple. The right data is communicated to the right place at the right time and in the right way. Bored yet? Let me give you some examples.

We’ll start with transportation.
A train arrives at the station five minutes late, but the bus has arrived on time. The bus driver is notified and knows he needs to wait 5 minutes in order to pick up the rush of people coming off of the late train. Or maybe the smart city recognizes that it needs additional buses to keep the schedule on time and so a second driver arrives ready to pick up the late passengers.

What about public safety?
An emergency situation arises. A truck crashes and dumps harmful chemicals. The smart city can simultaneously provide the police, Hazmat, the fire department, EMT Services and the hospitals with the relevant data they need to get their jobs done. Hazmat now knows what chemical from which plant. The police now know where their perimeter needs to be set up to keep a safe distance. EMT services now know what precautions to take when treating victims. You get the idea.

What about utilities and energy?
A smart grid enables electric utilities to minimize waste. Solar panels on residential buildings provide power for the building itself, but can also be sold back to the utility to be used somewhere else. A windmill on a skyscraper, solar panels on a house, or generators can be used to produce power. Suddenly the whole city produces and utilizes its own power. Talk about sustainable.

The concept is as simple as this, an interconnected world with a focus on efficiency and effectiveness. That massive amount of data generated every day is going help not hinder the communication networks of the future. And who will be the developers and implementers of this new network? Entrepreneurs.

Amatra Team

Did you know

53% of customers expect to increase spending for Social Software according to Gartner.

IDC expect 41% Annual Growth Rate in Online Community Software until 2013.

As the capabilities of digital devices soar and prices plummet, sensors and gadgets are digitizing vast amounts of information that was previously unavailable.

According to recent analyst reports, enterprise data growth over the next 5 years is estimated at 650 percent. Estimates are that 80 percent of this data will be unstructured, generated from a variety of sources such as blogs, videos, email, etc. In fact, 70% of this unstructured data is stale after 90 days.

With this ongoing shift in the market, companies and governments need to be able to analyze and extract intelligence from information, irrespective of where data resides, in real time — without being bound by a particular system or platform.

Source – IBM

Imagine a situation where the provider of your communication service has an outage which causes disruption in services for customers. For emergency notification this would have been unacceptable as critical information needs to be sent immediately.

That is why using multiple communication methods is highly recommended. Moreover sophisticated notification systems will have multiple providers for a particular communication medium. In case a service is down, the system can switch to secondary provider with minimum impact to customers.