preparing for emergency communications
DESCRIPTION
#CSUC14TRANSCRIPT
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Preparing for Emergency Communications
Technical tools to facilitate communication during a crisis
David ShaykewichUniversity of Victoria
Judy StewardWestern University
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Agenda
• About the University of Victoria
• Communication principles• Technology principles
• Implementations
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• UVic Emergency Planning Office
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UVic Emergency Planning Office
• Emergency Communications Committee
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Acknowledgements
• Larry HinklerAVP University Relations, Virginia Tech
• Chris HawkerDirector, Centre for Risk, Resilience & Renewal, University of Canterbury (NZ)
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Emergency communication principles
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Emergency communication principles
• In a crisis, be• open• transparent
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Emergency communication principles
• Communicate… • as much as possible• as often as possible• what people should do to stay safe
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Technical principles
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Technical principles
• Simple• Resilient• Redundant
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Emergency Online Communications at UVic
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Emergency Online Communications at UVic
• Implementations1. ‘Lite’ emergency homepage2. Website ‘Global menu’ advisories3. Emergency Notification System4. Web publishing redundancy
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Cascade @ UVic
• Using since 2010• v7.10.2• 290 sites, 920 users• One template• XSLT
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)
• Communications objective:• Make emergency messaging highly
available & resilient to traffic
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)
• Emergency will go viral• “Month’s worth of traffic in a day”
… before wide adoption of Facebook & Twitter
• Rubber-necking gone global (& mobile)
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)
• Technical solution:• Lite emergency, blog-style
homepage
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012) - Emergency homepage
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012) - Emergency homepage
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012) - Emergency homepage
• Separate emergency page• Unique Content Type*• blog styling• emergency content blocks* enables Twitter connector
• Few images• Little processing
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012) - Emergency homepage
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012) - Emergency homepage
• In Cascade• During emergency
1. Change content type of homepage2. ‘Mirror’ content of ‘emergency’3. Publish* requires [re]setting page specific blocks/formats
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)
• Communications objectives:• Throughout site, provide consistent,
deep links• Advise campus of issues
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)
• Technical solution:• Global “mega menu”• Advisories in menu
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012) - UVic.ca global menu
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012) - UVic.ca global menu
• In Cascade• Global menu is data def page• Each section is a block• Advisory block not populated (or
visible)• Anticipated scenarios blocks prepped
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012) - UVic.ca global menu
• In Cascade• Template has <?php include ?>• During incident• Add advisory block to global menu page• Publish global menu• Advisory displayed on all pages
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012) - UVic.ca global menu
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UVic.ca global menu
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UVic.ca global menu
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UVic.ca global menu
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Emergency Notification System
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Emergency Notification System
• Communications objectives:• Alert campus to hazardous situation• Direct people how to act
• Keep people safe
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Emergency Notification System
• Technical solution:• Emergency Notification System
(ENS)
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ENS Messages – Communication principles
What is an extraordinarily simple communication medium that conveys its message very clearly, concisely and completely?
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ENS Messages – Communication principles
• All at once it says…• there is a fire• drop what you’re doing• get out of the building
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ENS Messages – Communication principles
• ENS messages are meant to be only slightly more informative than loud red bells
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ENS Messages – Communication principles
• Alert. Direct. Inform.
“There is a gas leak in the Biology building. Leave immediately and move away. Check http://uvic.ca/emerg for updates.”
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ENS Messages – Technology principles
• Communication channels• Bulk email to Exchange mailboxes• Targeted email• TXT message• VOIP phone screen• VOIP phone speaker broadcast
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ENS Messages – Technology principles
• Communication channels• Twitter post• Publish to web (*overrides the global
menu advisory)
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ENS Messages – Technology principles
• Built & deployed as atomic web application• Groovy/grails• H2 database• [ no Cascade on this one ]
• deployed to• redundant servers…• in redundant data centres
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ENS Messages – Technology principles
• Interface simplicity• used under extreme stress• concise wording• clear, action-oriented buttons• “Send alerts now”
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ENS Messages – Technology principles
• Interface simplicity• pre-populate with ‘template’
messages• “training” vs. “emergency” modes
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Business Continuity Planning for Web Communications
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Business Continuity Planning for Web Communications
• Communications objective:• Our web infrastructure must be
resilient to a crisis and we must be able to continue to update the website.
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Business Continuity Planning for Web Communications
• Technical solution:• Clustered web servers• Multiple data centres• Off-site web hosting
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Aside: A view into emergency communications planning discussions
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Aside: A view into emergency communications planning discussions
• In the white corner: Communications & Marketing
• In the yellow corner: IT Dudes
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What if...
“What if the web server dies?”“No problem, we have four of them.”
“What if a data centre dies?”“No problem, we have two of those.”
* HH will provide you with a failover Cascade license
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What if...
“What if both data centres die?” “We have a BCP Server at TRU (Kamloops).”
• Single BCP VM for www at TRU (450km away)• Re-point DNS at TRU IP• index.php is ‘emergency’ blog style• 404 page is index.php
“Yeah, but…”
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What if...
“If our data centres are down, so is our Cascade. How do we publish to TRU?”
“Hmm.”“The Director of Communications knows how to hand-code HTML and command-
line sftp… Right?”
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• “Cascade is awesome. I have an idea!”
-Judy Steward from Western at #CSUC13
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Cascade awesomeness
• Web-based interface• “Push” CMS • publishes via SFTP to web servers
• Both UVic and Western use Cascade CMS
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Cascade awesomeness
• Reciprocal emergency site CMS hosting• Delegate admin & config• Common end-user interface &
workflow• In-application authentication
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Back to the “What ifs...”
“If our data centres are down, our internet connection probably is too. How will we connect to Western’s Cascade to update content?”
“Hmm. Good question.”
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• “Cascade is awesome. I have an idea!”
-Judy Steward from Western at #CSUC13
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Cascade awesomeness
• Judy & team administer Western’s Cascade
• They can edit the UVic emerg site and publish
• UVic can call Western (land line, cell, satellite?) with request to update content
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Start planning today
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Start planning today
• Logistics trump technology
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Start planning today
• Try out your plans
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Conclusions
• Prepare staff to communicate in a crisis, by… • ensuring they have training, instructions
and practice with systems & procedures• Answering the logistics and chain of
command questions now• anticipating scenarios and preparing
messaging now
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Conclusions
• Prepare systems for communicating in a crisis, by building… • simple interfaces to• resilient systems that are deployed to• redundant locations
• At UVic, Cascade helps us do just that.
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Questions?
• David Shaykewich, University of Victoria• [email protected]
• Judy Steward, Western University• [email protected]