4.7: Crowdsourcing Tools

Integrate crowdsourcing tools for emergency situations

Other Information:

INTEGRATE CROWDSOURCING TOOLS FOR EMERGENCY SITUATIONS -- In August 2011, when Hurricane Irene threatened to batter the East Coast and the City issued an evacuation order for certain areas, New Yorkers needed to know if they were at risk of flooding or other damage. To keep the public informed and monitor the situation digitally, the City leveraged a range of social media and crowdsourcing tools online. The results demonstrated the potential of these technologies to assist emergency preparedness and response efforts. The City published evacuation maps and updates on Facebook, and at several press conferences, Mayor Bloomberg encouraged New Yorkers to follow updates on @nycmayorsoffice. Twitter also partnered with the City to support communication, featuring tweets from @nycmayorsoffice prominently to users who self-identified as based in the boroughs. Over the course of that weekend in late August, the City's Twitter follower count soared from 24,000 to over 54,000, and over 400,000 tweets, resulting in more than two million impressions that included the @nycmayorsoffice handle. On the video front, all nine press conferences were streamed live online to web, iPhone and iPad devices. The videos were added to YouTube and garnered more than 60,000 views during the weekend. In open data, NYC Digital reached out via Meetup to the data analysis community in the early days of Hurricane Irene's trajectory, encouraging expert designers and developers to take advantage of the geographic shape-files corresponding to hurricane evacuation zones, available free of charge on the NYC Open Data platform. Several major media outlets ultimately used the NYC Open Data platform to launch their own versions of the hurricane evacuation zone maps, helping crucial, official City data reach an estimated 1500% more New Yorkers. This development illustrates the potential for open data to help the City of New York scale its reach and serve individuals at little to no cost. Public response to the social media engagement was overwhelmingly positive, with New Yorkers stating —on Twitter—that they felt secure, informed and connected to New York City government throughout the incident. SOCIAL MEDIA SAVING LIVES: EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT -- Powerful Tools for Greater Efficiency: For the first time, the City of New York will implement a Citywide social media management platform, a decision motivated by the effectiveness of the tool during Hurricane Irene in informing and engaging with millions. Leveraging the platform Hootsuite, the City will be able to do more with less—increasing productivity, measuring impact and engaging with New Yorkers to help them utilize City services. Most crucially, Hootsuite provides the capability for centralized messaging in the event of an emergency—ensuring that the widest possible audience benefits from a consistent message. During Hurricane Irene, the results of City broadcasting on social media were staggering: there were over two million impressions of City tweets, and the City of New York doubled its following, rising to over 54,000 followers on @nycmayorsoffice. Importantly, the City implemented policies to make sure that during the course of the emergency situation, City social media managers maintained absolute accuracy, ensuring an informed, connected public. With Hootsuite, the City will be able to send a single tweet from over 70 City Twitter accounts and reach hundreds of thousands of followers with a consistent message. The City will also be able to field questions and concerns, enabling two-way dialogue with millions to better allocate resources and respond to needs.

Stakeholder(s):

• Twitter Amplify: Introducing Amplify: A Crowd-Powered Twitter Application for Emergency Messaging -- In addition to tools for agency social media managers, the City of New York will introduce a new Twitter application called Amplify that engages the public to increase the reach of information in an emergency. With Amplify, the public is able to register to retweet messages from the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) in the event of a "severe and imminent" danger. The application has the potential to exponentially increase the distribution of key information from the City as it gains users. As with any Twitter application, users are able to remove the application at any time. Amplify was developed by students of Professor Evan Korth from New York University's computer science program, in partnership with the Office of Emergency Management and the Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications.


• Office of Emergency Management


• Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications


• Professor Evan Korth

Indicator(s):

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