Interview: Caroline Milligan, Crest Advisory

Ahead of her presentation at Comms Connect Sydney, we spoke with Caroline Milligan, Associate Director of Emergency Management at Crest Advisory, to get an idea of how social media and other digital technologies are helping emergency services agencies to better respond to incidents.

Milligan is a former UK police officer whose insight and practical experience provides her with a high level of understanding of the complexities inherent within highly regulated and accountable environments.

Milligan assists emergency management and public safety agencies to adopt digital technologies and social media for situational awareness, and as a tool for communicating with the communities they serve. Her multiplatform strategy and use of virtual operations support teams during times of crisis have provided numerous case studies that justify the use of these tools by public safety officials.

Based in New Zealand, Milligan speaks regularly at emergency management conferences; provides counsel to Australasian government agencies on social media implementation; and delivers social media for intelligence gathering and investigative training to the criminal justice sector and public safety, security and emergency management audiences. She has also been a key member of digital response efforts during major emergency incidents.

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Critical Comms: Why is it important for comms professionals to learn about the possibilities inherent in social media and other non-traditional data-gathering means?

Caroline Milligan: In times of emergencies and natural disasters, information and communication in the broadest sense have a fundamental role. Unlike traditional forms of communication such as radiocommunications, television and print, social networking offers the ability for real-time participation and insight and the creation of what is called UGC — user-generated content.

By harnessing social networks and other traditional forms of media as an information resource, communications professionals can truly listen to affected communities more effectively and rapidly disseminate critical information to the right people, at the right time, on the right device.

CC: What should authorities do to keep control and maintain a pipeline of secure, vetted, reliable information?

CM: If digital and social media communications and the use of mobile devices are not managed effectively this can lead to missed opportunities, poor engagement efforts, not realising the full potential of the tools and, ultimately, leave agencies open to a variety of risks.

A detailed risk assessment should be undertaken in the development of a strategy and implementation plans and associated policy to ensure the risks are recognised and ways of managing and mitigating these risks are documented.

CC: You’ll be introducing a term, VOST, that many people will not have heard of before. What is VOST, and can you give an example of its use?

CM: As incident numbers grow and resources are reduced, emergency services have been tasked to shoulder more responsibilities to meet and manage the growing demands of the communities that they serve.

An innovative solution regarding these resourcing challenges is the development of Virtual Operations Support Teams (VOST) as part of an emergency response. This proven, tiered response structure and standardised workflow supports traditional practices such as Incident Command Systems in the official response and will enhance local responsiveness and effectiveness.

Services offered by VOST enhance the capabilities of an emergency response agency; they do not replace them. VOST assists only with scaling up capability in times of emergency response; it does not replace the social media function of an agency but acts as a secondary and supplementary program when needed.

Effectively resourcing a communications strategy by activating a VOST will enable emergency managers to disseminate information to wider audiences by increasing amplification of official messages, improve interaction with the public by having more trained eyes on social media to validate information and alert the responding agency to misinformation and questions that require a response.

A VOST can support monitoring efforts using geolocation tools and non-geolocation enabling technologies to get a better sense of what is happening on the ground, improve situational awareness and insight, and improve collaboration for sharing information during an emergency.

Official activations that have included the activation of a fusion of internal personnel and external trained volunteers have included earthquake responses in New Zealand, and US wildfire, hurricane and flooding responses.

CC: You’ll also be speaking about unmanned aerial vehicles. Where do they fit in?

CM: I’ll be talking about how data provided by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and satellite photography interacts with social media data, and how the pace and scale of these data streams differs due to their different infrastructures.

Social media and data collected by UAVs can provide invaluable visualisation benefits and context as it applies to emergency management, and have become vital for assessing the scale of an incident and associated damage and improving situation awareness.

CC: Which technologies are converging to make things easier/worse for first responders?

CM: Cloud computing isn’t new; however, what is new is how it’s being applied in an emergency environment. Cloud computing, virtualisation and social networks enable communications professionals and emergency managers to reduce costs, expand their capability and improve end-user experience due to less complicated systems. Support is provided 24/7, data remains consistent across all devices and can be customised with ease.

One risk could be maintaining connections to a cloud. A software crash, hurricane or earthquake could affect an internet link because of a power outage. This could affect the ability to access data or applications stored in the cloud. A possible solution is to develop business continuity plans that include using collaborating clouds.

CC: Finally, what does Crest Advisory do?

CM: We are a team of policy, communications and brand specialists who care about building safer communities. We work with organisations across multiple sectors — helping them think, speak and act more clearly to improve criminal justice and policing. Because we know criminal justice and policing inside out, we provide bespoke advice tailored to real needs, rather than generic solutions. Our range of skills, perspectives and networks also means we are able to offer a unique blend of insight, analysis, communications and brand expertise.

Caroline Milligan will present on the topic of ‘Digital first responders — improving capability and capacity, as it applies to public safety’ at Comms Connect Sydney, on Thursday, 23 June, from 1.30 to 2.30 pm.

Pictured: Caroline Milligan