Jeannette Sutton on LinkedIn: The FCC, CSRIC, FEMA, and other organizations that are interested in… (2024)

Our research team is really showing up at the AMS Weather Warnings Conference! Bruce Pollock will give his first professional talk as a MA student and is bringing the heat (index) with him. He'll share about regional differences in interpreting extreme heat information and how this could affect communication styles.If you're at Myrtle Beach, be sure to check out his talk!

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Such a great experience to talk with new colleagues in AUS about wireless emergency alerts and what we’ve learned in the US. NEMA is preparing to roll out national alerts - very exciting to see their progress! Thank you EMPA for inviting me to visit down under!

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ATSC 3.0 makes it possible to issue alerts and warnings that are exceptionally localized and relevant to the individual receiver. But what will they look like? Will it require sophisticated navigation, creating barriers for some populations? Will it suit the information needs of experts who prefer visualizations for personal interpretation? Or will it be designed to direct people to key content that helps for timely, actionable decision making? We know that the weather enterprise and broadcasters design and develop to get and keep eyes on the screen - but what does that mean for public alerting?Our research team has been investigating how the public interact with existing screen designs in order to identify improvements for the next generation TV. A few things we've learned so far: 1) complex information can lead to confusion; 2) images that do not correspond with the alert/warning are disruptive; 3) personalized content that clearly identifies the location of the threat relative to the viewer is highly desired.If you're at the Weather Warning Conference in Myrtle Beach - be sure to look for Mike's presentation. #nextgenTV #ATSC3.0 #emergencymessaging #IPAWSManny Centeno Josh Gordon Ed Czarnecki Nate Johnson John Lawson

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Timely information for risk communication as several states are scorching hot. 🥵 Micki Olson, Ph.D is doing NOAA funded research to help them learn what language about heat is understood by the public (hint hint: anything with the word INDEX in it is created by experts for experts). 🔥See some of her tips below. 👇🏻

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Excited to have been invited to join Australian emergency communication professionals in Canberra at the EMPA conference, where I got to share how the US has been working to improve WEAs. Australia is developing their own version of IPAWS and Wireless Emergency Alerts; the efforts in the US can inform their policies and practices before their system rolls out. By drawing from the research that has been conducted on WEA in the US, there is an opportunity to share lessons learned and reduce the challenges abroad. EMPA.org.au

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This is going to be an amazing event. You should sign up. Micki Olson, Ph.D will be representing our research team and talking about the importance of plain language and using the Message Design Dashboard for imminent threat communication. Seriously; sign up. It will be good.Justin Ángel Knighten Justin Kates, CEM, CPM https://lnkd.in/eQnVX2Cf

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"How do we measure the effectiveness of our alert/warning?" This is a question I hear frequently and the answer isn't terribly satisfying because its either expensive, difficult, or incomplete. But here are a few answers: 1) conduct a survey with your community post-event to inquire about the actions they took after receiving the warning message (expensive), 2) add a link to your opt-in alert and ask people to check which action they are taking at the time of receiving the message (i.e.; shelter in place, evacuate, prepare to leave, look for more information, nothing), 3) using traffic camera data, assess the egress and ingress of populations post-alert (expensive), 4) using cellular data, assess population movement post-alert (privacy?), 5) monitor social media for comments/responses (expect negativity and not a lot of "here's what I'm going to do"), 6) monitor incoming 911 calls for questions/confusion, etc. regarding message (not likely to get actions here). Social Science researchers have studied alerts and warnings for more than 70s years and have identified what makes an alert actionable. These are the contents and message style that we find in the Warning Response Model, first identified by Mileti and Sorensen in 1990. We've built upon that initial research to create a lexicon of contents and a workflow that enables message writers to construct messages that are complete, clear, and motivating to message receivers. This is found in the Warning Lexicon bit.ly/WarningLexicon and it serves as the data backbone for the FEMA-IPAWS Message Design Dashboard bit.ly/Learn2Warn.My research team and colleagues, including Micki Olson, Ph.D Hugh Walpole, PhD Lauren B. Cain Michele M Wood Savannah Olivas Michael Michaud Bruce Pollock and Eddie Bertola, MA will continue to conduct hazard-specific research and translate those results for practitioners as we keep the Warning Lexicon and MDD current (see also, thewarnroom.com). In the meantime, if you don't have the time or resources to conduct your own research, I suggest taking the MDD training and implementing the best practices contained there. Do you have other strategies to measure warning effectiveness? Share them below.

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