Population Alerts - It's not only about the Technology, it's about being prepared

When I talk about mass notification systems to members of local authorities, the reaction is often to ask questions about technical abilities of the solution. While performance, availability and reliability of the solution and telecom operators are key elements, one is often neglected, which is:
preparedness of the operators and system administrators, preparedness of the key players taking responsibility for manageing emergency procedures (emergency managers, politicians, first responders,...), and of course preparedness of the end-user, i.e. the citizen.

I am reading the excellent book "The Human Side of Disaster" by Thomas E. Drabek, who describes perfectly how we react to disasters. It reminds me of how we, at M-PLIFY, perceive the importance of message content: it's not only about technology. Here an example:

In 1862, when Victor Hugo released his famous "Les Miserables", he was worried about the success and sales around his book, so he wrote a letter to his editor with the following: " ? ".
The answer came days later: " ! ".

This example shows, that when actors in a community are prepared and know the context of a message (who has sent, when was it sent, what is it concerning?), you can stay very limited in words, yet be explicit on actions to take.

I'm not saying you should send a question mark to population, when problems hit the area, but if population has been properly informed on what risks threaten them, and what measures have been put in place to inform them, it makes life of emergency managers easier, and life saving more efficient.

At the end of the day, it's not about technology, but how to insert it intelligently in the alert procedures under human control, the day it is really needed.