| Written by Miguel Ascarrunz, on April 25, 2008 |
 Recently, I came across an interesting blog by current U.S. DHHS Secretary Michael Leavitt. He describes a recent Federal disaster exercise focused on a Pandemic Influenza scenario – similar to last year’s National Capital Region Pandemic Influenza Exercise for Nonprofit Organizations. The unique part of this Federal exercise was that the participants included journalists, including bloggers. As Secretary Leavitt states, “We invite journalists to participate . . . because managing their needs for information is a part of crisis management. We need to learn more about how bloggers would react and interact. Similarly, the Roundtable’s blog site is proving to be an effective and interactive communications tool for the nonprofit community. In addition to serving as a daily communications tool, it may also be very useful to communicate and receive critical information to disaster survivors – as was experienced during the California wildfires.
In the future, regional disaster exercises should also engage the media and blogger stakeholders. It is important to establish these relationships prior to a major disaster event so that we can effectively communicate the nonprofit “message” to the larger community. As Secretary Leavitt states, “The bottom line for me: Government needs to understand the blog world better, and factor it into the way we interact with people. A growing part of the world relies on bloggers for unvarnished information; something they are not sure they always get from us in government.” Do you trust blogs more than mainstream media for important information? If so, what blogs would you trust to deliver timely information in a crisis?
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