The NOW of Social Media Responsibility
Many of you have read or seen the interviews I did about the Chile earthquake. I thought I’d tell you in my words what happened and then I’d like to share some thoughts on what social media really is from my perspective.
Saturday, February 27th, 2010 I awoke and got a cup of coffee. It’s the first thing on my agenda after a quick stop at the washroom. I had a few slurps and then went to the office to get phones. This is a common routine for Ken and I. Coffee then phones.
After getting phones, I look to see how many emails and messages there are, clearing them from my phone as I go. Then I typically open tweetdeck. Tweetdeck is the twitter client I use most often on my iphone. Once I have looked at twitter I head to facebook, because while I have a facebook app on my phone it doesn’t show me my pokes and my goal as a rule is to clear up anything that is an action item. Pokes are action items. 
Saturday began like any other day, but I got stuck at tweetdeck. Both Ken and I noticed a number of tweets regarding an earthquake in Chile. My brother’s wife is there so our ears perked. We started searching google for news, looking at trending topics on twitter and in general seeking any information about the status of the people in Chile.
Once we saw the magnitude of the earthquake, 8.8 is HUGE, we started wondering if we should contact my brother to find out if he heard anything. I decided to attempt to call Chile to see if maybe all was ok in Santiago, which is where Maria was, and of course couldn’t get through. Call failed. Call failed many times and by now I was getting nervous. I looked at Ken and asked if he thought I should call my brother. We agreed I should.
I woke my brother up from a sound sleep to give him horrible news. An earthquake had occurred and we had tried to reach his wife and couldn’t get through. He said he would start trying. He was so distraught! There is nothing like having to share with a family member bad news. Really bad news. My heart went out to him but I believed it was better he know what happened than to wake and hear it elsewhere.
My brother and I quickly got off the phone with each other so he could start his long vigil while trying to find out what had happened to Maria. In the meantime, I too went to work to see if I could find some answers.
I can’t tell you how often I have been asked what hashtags are and how to use them. I have certainly used them for basic searches before this, but they became a lifeline.
Quickie def. of hashtags: A hashtag uses the hash symbol [pound sign] on your keyboard to draw attention to a specific topic or word.
When I was looking at the trending topics I quickly saw patterns. #Chile was big, #chileearthquake was too. #terremotochile was the biggest one at the beginning of my search so there I went, to http://search.twitter.com/search?q=terremotochile
I noticed a lot of people had many other hashtags so back on twitter I started posting random tweets, at first with no hashtags, moving to hashtags.
I honed my tweets and eventually started getting responses from people until the final response that really was a game changer for us. This one, from @jpcoderch:
We soon worked out the details and he went to work in Chile trying to call my sister in law. It took approximately two hours until he finally got through to her. Maria sent a message back with the code word twinkie, a pet name she uses for my brother so we would know it was really her.
The rest is really history. The interviews I did with the BBC as well as CBS Miami and even the conversation I had with a person from MSNBC which led to a story on their blog, that’s all easy enough to discover and share and it has been shared enough that I do not feel compelled to again.
What hasn’t really been talked about, though each of the news stations attempted to put their own spin on it, is the value in social media. I’m not talking about the communication potential or the way we might all find our next job, but the life altering value I have personally experienced. It also changed perceptions for me.
Prior to this incident, I had relationships with a few fairly well known web-celebs. Do you know only a handful of our moderately well known friends communicated any interest in what was happening or offered on any level to put the word out, and none of them, unless pointed to our situation offered support of any sort? Does this surprise you? I was not surprised, but it did give me pause to consider who we align ourselves with and what value are they in our lives if when something that really matters happens they aren’t even be in the audience as silent support. How engaged is that? I’ll save that for a later post.
Is social media important? Yes. Is it really important? Yes! Social media empowers it’s users to find their own information, to seek out people and ideas to enhance their lives, and provides opportunity to gain perspective. Prior to now, we were fed our ideals, socialized by big media, and brainwashed into believing all was as we were told. The innovators of the world didn’t buy into it and created tools that we can all use today to find what the real truth is. It is also much more as our story clearly demonstrates. It is an organic connection to the whole planet that allows us to see there is more than just us.
My thoughts have been building. I am in the process of writing a much more detailed post about engagement and social web celebs. For now, let me just say thank you to all who helped us and encouraged us through an incredibly trying and frightening time. We were very lucky to have the tools we have to be able to get to a result that was ultimately a gift. We found our family member alive and safe.
We hope all whose paths crossed ours during the awful Chile earthquake have had the kind of outcome we had, and for those who did not – our hearts grieve with you for all you have lost.
Technorati Tags: #terremotochile, #Chile, #earthquake
