We had an interesting experience in Portland this past weekend when our typically pristine water supply was tainted by e. coli, affecting west-side residents and businesses. That meant that anyone served by the tainted reservoir had to boil their water before using it — which is no big deal for people who are used to camping — and the city government had to get the word out about the contamination. Now that is a pretty big deal.
The limitations of traditional media
It used to be that a TV and radio broadcast would cover most bases for informing the populace about an emergency, followed by a front-page article in the local papers. But now we get our information in such a decentralized manner that you can’t count on the majority of residents seeing/hearing/reading traditional news platforms. I don’t have a TV and don’t listen to the radio very much. The newspaper would have warned us far too late, well after quite a lot of tainted water had been consumed by us and our pets.
We already know that an increasing number of people aren’t tuning in to traditional media outlets. The signal to noise ratio is just too high and news is happening more quickly than those outlets can accommodate. We aren’t survivalists hiding in rural areas, either, we’re in dense urban neighborhoods and probably have an iPhone glued to one hand. We’re counting on timely, focused information that’s delivered to us either by mobile device or computer.
New ways to communicate
I found out about the water situation via Twitter, since I follow our mayor, Sam Adams. And of course, I retweeted it and so did a host of other Portland people I follow. We east-siders teased the west-siders about their #pdxpoopwater — all in good fun — because the e. coli was from human or animal waste in the water supply. While most people in the greater Portland Metro area aren’t on Twitter — nor the majority of the world — it’s proven to be a fantastic grape vine for spreading timely information. Just ask all the Iranians who were able to mobilize and communicate in the aftermath of their last round of elections.
What worked is that we had individuals within our local government who use social web technology to communicate on a regular basis. Both the Portland Water Bureau and Sam Adams are on Twitter and Facebook, and if you ask them questions they will respond pretty quickly. They’re where their constituents are, and we have a line to communicate with our government. We’re reaching a point — in Portland, at any rate — where it’s expected that all high-level government officials and departments are involved in some sort of social web interaction. Whether it’s photos of your garden, live-tweets from an important hearing, or emergency announcements, we want to hear from our public officials. We want to be connected.
When silence isn’t golden
Of particular note was the silence of the Portland Water Bureau’s Twitter account, usually so quick to tout how great our tap water is but suddenly quiet in the face of an emergency. The funny thing about opening the door to public communication is that once we have that open line, we expect that people will use it. Even if it wasn’t the water bureau’s job to warn about a health situation, it’s their water and we’re listening when they have something to say. By failing to be on the scene and sharing information first I suspect that people trust the water bureau a little less. Not only are people angry about the tainted water, they feel abandoned by the water bureau. They breached a social contract — probably very inadvertently — by not breaking the news officially themselves and only coming back online the next day. The good news is that they’re back on the job, and I think it was a learning experience for the communications department.
It goes two ways
As soon as the whole water problem was cleared up, Sam Adams asked people for feedback on what they could have done better and suggestions on how to get the word out in the future. Awesome! It gives us a feedback loop, lets his staff collect ideas and respond in real time. And because he was retweeting comments, anyone following his Twitter account could see what other people had to say. I’ll be interested to see what they determine in the coming weeks and months about how to communicate emergencies in the future.
By being open to new technology and willing to try it out, we have a way to communicate with our government in a simple, easy, relatively transparent manner. I’m happy to see city workers and agencies reaching out to residents and building a relationship rather than being afraid of the public and only saying things “on the record.”
This is the brave new world of communication. No more single-platform blasts. No more hiding from your mistakes. No more silence from the populace. No more faceless bureaucracy. The government has to come to the people in order to be for the people.
Excellent post. Great points. I was impressed by how Sam handled the whole thing. Not so much, the water bureau.