The speed with which information is communicated, and the scope of who that information is communicated to, can make a huge difference to the outcome of an event.
Think, for example, of how messages are relayed to large groups of people in an emergency: the beacons that warned of the Spanish Armada, or the air raid sirens of the First World War. And just as information flows can help in emergencies, so too can they alter how businesses are run day-to-day.
With FMs running large buildings and complexes, from healthcare, education and retail to manufacturing and commercial, getting a one-to-many message is not necessarily as easy as it sounds.
The latest development in rapid information dissemination is mass notification systemS (MNS), and modern telecoms networks are largely responsible for the value of, and developments in, MNS today. Not everyone reads a memo or email, or would hear a tannoy. But an MNS based on the now ubiquitous mobile (smart)phone could prove a much more workable proposition.
A brief history
To understand more how MNS can be useful to FM, it should first be understood how MNS has developed over time. Technologies such as shortwave radio, two-way radios, weather radios that intercept emergency weather warnings, digital signage and giant voice systems that project audio over large areas have all been utilised. But in the present, mobile phones and social media effectively place an MNS receiver in the pocket of everyone.
The US is a pioneer in this field. Consider the public safety communications system, Reverse 911. It communicates with individuals in defined areas and uses collated phone numbers, addresses and geographical information systems to deliver pre-recorded emergency notifications.
It was used successfully in 2004 to notify 1500 residents of a Colorado town to evacuate when a man began a rampage on a bulldozer; in 2010 to warn Bostonians to boil water before drinking; and in 2011, in another Colorado town, to notify nearby residents of an explosive device made by a fugitive that was to be detonated by police.
In the UK
Closer to home, the UK government’s Civil Contingencies Secretariat interest in MNS is being tested this autumn in various trials involving O2, Vodafone and EE. While governmentally sponsored MNS have been in the US for a while, it’s something that is increasingly of interest to the UK government, thanks, for example, to worsening climate risks (wide area incidents such as 2010’s ash cloud). Weather and natural phenomena are a key driver for MNS, impacting not only communities and emergency services but, on a corporate tack, staff and businesses. Systems can now allow notifications to be issued automatically based on severity, location and timeframe.
The Civil Contingencies Secretariat test aims to send some 50,000 text messages to mobile phone users in Suffolk, Glasgow and Yorkshire to trial delivering emergency mass notifications. The trials will compare the cell broadcast system used in the US and the Netherlands against the technology used in Australia, which is a location-based SMS system.
The differences in the two technologies are subtle. Cell broadcast differs from SMS in that the former sends a text message to every device in any of the mobile phone operators’ chosen cell areas. SMS, by comparison, is only sent to specific numbers in a given location. But cell broadcast and SMS offer a huge variance in outcome: cell broadcast works on a different channel to voice and text and so doesn’t suffer from network congestion. SMS relies on mobile phone operators linking tracking databases to individual devices and can suffer from network congestion, especially at a time of emergency.
Australia tested its SMS system earlier in 2013 during the Victoria bushfires. The state government said the system worked well in terms of informing residents of the perils facing them. However, some citizens claimed that they didn’t receive the SMS, which led the government to warn people not to rely on any one method for emergency notifications.
Back in the UK, a government document issued mid-September outlines how emergency responders need to be able to contact the public — 92 per cent of whom own mobiles — to proffer life-saving information. The key element for the UK government is to have a system that does not need to know the individual mobile numbers in order to make contact. A report on the trials will be produced in early 2014.
But one area for firms to note, should there be a desire or need to deploy a MNS, is the law on data protection. Some believe that the UK and European governments will initially extend the existing laws, such as the Data Protection Act 1998, before requiring organisations to hold a licence to carry out mass notifications.
Down to business
Luckily, emergencies are few and far between, but that doesn’t mean a MNS has no role to play in a business. They can be used to deliver time-sensitive information to hundreds, or even thousands of people, with little effort.
For example, in a hospital setting, a MNS extends beyond emergencies. It can be used to inform doctors, nurses and administrative staff of shift changes or increased availability.
The system can also be used to improve the business process of organisations as, over time, alerts have become broader in scope. It is becoming more common to see alerts concerning events (upcoming, cancelled, or even impromptu); attendance, which, in an educational setting, can alert parents and guardians when a student is tardy or absent; news about a particular item that affects the group; a building closure (more important for FMs) for maintenance reasons, an outage of electricity or even terrorist activity; and ad-hoc meetings where it is necessary to gather a group of individuals.
How are messages delivered?
The best solution is a multi-modal system, as it creates more opportunities for the message to be delivered. For example, any system that delivers purely voice messages to a phone risks delivery failure when either the call cannot get through, or it goes to voicemail, which might only be checked after the event. Evidence shows that SMS messaging is often checked sooner than a voicemail even from a known caller; and in areas of weak signal, the receiver can still get the full text message.
But using multiple delivery methods – voice call, email or text — is the safest bet. Some systems, for instance, note when a voicemail system answers and can leave a message, while continuing to contact other devices simultaneously.
New directions
More specifically, it is the cloud allied with the proliferation of mobile devices, smartphones and tablets that has changed the messaging landscape. Some applications now use inbuilt GPS for tracking purposes and a phone’s camera for the extraction of multimedia information from a scene. GPS and geolocation allows the selection of impacted staff and/or citizens within a given area, and this can help organisations manage incidents and deploy MNS in good time.
Uses for businesses include weather (as mentioned earlier), mobile workforces, safety/security and day-to-day usage in facilities management, integration with building management systems, usage with IT service management ticketing systems and staff scheduling. All provide significant growth potential for MNS.
There’s also potential for MNS within industries such as insurance, retail, energy/utilities, transportation, professional services, finance, media and the public sector. Good examples include a system from PageOne for the East Surrey Hospital, the care centre for Gatwick Airport, to co-ordinate staff during an emergency, and a help desk service notification system for energy company Centrica from xMatters that saves time by allocating callouts only to staff who are actually on duty.
Applications can also monitor lone workers, a boon for companies who operate in high-risk industries and environments. But it’s the growth of social media that has allowed MNS to further entrench itself as a vital technology. Twitter can offer the first awareness of an incident and provide on-the-scene information, allowing managers to pre-empt and manage an issue before it impacts an organisation.
Buying into MNS
Deploying MNS is not a simple process. Organisations considering a MNS solution should first consider what they are trying to achieve.
This involves understanding the business needs; assessing what is important; assessing what policies a MNS system would have to operate within; ensuring senior management buy-in for ongoing usage across the company; ensuring a good explanation of what the benefits are; and making the system usable with training.
Understanding the limitations
Like any technology, MNS does have limitations and the main issue is that of true resilience. MNS involves a number of component services, all of which need to be working together at all times.
While the multi-modal method goes some way towards resolving this, systems should also be future-proofed as far as possible. This involves selecting a system that does all that is needed now and all that might be needed later — say, in five years’ time. There’s no point driving into a technical dead end.
And of course there’s contact management and maintenance. During an emergency, for example, possessing the correct contact details helps a firm understand who is at risk and who hasn’t responded. However, if the details are incorrect, resources can be misdirected. Not only is this a potential waste of a MNS, it can also be life-threatening. By extension, systemic misuse will destroy the purpose of a MNS – as with any mass notification tool, the effect of spamming recipients (even internally) can result in the solution becoming ineffectual.
Ultimately, too many vendors sell MNS on a promise. It’s important to make sure that when the system needs to work, it meets expectations. – See more at: http://www.fm-world.co.uk/features/feature-articles/for-the-masses/#sthash.S8cTyBPu.dpuf
