I spent the last couple of days in Washington, D.C. at a conference. The Virginia Tech massacre was a local story, and weighed heavily on people in the area.
Today's newspapers (Washington Post, NY Times) offer all sorts of second-guessing and proposed magical answers. I was especially distressed at one letter in today's NY Times suggesting that if his cell phone provider could text message him about his late payment, then Virginia Tech could've text messaged potential victims.
To the NYT cell phone advocate: do you understand that universities only know cell phone numbers of students if they've supplied them to the U, and that most do not do so?
People are human, including early responders and even <gasp> administrators.
To those who propose technological solutions to a tragic human problem: consider broadcast solutions instead of narrowcast. Sirens, not podcasts.
/rich
On 4/18/07,
Kwiatkowski, Nicholas <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
MSU Telecom Systems is in the process of setting up a new SIP server
that will allow for real-time communications, Instant Messaging, and
Presence Notifications. We hope to have the system available to beta
outside out group within the next month or so.
MSU also has the Breeze server that can be utilized for a real-time
chat-room application as well.
Remember, too that MSUnet has full access to the efnet IRC servers
located at UM. However, I doubt that many people know what IRC is, let
alone how to use it.
-Nick Kwiatkowski
MSU Telecom Systems
-----Original Message-----
From: MSU Network Administrators Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Brian Martinez
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 2:23 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] Emergency e-mail lists (or other electronic
communications)
What do you guys think about using some sort of realtime electronic
communications in a situation like this?
For example, an accessible IRC Server, or better still a Jabber server
that
makes use of your NetID (and probably auths against some system on
campus)?
There could be a global message that goes out to anyone signed in, or
people
could connect to a central "chatroom" to receive up-to-date
information.
This sort of thing has been discussed around here before, for handling
emergency electronic communications. It assumes it would be a viable
service in "off" times as well (i.e. people would make use of it day to
day,
and not just in times of emergencies). But no real thoughts one way or
another have come from such discussions.
Opinions? Tell me what you folks think! Off-list or not.
Thanks!
./brm