In an earlier article I addressed that one
of the most crucial aspects of a disaster recovery plan is communications. Communications as a whole is so vital most any
solder can tell you the lack of effective communications can mean losing a
battle. Granted we are not at war within
the borders of the United States but in a disaster the effect can be the same
when it comes to safety.
Today a lot of people use some form of
smart phone like the i-Phone or one of the Androids. You see them everywhere you go. These phones can not only provide telephone
communications, but email, text messages and have the ability to surf the
web. All of which can play an important
part in disaster recovery or DR.
The first three are pretty obvious in how
they can help. What people don't realize
is that by surfing the web so to speak can be an effective communications tool.
On the web exists possibly the most popular
social media website known and is growing like a weed. If you haven't guessed, it is Facebook.
One of the problems with Facebook as I
addressed in an earlier article is that people can and do post
photos and
sayings that are from questionable to borderline pornographic. If an employee in your company is viewing
something like that at work, you could stand a good chance of having a sexual
harassment complaint and law suit filed against your company.
At the same time Facebook can be a great
marketing and communications tool as well.
As for marketing on Facebook, that will remain as another matter for a
later article. We are going to address
Facebook as a communications tool especially in DR.
To use Facebook as such is really child's
play. You need to create an account with
a person's name. In this case we will
use Paula Personnel and for our purposes it will be the human resources
department who handles the page.
Have all your employees added as friends so
only they can see what is written on the wall or timeline and no one else. Personnel, or whoever is in charge of posting
logs in as Paula and posts everything for employees, errr friends only. All the public would see is the profile picture
and top banner. For added security those
pictures can be of say a cute puppy and appear to have nothing to do with your
business, if you desire.
You instruct your employees that in the
event of a major storm or disaster to routinely check the Facebook page for any
updates. And like I mentioned in the
beginning with today's smart phones that would not be much of a problem.
Again I need to caution you that you make
sure whatever you post is set for your friends list only. Potential criminals could use that for their
own advantage. So be very careful before
you hit the 'post' button.
Facebook, it can play an important role in
DR communications and should be another tool in your arsenal.
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