Jeremy Brock's List: Boston Bombing and Digital citizenship

• Technology’s Digital Helping Hand in Boston Bombing
• Technology services are becoming a digital helping hand to people affected by the Boston explosions
• In response to the explosions at the Boston Marathon on Monday Google Inc.GOOG -0.40%’s philanthropic arm activated “Person Finder,” a digital message board and registry for people affected by natural disasters or other crises.
• Google Person Finder has been activated in disasters, including the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and the 2011 earthquake and nuclear accident in Japan
• As is now commonplace in the wake of major events or crises, Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc.FB +5.30% have become digital timelines of eyewitness accounts, photos and video from the scenes of the Boston explosions.

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• Social Media's Rush To Judgment In The Boston Bombings
• ast week, the New York Post ran a front page photo of two teenage runners under the headline "Bag Men," implying that they had something to do with the Boston Marathon backpack bombs.
• It turns out those kids had nothing to do with the attacks.
• reddit
• 4chan
• It was actually disrupting the official investigation because they were having to deal with all these sort of false suspects getting floated and people getting accused, and it just turned into a big old mess, which I think was quite predictable," he says.
• A Rumor Spreads Online
• The rumor was baseless, but it spread.
• There were people who during this time were taking the stuff off the police scanner and writing it down on Reddit
• Around 3 a.m., tweets and posts went up online saying that Sunil Tripathi had been named as a suspect by police on the scanner.
• There is no record of police mentioning his name,
• Again, this wasn't true

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• Many communities helped authorities apprehend the Boston Marathon bombers and update the broader public about related events. This raw exhibition of the power of social media offers lessons to managers about how to use social tools.
• Scholars have noted that a key feature of social media is its ability to facilitate group action.
• What would have previously required professional or governmental organizations days or weeks to accomplish was improvised in real time without formal coordination as people connected and collaborated using social media platforms.
• As cell phone service jammed from overuse, people turned to Facebook to let their friends and family know they were safe
• People organized and synthesized information relevant to groups and communities through Google Docs, such as reporting people’s safety and coordinating lodging for those who were displaced by the bombings.
• Managers should consider the events of this past week as a wakeup call in terms of organizational communication and collaboration.
• We witnessed last week a crowd of disconnected strangers who organized and executed faster than most enterprises, divisions, or work teams.
• Use social media to enhance traditional processes

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