There are so many neat tools out there that might help you as you respond to the disaster. Having a cluster doing tech selection and maintenance will decrease the cognitive load on everyone else and keep your response running smoothly. They can start a selection process like this example. This group should also be invested in data security. They’ll probably also maintain your radios.
If the crisis continues on for a long time, consider hosting a repair cafe to help people’s devices stay functional. These are also a good way to build out new technologies that might have been missing from your stack.
Folks who succeed in this cluster will be techno enthusiasts while caring most about pragmatism. They won’t overwhelm the group with too many and/or inappropriate tools, and will understand the tools are for the work, not for their own sake.
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Tech Selection example
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Navigating Digital Repair and Low Mobile Network Connectivity Issues
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What You Need to Know Now about Radio Comms
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Data security in crisis situations
Shout out to Baron Oldenburg and Eleanor Saitta for feedback on this post! Information is flying around fast and loose as you try to help people in need. Anyone who has capacity to help has been added to a spreadsheet tracking needs. If you’re in the thick of it, this piece isn’t for you yet.…
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Sample tech selection
Selecting Tech for Communication By M Hong “It’s a crisis and we need some channels that we can rely on to stay in touch with one another.” Communication Goals/Needs Before choosing a tool, think about the purpose of the communications you and your people need. You’ll likely find that different tools are best for different…