Every sales person that came calling had similar visions, which appeared to be well-intended – Save Lives. The ability to save lives is hard to argue, especially when governments are charged with the responsibility to protect it’s the health and safety of it’s communities.
Through the experience of a dozen or so sales pitches and demonstrations, I developed quite an in depth knowledge of notification systems. I also developed a bias for the systems and their capabilities. I welcome you to connect with me if you would like to discuss my insights from research and demonstrations.
What does this have to do with alerting systems and sports cars?
As mentioned, this morning I had an engaging conversation with a gentleman today who is in the tech space. He, his partners, and his team have developed a Public Notification System (Platform). Interestingly enough, he is one of the system developers I had met with several years previously. It was an interesting interaction and as I learned more about his new version of the platform, it’s capabilities, and some of their current client list (a couple of clients that I hold in high regard), I became quite frankly, intrigued.
Here is the thing, to keep in mind if you, your organization, your company, your government is considering implementing a notification platform (and there are many of them to consider), any of them is simply a tool.
A tool is only as good as the operator who is using it. Ask any owner of a high-end sports car what type of gasoline they fill their tank with and I would suspect that the answer is at least, premium. It would likely be difficult to find a sports-car enthusiast who would invest in a performance machine and simply fill it with regular octane fuel.
This holds true for any notification system, for a website, for a Linkedin article, for social media posts, emails etc. Implementing a notification system simply gives you, your organization, your company, your government a tool for communicating with. Some of these systems, like the one I saw today, appear to be very powerful tools, like a performance sports car.
Do not, fill your systems with regular fuel (messaging). Run your communication systems on premium, high-performance fuel (science-based and research-proven messaging).
When you implement a notification system, your vendor is likely to provide you with comprehensive training and support on how the platform works, how it integrates with your other applications and systems. They will likely walk through security features and the differences between opt-in and opt-out, and so on.
Effective risk and crisis communications however requires more than properly functioning and secure systems – your words, your tone, your messaging matters most.
Good words are worth much, and cost little. ~ George Herbert
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