[identity profile] somervillema311.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] davis_square

The City of Somerville provides a free service of alerts via phone calls, text messages or email to let you, the constituent know about important civic information.

 Previous CTY calls have been about the following:

 * Possible snow emergencies.

* Construction projects.

* School closures

* Road detours

* Community events

 Signing up is quick and easy, just click on the link below and provide us with your information.

 https://portal.blackboardconnectcty.com/welcome.aspx?eiid=1207B6088C3473A4637E

 If you have any questions please call Somerville Constituent Services at 617-666-3311 or 311.

Re: segmenting the SMS alerts

Date: 2011-02-16 03:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rmd.livejournal.com
Another possibility would be to have different hash tags for the twitter updates. If twitter doesn't yet have a way to direct certain hash tags to SMS, then I bet there will be clients that will do this soon. There are also twitter retweet bots.

The user model I'm thinking of is someone who wants to hear about snow emergencies asap (because "OH GOD TIME TO MOVE THE CARS PLZ") but doesn't want to otherwise get texted for stuff because not everyone has unlimited text messaging on their cellphone. :)

(I'm the person who set up a snow-emergency-only twitter acct (svillesnowemerg) a few years ago when the city didn't have a twitter presence, so I think I think too much about this stuff)

Re: segmenting the SMS alerts

Date: 2011-02-16 05:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] miss-chance.livejournal.com
That's why I had to get back off the system. Text messages are the best way to reach me with something important or potentially time critical, such as a snow emergency, but they do cost me money and I started feeling harassed and spammed by the city. When I signed on originally, the alert system was something like an emergency alert system, but now it's become more like office email.

Think about it: there really *has* to be one way to disseminate useful official information about planned construction, road closing for special events that have been scheduled months in advance, etc. and a totally different was to communicate urgent and emergency messages and messages about road floods, snow closings, other immediate/urgent issues. It's really not rocket-science.

Re: segmenting the SMS alerts

Date: 2011-02-16 07:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] miss-chance.livejournal.com
Unfortunately that's not a very useful suggestion for me, and I believe the same is true for a great number of Somerville residents. If I had access to wi-fi every day that might be a good solution, or would be likewise unnecessary since I could read updates here on LJ, too.

The reason that I had signed up for SMS service is that my work takes me away from computers and internet all day several days a week and on those days I'd like to keep up with what's important to keep up with but really can't handle being interrupted by announcements of parades and road work that I know about already or could read about when I get home to my computer.

Again: there's a difference between information it's worth being interrupted for, and information it's not. If finding out about something anytime in the next 24 hours is sufficient, it can be labeled "important" and should go to one announcement group for access in a timely fashion.

If it's potentially relevant anywhere from immediately to within the next 2 to 3 hours, and can *severely* impact constituents who do not hear about it it can be labeled "urgent" and should go out via more interrupt-driven media.

Please consider that not all users are at leisure to check and read messages all day long whenever they come in and that a great many people require uninterrupted work time and still access to true urgent or emergency information. The key to keep in mind when classifying a message is When must this information be acted upon? What are the consequences of not acting on it (when weighed against interrupting someone else's important work).
Edited Date: 2011-02-16 07:08 pm (UTC)

Re: segmenting the SMS alerts

Date: 2011-02-17 04:22 am (UTC)
siderea: (Default)
From: [personal profile] siderea
You going to post those messages to your journal?

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