As part of my new mobile and social position in the newsroom I led a collaborative effort to revise the Register’s disaster plan.

In the past, the Register has had two normal work modes: general news coverage and big breaking news coverage. One of the main efforts with the new disaster plan was to make the Register’s coverage of every day and small breaking news coverage mirror the way we cover large wildfires and mudslides. Mirroring our disaster workflow with every day workflow will ensure more consistency and better preparedness among newsroom staff.

We also adjusted the disaster plan to account for an increasingly mobile audience who want breaking news alerts and more timely information available on phones. More staff was trained on how to send breaking news text alerts and we added alerts channels just for wildfire updates and mudslide updates.

The disaster plan was also updated to make social reporting, public service and customer service a role fulfilled by newsroom reporters and editors rather than just the web team. During large disaster events the Register will staff one reporter who only reports using information and sources found online and in social networks – rather than sending every reporter out to the field.

Link: ShareOC alpha test

One of my main frustrations is that all efforts to allow Register’s to share content have not been as successful as hoped for. So, I set out on brainstorming over a few weeks about why those efforts failed. Rather than being upset about the situation, I wanted to do something about it. I wanted to come up with my idea for user content.

My idea is #shareoc. Rather than building a website, or a mobile app, or a group on a social networking site – I want to build a system. And, I want the focus to be about why people share content.

My ideas on why people share content:

Status: People naturally want to be seen as having some sort of worth by other people. This is not about people being conceded – but it is about having ideas and contributions validated by the community.

Results: People want to share something so that it impacts someone else. People tweet about being stuck in a bad accident so they can complain and so that others might be able to be saved from sitting in the same traffic. People report potholes to city hall so that the potholes can be fixed.

With ShareOC – I want to provide a way for people to easily share content with the Register’s valuable audiences. I want the system to be built across channels – rather than being based around one thing (like how iReport is built around a website – which means less social and mobile integration at the core level).

Thanks for following and we’ll see how the project goes!