* Tools for getting in touch with all employees in an emergency
Sept. 11 was a wake up call for many on a number of different levels. From a messaging perspective, the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history brought home the reality of how difficult it is to provide people with critical information when they need it using a medium that best matches their requirements. Several vendors have responded to this need with emergency notification systems that can broadcast messages through a variety of media based on user-defined criteria.
MessageOne, for example, has recently introduced AlertFind Enterprise https://www.messageone.com/crisis-communications/, a system that can process upwards of 50,000 messages per hour to users’ telephones, cell phones, e-mail clients, pagers, BlackBerries and the like.
Individuals who are part of the system can populate the system with information about how they want to be contacted – AlertFind will go through the list of alternative communication choices until it finally gets through to each user. The system is sophisticated enough to act based on the response of individual users – for example, a security manager could broadcast a message immediately after an earthquake advising employees not to return to work until further notice. The message could ask recipients to indicate whether they are at home, at work or need medical attention; if a user indicates that he or she needs medical help, they can automatically be connected to an emergency service.
MIR3 http://www.mir3.com and Intrado http://www.intrado.com recently announced a partnership whereby the companies would offer their notification technologies for use by government organizations. Government agencies and related organizations are one of the key markets for such capabilities given their role as first responders in emergency situations.
Other companies offering emergency notification technologies include WiredRed http://www.wiredred.com and National Notification Network http://www.3nonline.com.
Although these systems are designed primarily for notifying users quickly about emergencies or imminent problems, they can also be used for a variety of other applications, as well. For example, a pharmacist who has a question about a written prescription presented to her by a customer could use a notification system to contact the first available doctor in a medical group. A retail chain could use such a system to find an available employee to replace a co-worker who just called in sick. Any company could use such a system to find an available messaging administrator to respond to a server crash.
In short, emergency notification systems can find use in applications where a problem needs a timely response but that does not rise to the level of an emergency. These systems are relatively inexpensive (for example, MessageOne’s system for a 1,000-user company starts at less than $1,000 per month), making them worthy of consideration for deployment for a wide variety of applications.
