I've just uploaded 3 weeks worth of database resturucturing and optimisation. We're ready to scale! It's time to bringing in some more teams. If you're a member of any of the following and would like a beta account - make contact :-)

1. Coast Guard


2. Mountain Rescue


3. Cave Rescue


4. Civil Defence


5. Lifeboat


6. Ski Patrol


7. Dog Teams


8. Urban Rescue


9. Swift-water Rescue


10. Auxiliary Army SAR


11. Auxiliary Fire


12. Sub Aqua Rescue


13. Specialist Police SAR


14. Auxiliary Navy


15. Animal Rescue


16. Mine Rescue


17. Park Ranger Rescue

Rob Boles points me to the Stages Of A Disaster as outlined by Ray Schurfield. Rob looks at how social media can be used at each stage. Decisions For Heroes will focus initially on the first & last.

• Heroic (Immediate) - person takes actions to protect lives and property. Social Circle = family, neighbors & emergency teams.


• Tunnel Vision (Weeks, to Months) - detachment & emotional numbing with person very-activity focused on basic tasks. Social Circle = Family, friends, work colleagues, civic groups.


• Honeymoon (One Week to Three Months) - strong sense of lived through an experience, clearing debris and wreckage. Social Circle = Pre-existing & emergent community groups.


• Disillusionment (Third Week Onward) - disappointment, anger, sadness over unfilled promises of aid. Focused on rebuilding personal life and sense of community lost. Social Circle = Self, Family.


• Reconstruction/Recovery (Lasts of Several Years) - sense of determination in solving problems, seeking help and rebuilding lives. Social Circle = Community Groups, Government

Very interesting.

-Robin.

(Image Credit: Chicago Fire Dept. unit outside ByteSurgery HQ!)

A recent post on RescueTech.org has brought a flurry of sign-ups using our invite code. RescueTech is a great source of knowledge on all things rescue from around the world. I'm glad to welcome the contributors to Decisions For Heroes and look forward to your feedback.

-Robin.

We're adding a MISPER (Missing Person) category on casualties at the request of Dog Search teams. Let's open a discussion on how all countries and services define casualties.

Here's a starting list of categories from the UK.

• Despondent


• Dementia Alzheimer Type


• Runaway


• Lost


• Mental health


• Natural disaster


• Man-made disaster


• Injured


• Health problem


• Unspecified


• Abduction


• Criminal investigation

With this data we can start to generate Behavior Profiles

(Photo: Boston Emergency Service taken at the weekend. By Robin.)

CHICAGO, UNITED STATES (Decisions For Heroes) - UK blogger Ian Delaney pointed me to Coole Immersive who are building serious games to help oil riggers learn to do their job. It reduced the chance of being involved in an incident from 50% to <5% in a riggers first year. A great achievement.

It's interactive gameplay where you decide what to do next, you can see a video of it in action here (at bottom).

• Enables workers to increase knowledge of task and/or job and allows them to interact with complex ideas and critical thinking, such as working with others or understanding the context of the task required


• New workers develop skills faster


• Ability to enhance worker and team competence and confidence with the potential to increase on the job safety

Can we adapt this to rescue? Heli Ops, Cliff Techniques, Stretcher Handling.

-Robin.

CHICAGO, UNITED STATES (Decisions For Heroes) - A brilliant story from Reuters in Germany...

Firefighters called to a blaze at an apartment building in a southern German town were astonished to discover a fully equipped extremely drunk imposter in their ranks, police said on Thursday.

On hearing the alarm, the 38-year-old man had rushed to the fire station, was helped into protective clothing and helmet by unsuspecting firefighters and boarded the fire engine, a spokesman for Suedhessen police said.

Continue Reading

-Robin

What a few weeks! We've lots in the oven at the moment, but as of today we deployed the new dashboard and a whole range of other features...



Dashboard

• New simpler design & styling.


• Activities separated out into categories.


• Green Ticks for quick view's of what to attend.


• Charts moved into 'Analytics'.


• Availability of whole team can be seen.


• New 'hours' chart shows expected attendance.

Feedback Area 'Improve It!'

• Record your feedback in a central location.


• Share it with only us, your team, or all teams.


• Track responses and progress.

New Account Sign-Up Experience

• Example tags & resources added.


• Instructions when account is empty/blank/new.


• Timezones, country & categories recorded.

Sign-In

• Choose your own username & password.


• Password not sent in email, rather an activation link.


• Reset your own password.


• Member Invites & easier permission management.


• Remember login check-box.

Printing

• Basic reports integrated onto sidebar (calendar, members).


• We've much nicer reports in the oven (coming soon!).

Calendar

• Moved in under 'Activities'.

Sign-in, and take a look!

-Robin.

Dashboard & Members Profiles
(Only your own: Members. Everyones: Member+,Editor,Owner. )



You will have spotted this chart above appear in release 77. Let me tell you a bit about how it works... So first off, they're the last 12 months along the bottom (0hrs on a month, no letter). The green area is what you attended, that's obvious. The red area are the hours you missed, this is a sum of the total duration of all 'Full Team' events, and the 'Selective Events' you were marked down for. The percentage is calculated from these time differences, not from all team activity (which may be huge, but the member was not invited to it). The average is calculated from the entire team to allow members to compare themselves against the rest.

To get started, we're using the following grading:

• 0%-39% is 'Very Low'.


• 40% - 64% is 'Low'.


• 65% - 79% is 'High'.


• Over 80% is 'Very High'.

If this isn't working for you, tell us by leaving a comment on the bottom of the page - we'll adjust it.

Members Profiles List
(Member+, Editors, Owners)



Let me explain this one, these attendances are based on a similar system as above and only calculate your attendance percent on 'full team' activities (where your attendance is required). So 100% incident attendance means you attended 100% of all 'full team' call-outs, not all call-outs. The hours are a total duration of everything you've attended. I expect this to change to a 'count' value (to show volumes) in the near future.

Hint: You can click on the top of a column to sort it in descending (or ascending) order :-)