In the aftermath of a disaster, technologies that might have prevented it are often tested with an eye to widespread deployment. Following the Virginia Tech massacre, focus has moved swifty to text messaging and other forms of electronic notification. Florida is considering a $1.5m statewide alert system that would send text messages via SMS and email to students in the event of a similar event.
Hundreds of colleges are considering an SMS and Email-based emergency-alert system, according to USA Today, which quotes Mark Rosenberg, the chancellor of Florida's state university system, as saying that "The standard changes after Virginia Tech."
Rosenberg asked the state Legislature to establish the alert systems. That seems a reasonable price for added safety, perhaps, though one wonders how difficult it can be to set up a text-based alert list.
See, however, how Rosenberg describes what's driving the request: "Parents expect us to be far more responsive to the safety of their sons and daughters."
He concisely identifies a poossible problem here. At this point in the aftermath, are we grasping at straws, fulfilling people's "expectations" rather that producing a reasoned and well-tested technological response?
Identifying cell phones as the best delivery system (due to being able to "push" messages to the user's attention), it looks like hundreds of colleges will soon start offering text-message alerts. One thing, if nothing else, that needs to change: charging through the snorkel for SMS messaging, which has been cartelled into a bigger business that movie production.
Schools weigh text alerts for crises [USA TODAY]
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