CanVOST members have an excellent training opportunity to look forward to. The team will be invited to play a key role in an experiment to promote the use of digital volunteers in response/recovery operations. The Digital Volunteer-Supported Recovery Operation Experiment (#DVSROE on twitter) will have the following key objectives:

• Demonstrate the value of social media-aided cooperation between digital volunteers, EM officials, first responders and humanitarian workers for better recovery outcomes
• Validate a draft cooperation model, and potentially a Concept of Operations (ConOps), focused on effective activation, task-sharing, communication and operational and technical workflow coordination between the stakeholder groups
• Demonstrate and measure how networked (social) technologies enable the achievement of recovery objectives

The experiment is linked to a US-Canada cross border program created to enhanced collaboration betweent the two countries on public safety and emergency management. One of the focus of this year's CAUSE III initiative is on social networks. The DVSROE will help fulfil part of that objective. On the Northern side of the border, the project is supported by the Canadian Safety and Security Program. 

An orientation session with the purpose of developing a concept of operations (conops) plan for the experiement was held this week in Halifax. I was invited to attend to help determine how best CanVOST could help ensure the success of this key initiative. I offered the view that CanVOST was best used when: 

• Offering surge capability for monitoring social media during a disaster/incident at the request of an emergency management organization or municipality (an adjunct to existing EOC functions)
• providing some liaison role between digital volunteer communities and the requesting agency/municipality 

I also provided an overview of the experience so far in the participation of digital volunteers into emergency management.

I invite CanVOST members to contact me ([email protected]) if they're willing to "play" in the experiment in November ( 18-20). I will also organize a team virtual meeting in the next couple of weeks to discuss this project and other CanVOST issues.

Meanwhile, here is some key reading on the role of VOSTs and social media in general during emergencies ... absolutely critical pieces of understanding of #smem 

• an academic kind of after-action report on a VOST deployment in the Pacific Northwest 
• How social media can be used for situational awareness from FEMA/DHS social media working group
• and a capability assessment from Canada on the use of social media in emergency management (with references to VOST/CanVOST)