Month: February 2012

After weeks of researching information and contacting organizations, it was time for our final presentation. Last week we had a generic outline planned as to what to include and also assigned roles to each member. To be prepared by this Friday we have held two meetings, Wednesday and Thursday, during which we ran through the entire presentation once and made changes if necessary.

On Friday, we met up at 12:30 at the Forest Science Center and from there Laura drove all six of us to NSEMO. We were scheduled to present at 2:00, which left plenty of time left over to set up. Since this was only our second meeting with Dorit, we started of by once again introducing ourselves before continuing with our presentation. The order of the presentation is as follows:

• First Laura talked about using social media effectively to market NSEMO’s services and encouraging traffic to their website. She later continued by listing different municipalities and comparing and contrasting them with NSEMO based on self-registrants, advertising methods, preferred notification methods and social media usage.
• Second Luke talked about utilizing community resources as a means of advertisement such as schools, universities, cultural groups, rec centers and so on.
• Third Angie concluded the presentation by talking about some legislative requirements that need to be met both by Rapid Notify and NSEMO.

At the end of the presentation, Dorit and Paulette both thought that the presentation was good and also had some general feedback. They felt that all the presenters made good eye contact however they could have slowed down a couple of times in the middle for them to gather their thoughts and write ideas down. We had originally thought of bringing a wireless mouse as a clicker, but we forgot it in the car and mentioned it to Dorit and Paulette, but they said its best if things like that don’t get mentioned as the client would never have found out and therefore is unnecessary. Also they indicated that during the presentation, only the person speaking needs to be standing up, while the rest could be seated so as to not disturb both the presenter and the client.

Overall, we have finished half of our CSL project and are getting ready to start working on the final report which is due on Friday, February 24^th, 2012. Each member is again responsible for their own sections and final copies will be sent to Erika and Surabhi to compile during reading break.

Final presentation: CIVL 202 presentation

As last week’s blog entry stated, we have distributed between group members and worked on researching and gathering information related to Rapid Notify. This week our main objective was to prepare for our presentation, and have a generic outline planned. We have held two meetings, Monday and Thursday, to give updates and to divide responsibilities for the presentation.

At our Monday meeting, we shared all the information we gathered, and offered general feedback as to what each member could do to further their tasks. Angie had an idea suggesting that NSEMO could give presentations at elementary school assemblies.  This way parents could get information through their kids about Rapid Notify. We also discussed the possibility of contacting the fire department for their input as well.

During our Thursday meeting, we divided each of our tasks for the presentation. The breakdown is as follows, Jennifer is going to be responsible formatting the entire presentation and each of us are responsible for our own sections. In order for us to be ready to present on Friday, we all agreed to send Jennifer our slides by Monday night, so that we could practise at least twice together.

Overall, nothing much happened this week because most of us were already done our research, and had a sense as to what they wanted to include for the presentation. Our next meeting is going to be on Monday, February 13^th, during class, where we’ll hopefully have a rough draft of the presentation prepared and be able to run through it once. Till next week!

Presentation outline: NSEMO presentation outline

While last week involved some planning stages, this week we really got the ball rolling on our project. We met twice this week, Monday and Friday, to give quick progress updates, keep group members informed as to what we will be working on next, and to redistribute tasks as necessary.

Last week, Laura had written a letter of confirmation with a description of the deliverables to email to Dorit, just to ensure we were all on the same page as to what our project would entail. Paulette and Laurie from the NSEMO office responded back requesting some minor changes so we modified the confirmation and resent it to NSEMO, along with a completed project schedule roughly outlining the steps we are taking. (Civil 202- Schedule) As seen in the schedule, our main tasks for this week were mainly researching and contacting organizations. At our Monday meeting, we made further task divisions, especially among those who are contacting organizations. It was decided that Luke is contacting North Shore News and West Vancouver School District, Erika and Surabhi are contacting organizations, community groups, unions and aboriginal communities, and will communicate among themselves to ensure no organization is doubly contacted nor skipped; Angie is responsible for researching FOPIA legislation and making suggestions for modifications to NSEMO’s self-registration page; and Laura and Jennifer are researching the market plans of other cities. Originally, Laura and Jennifer were supposed to review the manual as well, but this task is removed from the deliverables as it is of lower priority to NSEMO.

For the most part, results of our inquiries came back quickly. Laura received some emails back from cities who are also using Rapid Notify, with information about the successes (or lack thereof) of their self-registration plans. Luke contacted the North Shore News regarding the possibility of including a brief article on NSEMO and Rapid Notify, and they were very enthusiastic about the suggestion. The North Shore News published an article on emergency response on their website on Friday, February 3, 2012 (link below), which hopefully encourages citizens to self-register for Rapid Notify. Luke also received very positive responses from the West Vancouver School District, and they would be happy to include a message about NSEMO and Rapid Notify in an upcoming monthly newsletter. Research on FOIPA has also brought about recommendations for the registration form and some insight on NSEMO’s legal responsibilities.

Overall, it has been a very productive week. We are still anxiously awaiting responses from various contacts, and are hoping for information as quickly as possible. Our first journal entry was due today, Friday, February 3, 2012, and has hopefully given each team member a chance to reflect on the experience, especially as we now move forward with our project. Our next meeting will be Monday, February 6, 2012, during class time, when we will discuss progress made over the weekend, and hopefully get a vague idea of the content and style of our presentation. Until next time!

http://www.nsnews.com/technology/call+want/6095952/story.html