Blog Friday November 21
Eric Gundersen
strategizer

Eric co-founded Development Seed more than five years ago and leads our communications strategy. One of Eric’s talents is seeing the big picture. This, combined with his ability to spot trends and shifts before practically everyone else, helps him come up with many of our brilliant ideas. His leadership and motivational skills turn many of these ideas into real communication tools that enable our clients to do more.

Archive
London Explosions Covered by Civic Journalism
Jul 7, 2005
by Eric Gundersen

First, I want to tell all of our readers in England that our thoughts are with you, and with the victims and their families.

It looks like camera phones are playing a role in the coverage of this disaster. The BBC is featuring shots from camera phones that were taken after the explosions and of the evacuation of the Tube. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4660563.stm

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3 Comments
NYC is now jamming mobile phone signals
Jul 12, 2005
Christian

New York City started jamming mobile phone signals in some places out of the same fear -- that people could use them to trigger attacks. This seems very counter-productive to me.

See this article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4674731.stm

Or they could be shut down on purpose
Jul 8, 2005
Seed Friend

A safe move in this case could be pretty debilitating in other situations.

 

From the AFP:

"There was speculation, though, that British authorities might have deliberately blocked mobile signals on the transport network fearing further blasts which could potentially be set off by cellular calls.

 

'This could be because the MO (modus operandi) in Madrid was by setting off devices with mobile phones,' said terrorism expert Michael Clarke, referring to the Madrid train bombings last year which killed 191 people."

 

For full article, click here.

But what about the networks?
Jul 7, 2005
Seed Friend

Several times on this blog civic activism or journalism through the use of cell phones have come up. The attacks in London today show a continuing problem with this - that when too many people are using their cell phones in one place, the networks go down. Today is an example of that happening, and as is September 11, 2001. This can make rescue and relief efforts more difficult, but what else can it effect?

More and more organizations are mobilizing people through cell phones. Two examples are the media organization that helped organize the protests in Ecuador that eventually led to the country’s change in leadership and organizations getting people to call their elected officials regarding Supreme Court nominees at a time they set. I’m curious to find out if these organized civic actions will bring down the networks too (and if that would be considered a success), and how advocacy groups will get around it.