CAPCOG 2026 Recap: The Biggest Alerting & Warning Lessons from Texas

What happens when emergency managers, public safety leaders, universities, public health officials, law enforcement, and alerting authorities from across Texas come together for two days of intensive training?

In this episode of  The Alerting Authority, Jeannette Sutton and Eddie Bertola break down their experience at CAPCOG 2026, where they trained professionals from across Texas on emergency communications, alerting policies, message design, public warning research, and real-world emergency scenarios.

Topics include:

✅ Why "we'll figure it out when something happens" is not an emergency communication strategy
✅ Building alerting policies that work under pressure
✅ The importance of emergency authorization and reducing notification delays
✅ Cross-jurisdictional coordination and mutual aid agreements
✅ Message design based on scientific research
✅ The Warning Lexicon, Post-Alert Lexicon, and Message Design Dashboard
✅ Active shooter communication strategies
✅ Writing effective all-clear messages
✅ Supporting access and functional needs populations
✅ Practical exercises that improved confidence and reduced fear among alerting professionals

The discussion highlights how training, preparation, and evidence-based practices help communities communicate more effectively during emergencies. Participants worked through real-world scenarios ranging from severe weather to active threats while learning how to craft clear, actionable warning messages.

Whether you're an emergency manager, public safety professional, dispatcher, university official, or anyone responsible for crisis communications, this episode offers valuable lessons that can improve your alerting program.

To learn more about what was discussed and what you can do to better understand alerting checkout TheWarnRoom.com and TheAlertingAuthority.com

#AlertingAuthority #EmergencyManagement #PublicSafety #EmergencyAlerts #CAPCOG #WirelessEmergencyAlerts #EmergencyCommunications #CrisisCommunication #AlertWarning #EmergencyPreparedness

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Okay. Hi, I'm Jeanette Sutton.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

And I'm Eddie Bertola.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

And we welcome you to another episode of the Alerting Authority. And as always, we encourage you to subscribe, follow, listen, and most importantly, participate in these podcasts. We want your questions, your concerns, ideas, problems, your pain points, and your success stories so we as alerting authorities can better do our jobs and make our community safer.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

That's right. And today we're going to be talking about kind of one of the things that we just participated in. And so this episode is going to be sponsored by the alerting authority who did this training and everything. And the reason it is because, and I hope if you are watching, you can see my air quotes. If not, sense my sarcasm, because we'll figure it out when something happens is not an emergency communication strategy. We help organizations strengthen their alerting programs through practical training, governance and policy reviews, message design, exercises, and real-world guidance that prepares you to make good decisions under pressure. When every second counts, confidence should come from competence, not crossed fingers. So that's from the alerting authority. But Jeanette, we just came back from Texas. So I love it. I hope you enjoyed it. I know I did, and we actually made it back without weird weather issues this time.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Right. No, my my area was receiving multiple wireless emergency alerts for flash flooding. We got a ton of rain, but my my little town just north of Albany, while we got a lot of notifications, I don't think anybody in my neighborhood ended up having flooding in their in their backyards. Um, but yeah, there was a lot of rain that came down. But in Texas, beautiful, hot, humid, um, but big sky and just a real easy couple of travel days. It was great.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Yeah, and and again, everybody who was there, it was fantastic. So I guess just to do the first one is for those listening, like what was the Texas thing? Well, it was um Capcog 2026, which is essentially a group of counties, and Texas is is separated or or put into different regions that help with their alerts and warnings, um, other representation. And this was the Capitol region, and it's uh a group that you and I have talked to previously, but uh they're always amazing hosts, and I think we get into some pretty fun stuff. Um, but any any thoughts for that? I want to pull up a picture of our host here.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yeah, you know, I think one of the things that I really enjoy in preparing for going to these different training events is talking with our hosts. And Martin Ritchie is he's gotta be one of my favorite people to talk with about alerts and warnings. He's so passionate about the topic and has spent so many years of his life trying to deliver the key information that we've been emphasizing. Um, it's so it's just always fun to talk with Martin. And Dee Harrison is a fantastic organizer, collaborator. It just boy, you can tell that she is a force of nature when you stand and talk with her. Um so it's just great to get to go and visit with them and talk with them in preparation.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

100%. And in case you're watching, Dee, I don't know if you can see. I have it. It's a book that she got me, um, The 1942 Crux of War. I am super excited to get into it. Um and just thank you for everything.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

That was a big book. It's very uh it's like several inches of of pages, thousands of pages.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

I didn't know if it was one of those. It was so big, a book that you like open it and it's really like a cabinet inside. Because this could fit anything you needed. It is such a big uh book. But like I said, I it's fun. I love um research and reading about so many fun topics, and she found that one for me, and it was it's wonderful. Like I said, they're they're fantastic hosts.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so it was great. Uh, you know, going to Texas, we got to interact with people from across the capital area, council of governments in the region, um, and not only people within Austin, Texas, but uh counties beyond Austin. Austin, we had um Bastrop County was there, um Amarillo, I believe, had a representative Houston was there. So like there were places represented from across the state that that made the trip down to spend two days with us. Um and it had a real diverse um participation also, public health, universities and colleges, um, local alerting authorities, um, police, fire, EMS, um county, state representatives. We even had the state amber coordinator with us for two days. Uh so it was it was a really great diverse mix of people, um, which really I think makes the conversation much more rich because they're bringing their expertise from their local context.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

Yeah, I think it's actually something that is missed often in other training uh because you might gather, you know, the term alerting authorities. I know most everyone listening is like, well, I'm an alerting authority or I work with an alerting authority, but an alerting authority is is someone who has a connection or the ability to access IPOS, the federal system. And that's the term used to someone who has access to it. But there were many people in this room that, and it's funny, we have the picture here. This was one of the breakout rooms packed. Um, but then in the in the larger room, a lot of people don't have access to the federal tools and resources directly. You know, they can try to access them through a county or through someone else. Um, but yet they are still deeply involved in emergency communication. And um one of the things that was brought up that I think we're gonna touch on in just a little bit, but too often I think that we we don't bring everybody together because like colleges and universities, they have their campus, or as we heard from a few, they have multiple campuses they're responsible for. And those reside in cities, they reside in counties, and you have to be able to have that understanding of what the other entity is gonna do so that if you're putting out critical information across a university campus, you need to coordinate with that city, with that county to make sure you're not conflicting or or pushing out information that's gonna, that's gonna potentially hurt um individuals in a way where they're gonna get confused and not be able to make a good decision.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was it was, I think, a lot of learning and opportunities for connection also because we had built in quite a few breaks for people to to share with each other and get to know each other. And both days had a lot of interactive activities included. So let's let's just jump right in. This is a little bit different from our other training that we did in Texas last year, where it was just one day all in the same room the entire time, a lot of information. This time we did two days and we broke students into breakout rooms so that they had time with you discussing policy and time with me discussing message design. Um and so you do you want to go over the agenda real quick?

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Yeah, you bet. And I'm gonna try to, for those that are on YouTube and stuff, let me try to make it just a little bigger. Um for if not, we'll go through it. We're not gonna go through a step-by-step at this time, you know, we had lunch. At this time, no. But but one thing that um I know Jeanette and I talk a lot about is how to make training effective and impactful for wherever we go. And that's one of the fun things that, you know, when we work with an organization is we we try to customize it um to their specific needs. And everybody is different. And so when we work with Capcog, for example, you you take a look at what are the needs and how can we do this in a way where we can keep people engaged and really break them down into groups small enough where we can have some of these conversations. So obviously we we meet all together and they get to meet us. And there were people there last year, right? It was fun to see some of them. Well, that actually sounded bad. The people that were there, it was fun to see some of them. It was fun to see everybody who was there last year. Um, but for those that um weren't there last year, I mean, it was the first time they met you, um, first time they met they met me, and being able to kind of start that uh process because I do think trust needs to build if you're gonna be listening to somebody for two days and relying on what they're saying. And so I think, you know, we had a we had a really good opening of just establishing the purpose. And then what's fun this year is yeah, we did the breakouts. And so, you know, after that group work, I mean we split up and then we had some different things that we talked about, brought everybody back together, and then, you know, concluded with some really interesting questions actually, um, within our fear factor one. And then for for day two, it was similar where you know, we started all together and then it, you know, it again we had our breakouts. But for day one and day two, at least for me, and I I'll talk about the day one, if you want to talk about day two. This was really the foundation, uh, day one. We were trying to help people understand what are the core thoughts, principles, ideas, research that you need to be successful. Um, often people want to jump far ahead and they're just like, well, let me do this. We really believe, and I know for me, you need to have the base knowledge and understanding to be successful. There are amazing tools out there, but you you need to start at the beginning. And it's not a bad thing to start at the beginning. Um, and in fact, it can be fun and and hopefully um it will just help you be that much more successful um with day two. But is that a fair assessment of day one? And how would you write day two?

SPEAKER_00 11:30

I think so. I think that's that is a great assessment of day one. Day two, um, you know, we have all of this uh foundational information that we've just spent the day talking about. And we when we go into our groups, it is time to work. Because now you have the the knowledge and the tools, and you've thought overnight about things that you might need to have prepared for the second day, because now you know that you're gonna be challenged about well, what is my policy? Do I understand how I write messages, how my agency writes messages? And you bring that into the classroom with you so that you're prepared to go through the exercises on day two. Um, so yeah, day two was putting it into practice. And um, I know for for my groups, boy, we spent most of our time working. So um, but what were the what were your specific goals in your breakouts for day one?

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Yeah, um, so day one, uh, we we focused on policy a lot. And I tell you, if you want people to fall asleep, just say you're gonna talk about policy. And I it there have not been many experiences previously in my training throughout law enforcement that where they're like, hey, we have a policy discussion where anybody says, wow, I can't wait, you know? Um, but for this one, we we definitely attacked it in a different way. Um, because well, in this one, not to give it away, um, but essentially we went through uh a scenario and we talked from beginning to end without getting too granular with with specific scenario stuff, but how would this happen in your jurisdiction? And then what's fun is we took that same scenario and we basically just broke everybody's policies apart and said, well, have you thought through this or this piece over here? And you know, one of the I think important things to do is to look at past events that are real. And unfortunately, often they're past tragedies. And you try to think, what can we learn or take away from that so that we don't experience that in the future? And everybody's on board for that. Nobody wants to go through the same horrible thing twice. But what we found, and this was pretty clear um throughout the training, is that one, a lot of organizations did not have specific policies at all for alerts and warnings. They had some procedures, they had some practices, um, a lot of the handshake deals, and others just did it. And then the ones with policies, they they were so lean that as we talked about things, um, one thing that I hit over and over again because it's such an important lesson learned, is you need to have a clause in your policy that gives emergency authorization for either dispatch, the incident commander, whatever is decided to give approval for an alert if the normal approver cannot be reached. And that might that might be like, well, of course, why wouldn't anybody do that? Well, in many policies, and in fact, the vast majority that I've seen, it doesn't list it. And so what you have are delays or the paralysis moment, and we can go through some tragic events where alerts were not sent in a timely manner because the phone call or phone calls were made to the approver or approvers and they didn't pick up because again, people miss a call, and and that's not the point of saying you have to answer. But what policies did not have is if that first person isn't there, the second person isn't there, can I send out the alert? And we have the tragic events where they weren't sent out. Um, so that was something that definitely stuck and people saw that. The other really fun part was the access and functional needs groups. And everybody is on board to make sure it's like, hey, we need to provide information in a timely manner. But when we took that fun scenario, which was in one was a hurricane, the other one was a severe winter storm, um, with with big ice buildup. I mean, they made it good. What they realized is they hadn't put into their their policy how they're going to work with all of these different populations independently. It was the check the box syndrome of, oh, we have this, we're gonna write a message, we're gonna write this message and send it out without really any of the detail. So I think it was super fun. And I'm I'm generally never the scribe for this. So it's fun having the people in the class come up and really just the board looks so messy at the end because they're like, I didn't think of this, or we don't have this. So I liked it.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

That's great. Do you have any specific takeaways other than um the having the additional people in your notification chain and consider and thinking about access and functional needs? Are there other highlights you want to want to share?

SPEAKER_02 16:47

Absolutely. Uh one thing that was really good, and it's something that I know, Jeanette, we've learned before is there's so much information that you're trying to convey in a short amount of time. Um so um Jeanette and I have developed slides and other other graphics to help because we want people to engage in conversations. And sometimes if if people are too busy trying to take notes or copy what's on the screen, it's it's really difficult. And so there definitely were different areas of policy related. If we're talking about this, this module or day one of setting the real foundation. And I I think there was a desire for people to actually go and this is kind of sad to say, but I've been in this position to actually read the policy, whatever they have. Um, most policy that I have experienced, I mean, sits on the shelf or it's in the computer and it's there if you need it, but we act in our day-to-day without generally referencing it. So there was a desire for people to actually take a look at it. Um, the other big piece I would say is the cross-jurisdictional support. We're not alone. We shouldn't feel alone. And Jeanette, if you're the mayor of one amazing city, I'm the mayor of another city and we are next-door neighbors to each other, we need to put in policy, whether it's through an MOU or something, so that if I'm gonna do something that's that's gonna possibly impact you because a message goes to my jurisdictional border, I need to keep you informed. And and I would hope that you would do the same for me. And then the other part is if I'm experiencing something that's that's just really bad and I can't care for my community with the communication with alerts and warnings, I want written down in an agreement that I can hand that over to you and that you can help me by doing my messaging while I'm trying to take care of my family or you know, whatever else is happening, and that I would be there for you. And that ever everybody wants that. I mean, you heard all the Texas Proud and all those fun things, but again, unless it's actually written in policy, it doesn't it doesn't exist. Um and and so that was I think something there were so many takeaways with that, a lot of really good notes and graphics um that I that I really hope people are gonna take to their their next area. But enough about my first module. I mean, when the doctor is in in Texas, um for your breakout, I guess what were the specific ways that you tried to attack that that foundation, right? Getting those basic principles in.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Boy, I, you know, the the professor was definitely in. Uh I mean, I welcomed everybody to the breakout room, and there it was a room that held 50 um and the all the seats were full. Um I said, welcome to class, because there was going to be a lot of time of listening. And on the first day, there was a lot of listening, but we also um we also worked through some scenarios to the the it was the same scenario for the whole module, um, but they started by working in in pairs to write uh their first message without any instruction. And then we we jumped right into the research. And I talked about the warning response model, which is our foundational model for alerts and warnings, and how we understand people's um uh their risk perceptions, the way that they process information that comes in an alert and warning, the um, the contents that are necessary in an effective warning, the style of an effective warning, how people receive that information. And we worked through that whole process so that when they looked at their first message a second time, they could evaluate it based upon the research. And so we had them turn to each other and share their messages with each other and get feedback on how well they had done or what they would like to have improved a little bit. And um, and then we moved on because there was still a lot more to cover. So after we had covered that foundational information, um, we moved on and started talking about um post-alert messages and why that's such an important piece of closing the communication loop and how it relates to over-alerting. Um, my research team at the University of Albany has done some really cool research and we've published everything that we've studied. Um, and so every every piece of the day one related back to a research study that students can download and read. Um, and it's integrated right into the material. And by connecting over-alerting and post-alert messaging, I think people started to see the importance of closing that communication loop with a good message and the importance of helping people to know that they can come out of their shelters that they've been sheltering in, they can return to normal, they can conclude the actions that they were taking, and how the way that we structure those all-clear messages is just as important for maintaining the trust and credibility of an organization as that initial message. I know you and I have both shared the story of a campus that issued a shelter-in-place message during a swatting incident. And the president was giving a press conference at the end of the day, and they had not told the students that they could come out of their shelters. And the importance of closing that communication loop and helping those students to know the threat has passed and it's safe to come out is just uh it cannot be overstated in thinking through the whole process because alerting is not just a single message, it's about phased communication over time. Um, so after they learned about post-alert messaging, they wrote a post-alert message, an all-clear message for that initial scenario. And then we moved on in our last amount of time together to write a message for missing persons and learning about the structure and the contents of an effective missing person message based on the research again that my lab has been doing, um, and writing that last message again in in pairs. Um so it was a lot of a lot of listening, but there was absolutely time to apply directly and immediately that learning to to a scenario that went throughout the course on on day one.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

So did you, I mean, you and I talk about the research a lot. You you bring up all the time, um, hey, you know, there are links to this. Like it, we're we've made it available to you. Please, please. Were there people in the in the day one breakouts that you saw that had already seen it, or was it kind of a surprise and very new to many of them?

SPEAKER_00 24:21

I think it was a surprise to a lot of them. Uh, it was more of a surprise in day two. It was a surprise to me, at least, that um people weren't familiar with the resources that I shared in day two, but I'll get to that in a minute. Um, but um, yeah, a lot of people said that this was information that they were really excited to have at their fingertips. I mean, it is my my, I believe that my role as a public scholar is to translate the research into tools that can be used not only in practice, but it becomes a tool that you can take to your elected officials to support the recommendations that you are bringing to them about how to do this effectively. That the guest practice, the the idea that you have about how to write an effective message does not necessarily match what the research says. So by putting the research into your hands, you have that information to take to people and say, this is the reason that we're doing it this way, because it is based in science and the scientists have studied this extensively, and we now have this research record to build on.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

So for day one, were there any other moments that just stood out that were fun or just that were like, hey, I'm gonna remember this one for a while?

SPEAKER_00 25:44

I think that um one of the things that I really loved about day one that flowed into day two also was that students were working together not only to craft the messages, but to also evaluate each other. And that's how we structured the evaluation because you know, when a classroom is full of 50 students, like I can't go around and give individual evaluation to every single message that they're writing. But by teaching students how to write messages and then asking them to look at messages that their peers are writing, not only are they identifying their own places for improvement, but they're providing suggestions to others. And so that that feedback loop becomes stronger because they can see where their own gaps are as they're looking at other people's complete or incomplete messages. So that stands out to me as a great learning.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

I'd say for me, I really for me, a a litmus test, if you will, of how well something is going are the conversations that happen during breakouts. I'm sorry, during breaks, during lunches, or after. And I mean, sometimes people just scatter. Like they're like, I'm out, I'm done. There were so many really um thoughtful questions and um concerns or ideas brought forward. Um, and I know we got to participate in many conversations with so many people, and I hope that we are able to address a lot of those those concerns or questions about their jurisdictions. And it really just goes to show people care about their communities because that's that's what's coming up is hey, well, I've had this situation. What do you think? Or what would you do, or what tools and resources uh are available because they want to do well for their community. Um, I gotta throw out um uh just a thank you because we often ask people to participate too, and sometimes you just don't know what's gonna happen. And I have to throw out um for those on YouTube, this is definitely one. And I hope you will see these pictures on social media. Um, this is David. Thank you, David. Thank you for stepping up, for walking up to the front of the room and being uh just giving us the chance to dress you up as a mad scientist so that um you can help help us with an important point. And then the other mad scientists that we had there, Blake, just thank you. Both of them were great. It was a really fun um exercise that we did to really help demonstrate um kind of the the power of alerts and warnings, but also the impact and and the importance of of making sure that we get it right or we're good stewards of the tool because it's often hard to take stuff back. So don't need to give more away. It was just a ton of fun. And and again, I think it shows how it's just great when people are are participating. It definitely um it just makes it fun. It makes it fun for us.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

I have more fun with that.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

It was it was fun, yeah. So what about day two? And then we move into day two, and it's all about practice. So what were your specific goals and what did your module look at look like for day two?

SPEAKER_02 29:14

Um for day two, uh, you know, it's one of those I we took the policy stuff, but then we really started to look at some of the nuances that we deal with. And again, I mentioned access functional needs, um, multi-lingual issues with with how your alerts are going out, um, how geographies change with alerting, how tools can change. And so we took a look at a few different scenarios, and the purpose was not to, you know, write the effective message because that was in a different module. The purpose, though, was to say, okay, if I'm in situation A, I need to be able to send this message, but then look, my circumstances are changing. How do I adjust to it? Do I increase the area? Do I change the tool that I'm sending? Like the information with. So if I'm going with opt-in systems of emails um or again a SMS message to people that have said yes, is there a point in the situation where I need to adjust that? And I'm gonna leverage some some IPAUS tool, whatever it may be. If if I have an area that doesn't get good cell reception, so does that limit what I can do? Can I still send out critical information? And so going through all the different scenarios, we worked through some of the challenges that come up. And again, after each one, of course, we tied it into, hey, that's great. Do you guys have this written in your policy where you can make these changes or you have access? Um, how often do you train this way? And it was fun to see the first couple. Obviously, people are like, ooh, I'm not sure. Can I? Should I? But toward the end, you get the people that are just like, okay, yep, we're gonna adjust. We're taking this message, we're gonna expand it now to this geography so that we can hit all of these individuals. Um, we go over the percentages of opt-in versus opt-out um of people who are likely to receive your message, right? And they're like, we feel in this situation it should be this, and then we move forward. And we did that um for multiple scenarios, minus one scenario, um, which I think we'll talk about in just a little bit. Um but for I'd say the main purpose of mine was to help people work through it and then help them understand that it's they they should feel empowered as situations change because they should have that knowledge and ability to to adjust to whatever's out there and and send an appropriate message. So a lot of very good discussions and um I hope it, I hope it was good for everybody. So what about you? How did your step change in day two?

SPEAKER_00 32:06

Well, day two, the professor was back, but um we started by um a really brief review of the warning response model, and then I jumped right into the tools that are available. And this is where I think I was really surprised because the the primary tool that I encourage people to download is the warning lexicon. And it has been downloaded from the Natural Hazards Review, which is a journal, um, more than 18,000 times, which means we have thousands of people who have not seen it, of course. But I was surprised that so many people in both breakouts had not heard of the warning lexicon. So um I shared with them how that was developed, why it was developed, and how to get it. And for listeners who haven't gotten it, it's a there's a bit.ly link that you can go to. It's bit.ly um forward slash warning lexicon, capital W and capital L, or you can just look it up on the Natural Hazards Review, or you can go to my website, thewarnroom.com, and go to my resources to get it. Um and students can download the supplemental material that provides templates for 48 hazards. So um once they had that, um, then we moved on. I shared with them the post alert lexicon, which has templates for 50 hazards. Um, and then I shared with them the research that's ongoing for the missing persons lexicon and how that one will go out for review in another couple of weeks. So that we'll have three different documents that can be printed out and live on your desk in a three-ring binder, or can be downloaded and put into your personal files as a PDF. But then I showed them the message design dashboard. And this was where I could see people's eyes just like become much bigger and much more excited about the task of writing a warning message because the if you haven't seen the MDD, um, it is it at the time that it was launched, it's been three years now, um, it was truly, it is still truly revolutionary. It is the only software that I am aware of that actually allows you to walk through the creation of a message step by step, requiring you to include all of the key contents that are necessary for a warning message. And it even gives you the contents to put into the message based on the hazard. So it's it makes your job so much easier. So after we went through the tools and people went and downloaded their documents or got access to the MDD using the multi-factor authentication, because that is a little challenging sometimes. Um, again, they paired up and we went through scenarios, the same scenarios that your group went through, but in this case, they were working only on the messages. And so they were assigned to write a 360-character message and a 90-character message for um in some for some scenarios, it was the storm is coming, so you have to get out a preparedness-related message for your more vulnerable populations, or the event is happening right now, so you need to send out a take-action kind of a message. And when the threat had ended, they had to create a message for that post alert indicating that the threat had had passed and that people were no longer needing to take the recommended actions. So they practiced writing. And they probably spent about an hour working through multiple scenarios, uh, again, working in small groups. And then when they finished writing their multiple messages, they had to exchange with each other and they were given rubrics for evaluation. And I walked around the room and I could see people giving stars to each other or giving really critical feedback of like, you're using jargon and you need to stop that. Or you would, if you change this little thing in your message, you'd have a little bit more space for including this additional information. Lots of conversations about, you know, the scenarios are so loaded with so much information. How do you choose what are the key protective actions that you put in that imminent threat message so that you're you're getting people who are in the most danger to know what they can do to protect themselves? And they were discussing that in groups as they were working through the message creation and then exchange and and evaluate each other, um, which again brings just as much learning as the creation of the message itself, because you get to see how other people are addressing these different issues and um learning in bringing that knowledge internally so that they see how how they can do it better next time. So building that foundation and just integrating the use of tools into their practices. It was it was a fantastic breakout session. I I loved seeing students working together and learning how to use these tools that are freely available to them. And we will make sure to put those links into the show notes so that anyone who wants to get them can get them. Always you can find them in the warnroom.com.

SPEAKER_02 37:34

Yeah, I it's interesting. So once they've been through both of our modules or our breakouts, um, you and I made the decision based on some of their feedback from day one. As and we had a module of Fear Factor where um we pulled them live, you know, using technology, which actually worked. Isn't that funny? All our technology worked.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

It did in this.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

And again, not that we have problems normally, but that's one of the jokes, is right, it's you plan for all these things and then you get bugs in it. But everything worked really well. Um and we pulled them as to their level of fear of potentially making a mistake, of not doing something correctly and impacting the lives of others. I mean, it's or fear of being fired or having some negative impact to their job based on mistakes. And so it it definitely caused fear. So um we looked at a few different events, and one that popped up as being um not like overall, but it's out of the selection we gave, one that caused them the most anxiety um or fear was an active threat, like an active shooter or something else. And um, so Jeanette, you're the one that suggested it to me, and it absolutely made sense is to do that final scenario instead of just in breakouts, but all together, so that we could work through it. And one thing that stood out to me was they'd been through the foundational exercises and training, and then they went through your course for message um design and development, and mine for understanding that the policy piece. When we asked them to work through this, I was amazed how well they did and how quickly they put together um some messages. And if you you ask them to do it all individually, I mean just write a message they could work together, and then you gave them a time limit because this is one that you you can't just sit around and and truthfully, it's one that you need to have a template for and be ready to go when it comes to uh ex unfortunately, as we deal with active shooters, it's not, oh, let me open up my computer screen and start typing stuff out. Um, this is definitely one where you need to have advanced work done. But we asked them to do it. And at least for me, I was amazed at the products that they were bringing forward. But what are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 40:02

No, it was great. Um if we we gave them five minutes and we counted down. I let them know when two minutes had passed, when three minutes had passed, when four minutes, and then when it was time to be done, it's like computers closed. You better send that message because people's lives are on the line. Um, and so I called on four people who were willing to come up front and share their messages. And again, technology worked. We plugged their computers into the cord. It went up on the big screen. I know this sounds like we're making a big deal out of this, but so often we're we have to just use the whiteboard and markers. And but in this case, this beautiful facility um run by uh a the University of Texas, Texas, Austin, a JJ Pickle Auditorium. Um all the tech worked. And um, so I think my favorite message had to have been the first one that was shared. And I think it was Williamson County. And um, so Trey, if you're listening, good job. This was a joint a joint effort because two people came up, but they used the MDD and they built a message that was just under 360 characters. It was complete. Words that needed to be in capitals to really call your attention to it because difference in text matters. Our eyes are drawn to things that are different. So using all caps for keywords. Um, my my eyes were drawn to it. There was no jargon. They didn't say run, hide, fight, they didn't say avoid, deny, defend. They didn't say use the active shooter protocol or anything that would be internal jargon to their agency. They used plain language, and it was if a message can be beautiful, it was a beautiful message. It was, it was the kind of thing that had if I received something like that, I would know who was sending it to me, what the threat was, where the threat was located, when it was happening, and what I should do. And it was it was great.

SPEAKER_02 42:03

Okay, you guys, for those that weren't there, it made such an impact. I mean, I could see Jeanette's face to where I stopped what we were doing and I put the comparison into the great British pickoff. Because I was like, I just felt like Jeanette was gonna walk up on stage and like, this is a handshake. This is definitely a handshake. And it and she did. It really was like um, and again, she and I are definitely the judges. Whenever you see us, we each we each represent different ones, and I'll let you decide who's who. Um I guess I gave it away though if I said you're the one that did the handshake.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

Uh we did, but that means that you're the one who wears the bright colored jewelry.

SPEAKER_02 42:50

Hey, you know what? She is the shining light, okay? Uh but it's I I absolutely agree. I thought they did a great job. I I think another standout one um for me out of the messages what came from our colleges and universities. And it's not necessarily like their their one message was, you know, like everything. What I really liked was they did have a solid message that they were gonna send out through their internal system because they do not have access to um iPods.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Right.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

But what they had also was an email. They also had all the other tools that they have with messages ready to go that were gonna act as support for context, for additional information. Um, and they they had it ready. And and it really, so the representative that was up there um was there in attendance with their chief of police, and you could tell it's something they've talked about. And he even said that they've had to use it before for you know something that thankfully didn't. actually happen, but but but they were ready. And so I I really am impressed when people not only have an initial message, but then again, whether it is um email desktop notifications or other audio messages for PA or anything that in a in a school, college, university that you may have, they they had it ready. And it was cool to see.

SPEAKER_00 44:27

Yeah. Yeah. I I I enjoyed that that last exercise and students were really engaged and um participating and bringing us some excellent messages for discussion. It was great.

SPEAKER_02 44:41

It's fun to see like what would be considered their hardest or the thing that causes them the most fear for them to see so much success going through it faster than I think they could even think that they could do it. And it was just solid. So yeah it was great.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

Yeah. Makes a huge difference when you have the tools and the training. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:06

Go for it. I mean is there anything else from this?

SPEAKER_00 45:09

No, I don't I you know the only thing I want to emphasize is that um for anybody who's listening and they're like how do we get something like this for our county or our region or our agency like reach out to us. You know, we have conversations with communities regularly about forming a custom training. We're working on doing something just for law enforcement. We've been talking about doing something just for dispatch and um you know so we work with small business large businesses, small businesses. You know we can address the needs that your organization has and your community has by working with you to help to design something. It doesn't have to be two days doesn't even have to be in person. But bringing the information to the people who are responsible for writing messages and delivering messages it just makes such a huge difference in their their confidence to be able to do this when when the time comes to send that message and it's a highly uncertain situation where there's a lot of fear and stress.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

I agree and and just I'll throw that invitation out just like Jeanette I we appreciate those who do reach out to us. We are very accessible people please yeah if you have comments questions suggestions let us know what you heard from us about Capcog was based on conversations that we had with with them. And so we look forward to having more with you. And like I said we just wanted to take a moment and share um kind of how it went and and really we're grateful for that experience and we hope that the things that people took away from this are going to help communities that represent millions of people and and that's ultimately where I think our our goals are focused on is is trying to help that one person who is crafting that message so that they can in turn help um their communities just understand what they need to do to be safe and just have that um that they just feel better. And I think that's so important for communities passing through any type of emergency is to help people feel calm even when things are are really rough.

SPEAKER_00 47:34

So thank you Capcog and anything else Jeanette nope I look forward to going back to Texas and enjoying some more Texas barbecue and and good times.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

Perfect well thank you everybody for listening this is the Alerting authority and every second has a story and you just got to hear part of Capcog's so thank you for joining us and we'll see you next time