This document summarizes a webinar presented by Dr. Robert Chandler and Marc Ladin of Everbridge on creating effective messaging during times of crisis or information overload. They discuss how stress negatively impacts cognitive processing and communication. They recommend simplifying messages to 3 key points using short sentences, graphics and redundancy. Messages should be customized for different audiences and locations. Everbridge provides mass notification solutions to help organizations communicate effectively during emergencies through their elastic infrastructure and support for multiple communication channels.

1. Cutting Through the Clutter: Successful
Messaging in an Age of Information
Overload
Dr. Robert Chandler, Ph.D.
Director of the Nicholson School, University of Central Florida
Marc Ladin
Chief Marketing Officer, Everbridge

2. About Everbridge
• Everbridge empowers better decisions with
interactive communications throughout the
incident lifecycle to protect your most important
assets
• Recognized in the 2012 Gartner Magic
Quadrant on Emergency / Mass Notification as
a Leader in the industry
• Everbridge helps more than 30 million people
communicate in a crisis and connect on a daily
basis.
• The company’s notification platform is backed
by an elastic infrastructure model that delivers
near infinite scale, advanced mobile
connectivity, and real-time reporting and
analytics.
• More than 1,000 organizations in over 100
countries rely on Everbridge for their
emergency needs
2

3. Agenda
Agenda
Part 1: Presentation
• What factors “drown out” critical messages
• How to create effective message structure and content
• How to overcome message fatigue
Part 2: Q&A
Are you on Twitter? Follow us at @everbridge and
tweet insights with your friends during the webinar
using the hashtag #everbridge
3

4. Bracing for the 2010 the Clutter
Cutting Through
Hurricane Season
Successful Messaging in an
Age of Information Overload
Dr. Robert Chandler
University of Central Florida

5. Miscommunication at work
(2 March 2012) New York, NY [USA]
A well-intentioned Southwest Airlines pilot made an announcement
wishing an air traffic controller's mom (who was a passenger aboard
the flight) a happy birthday. Unfortunately, edgy passengers misheard
"mom on board" as "bomb on board," causing panic. A Southwest
spokesperson told WCBS 880 that the pilot clarified his
announcement, but the passengers were not placated, and two of
them complained to security officials after landing.
5

6. "Information overload"
• Term popularized by Alvin Toffler
• Refers to the difficulty a person can have
understanding an issue and making decisions that
can be caused by the presence of too much
information
• First mentioned in a
1964 book by Bertram
Gross, The Managing
of Organizations
6

7. "Information overload"
• Toffler's explanation of it presents information
overload as the Information Age's version of sensory
overload, a term that had been introduced in the
1950s
• "Information overload" and concept precede the
Internet and can be viewed from an information
sciences perspective or viewed as a
psychology phenomenon
7

8. Age of spam
• Information Overload is when you are trying to deal
with more information than you are able to process to
make sensible decisions
• It is now commonplace to be getting too many e-mails,
reports and incoming messages to deal with them
effectively.
8

9. Age of spam
• Vital information – during critical incidents may simply
become lost in the tsunami of information – filtered out,
ignored, or just adding to the sheer volume of
information noise that prevents effective decision
making at peak periods
9

10. Age of spam
• The root of the problem is that, although information
input, various communication modalities,
interconnection to data sources, computer processing
and memory is increasing all the time, the humans
that must use all of this information are not getting any
faster
10

11. How to better process information
• Human brains are still learning to deal with the juxtaposition of
millions of years of sensory input vs thousands of years of
reading/writing vs. recent high speed electronic information
flow
• How do we counteract this learning curve?
• Spending less time on gaining information that is nice to know and more
time on things that we need to know now.
• Focusing on quality of information, rather than quantity.
• Learning how to create better information.
• Single-tasking, and keeping the mind focused on one issue at a time.
• Spending time disconnected from interruptions (e.g. switch off e-mail,
telephones, Web, etc.) so you can fully concentrate for a significant
period of time on using the information you have to make a quality
decision.
11

12. How information is processed during a crisis
Determine what you should
communicate by assessing how people
understand, interpret, and act on
messages.
12

13. Factors affecting information processing
• Cognitive processing capabilities
• Perceived risk
• Information loading theory
• Attitude-behavioral consistency theory
• Balance theory
• Uncertainty reduction theory
• Situation awareness
• Selective attention
• Reaction time
• Semantic memory
13

14. Diminished Cognitive Capacities
During emergencies and
disasters, decisions must
typically be made
unexpectedly with little
advance notice, high
stress/distress context,
little time for thorough
deliberation, and often
with high (life and death)
negative consequence
risks

15. Cognitive-
Cognitive-processing capabilities
• Cognitive processing involves thinking, reasoning,
remembering, imagining, or learning
• Cognitive abilities typically decrease as stress
increases
• People possess different cognitive abilities and
limitations, which in turn affects decision-making
capabilities in a crisis
15

16. Selective attention
• Limits what people notice and remember during
a crisis
• Conscious vs. unconscious
16

17. Reaction time
Factors that affect reaction time include:
• Recognition, choice, number of stimuli, fatigue,
reasoning, remembering, imagining, or learning
17

18. Semantic memory
• Concept-based knowledge unrelated to specific
experiences, e.g. learning ABCs
• Semantic memory is memory of words, facts, and
ideas
• People’s semantic memories are usually assumed
to be similar (in contrast to episodic memory)
18

19. Communication Processing Impairment
Low Stress High Stress
Info processed at
Recipients Recipients
Info processed at -4 grade
process average process average
average grade (average) levels
of 7 messages of 3 messages
level (about 10th from low stress
per Grade in general per
(about 6th grade
communication population) communication
in general
episode episode
population)
Cognitive Abilities
Normal<-------------------- Diminished
Routine misinterpretation Increased Confused
Routine misunderstandings Inability to focus
Assumptions Easily distracted
Sequential Errors Increased Misinterpretation
Increased Misunderstandings
Unable to complete complex critical thinking
Robert C. Chandler, Ph.D. © 2010

20. Communication patterns
• Rules and norms • Asynchronous and
• Interruptions synchronous
• 47% of communication • Information seeking
events classified as • Active to passive
interruptions • Message variables
• Simultaneous • Grammar
communication • Syntax
interaction
20

21. Preventing miscommunication
• Honesty is the best policy.
• Honest and frank disclosure of risk allows constituents
to make informed decisions to protect themselves.
• Transparency can help eliminate panic.
• Messages must be consistent and coordinated.
• Coordinating messages and the release of information
can help slow the emergence of contradictions,
inconsistencies, and confusion.
21

22. Communicating in high-stress
high-
emergency situations
Truth #1: Stress negatively affects cognitive process
• Information–loading reductions (lower cognitive limits on
how much or how many things we can think about)
• Attitude–behavioral consistency interaction and
uncertainty anxiety effects
Use optimal Loading
Use optimal redundancy
More than information – your communication should address
uncertainty-anxiety
A poorly constructed message can contribute to misunderstanding,
unrealistic expectations, and/or confusion
Robert C. Chandler, Ph.D. © 2010

23. Communicating in high-stress
high-
emergency situations
Truth #2: Stress negatively affects comprehension Simplify
the message (lower reading level)
Reduce number of message points to
maximum of 3 points
Use short sentences
Use numbers carefully
Use pictures or graphics
Robert C. Chandler, Ph.D. © 2010

24. Communicating in high-stress
high-
emergency situations
Truth #3: Selective attention (including attention
blindness/deafness); reaction time changes (in most cases
these changes result in slowed reaction times) will change
the way that your audience receives, perceives, and thinks
about the message.
Robert C. Chandler, Ph.D. © 2010

25. Communicating in high-stress
high-
emergency situations
Truth #4: You can’t forget varied demographics
Customize the message – based on geographic location, languages
and economic resources
Messages should be written in the recipient's first language (L1)
Messages must be coordinated and consistent across all levels
Robert C. Chandler, Ph.D. © 2010

26. Incident Notification
Marc Ladin
Chief Marketing Officer, Everbridge
26

27. Incident Notification Solutions Address
Common Communication Challenges
• Reduce miscommunications • Communicate quickly, easily,
and control rumors with and efficiently with large
accurate, consistent messages numbers of people in minutes,
not hours, making sure that the
• Satisfy regulatory lines of communication are open
requirements with extensive and
complete reporting of • Receive feedback from your
communication attempts and messages by using polling
two-way acknowledgements from capabilities
recipients
• Ensure two-way
• Deliver refined, prepared , communications to get
timed messages to each pre- feedback from message
designated audience group, by receivers
scenario
27

28. Everbridge Advantages
Existing Notification Vendor’s
Infrastructure:
• Static algorithms based on capacity
limitations, not actual call volumes
during a disaster
- Failure-prone from unexpected
volumes of message output
- No ability to burst to meet wide-scale
system usage
The Everbridge Advantage:
• Near-infinite scale achieved
- Multiple redundant VoiP & PSTN
providers
- Elastic capacity accommodates
highest volume of outbound calls in
the industry

29. Everbridge’s Elastic Infrastructure Model
• What is it?
• Elastic infrastructure integrates
with multiple, redundant on-
demand communications
providers
• Provides near infinite scale,
capacity, performance and
processing resources
• Dynamically looking into
performance and proactively
enhance the performance of
notifications delivered
• Provable, measurable
performance through
Everbridge’s mass recipient
emulator

30. Advanced Connectivity for a Mobile World
• Communicate from anywhere, • Support for popular mobile
under any circumstances or platforms (Apple iOS, Android, &
conditions BlackBerry)
• Low-bandwidth optimized to
ensure delivery in adverse
conditions
30

31. Contact Information
The third annual International Crisis
Thank you for joining us today! and Risk Communication
Conference is being hosted by the
Nicholson School of
Communication at UCF on March 4-
6, 2013. Plan now to attend this
Dr. Robert Chandler exceptional event. For more
information please visit:
Robert.chandler@ucf.edu http://icrcommunication.com/
Marc Ladin
Marc.ladin@everbridge.com Everbridge Resources
On-Demand Webinars:
www.everbridge.com/webinars
White papers, case studies and more
Reminder www.everbridge.com/resources
Everbridge Insights webinars
qualify for Continuing Education
Activity Points (CEAPs) for DRII Follow us:
certifications. Visit www.drii.org
to register your credit. www.everbridge.com/blog
@everbridge
Item Number (Schedule II): 26.3
Activity Group: A facebook.com/everbridgeinc
1 Point for each webinar