The ghosts of FEMA's response to Hurricane Katrina still roamed the halls when I started 5 years after the storm made landfall in New Orleans. The reckoning had come for the agency to transform.
President Obama had appointed Craig Fugate as FEMA Administrator in 2009, a well-respected emergency manager from Florida. Among Craig's priorities: transform FEMA's operations and reputation to be known as a fast, responsive agency focused on making positive outcomes for Americans impacted by disasters. "Go big, go fast," was his refrain when disaster struck.
One of the strategies to bolster FEMA's reputation - engage with Americans through the platforms they use every day. That meant going big and going fast to accelerate FEMA's presence on fast-growing mediums including social media, websites, and mobile phones.
I helped lead FEMA's digital and mobile strategy during the "Golden Age" of Americans and organizations figuring what social media and smartphone apps meant for them. What was called “Web 2.0” at the time, eventually grew into a strategic, critical part of the agency’s identity to millions of Americans.
The job was incredibly fast-paced. It required dauntingly long hours. And it was wonderfully rewarding.
The role started as a one man band of growing the agency’s digital presence and expanding into new channels. As I demonstrated the value and potential of the work, I was able to hire nine specialized positions that became known as one of the best social teams in government. I’m proud our work helped transform FEMA’s reputation - an agency and a workforce that selflessly serves Americans during some of the darkest days of their lives.
Here is some of the work I'm most proud of.
Calling Out Netflix’s House of Cards and Going Viral
America’s #1 streaming show at the time, House of Cards, had a close encounter with FEMA’s burgeoning social presence. After the hit show referenced the federal disaster assistance process, I saw an opportunity to gather around the Twitter water cooler and set the record straight. What happened next was a wave of news headlines and social reaction that brought attention to FEMA as a culturally relevant and responsive agency.
Reusable assets for recurring disasters
Sadly, there’s no stopping the weather-related events that can claim lives and damage property. One of our content priorities was building a vast repository of ready-made content to be used when disaster struck anywhere in the country. Here is one example of ready-made and customizable graphics that visually tell FEMA’s role during large-scale wildfires.
Sharknado gets even weirder
Parlayed with the buildup to the release of “Sharknado 3: Oh Hell no!”, our team said “hell yes” to putting our content in front of sci-fi lovers everywhere. This was a fun creative execution (that gained some media attentino) where we bested the fictional Sharknado series by sharing real-world examples of wacky disasters. Content like this perfectly aligned with our social and digital strategy to bolster FEMA’s reputation as culturally relevant and responsive.
Weather Alerts in the FEMA App
This was the pinnacle achievement of my time as the product owner for FEMA’s mobile app. I led teams of developers, visual/UX designers, and data experts to integrate severe weather alerts. This accomplished two key objectives: it gave people a reason to continually check FEMA’s app when they received an alert, and it surfaced just-in-time safety content for Americans experiencing tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires, or hurricanes.
We added the weather alerts feature ahead of the Atlantic hurricane season, and the accompanying media push led to tens of thousands of new downloads. The app was regularly referenced by the President and White House staff as a critical step for Americans to build their resilience to disasters.
10 Years After Katrina: #Katrina10
The 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina provided an opportunity to FEMA and the entire federal government to demonstrate their transformation since the tragic storm. I not only led FEMA’s digital and creative approach, but shaped the entire federal government’s approach to messaging and visual assets. We successfully established #Katrina10 as the most popular hashtag that was used across media, government, and private sector content. Below are just a few examples of content published by FEMA and others that followed our lead.
