There is no doubt in our minds here at LSP that twitter is a revolution that we are only just beginning to realize the potential of.  We already leverage it for use in monitoring some of our larger, enterprise networks.  Now we see it has much larger and far reaching possibilities for good outside of mere technology & social networking.  This was proven this past week with the devasting eathquake in Haiti.  I am sure, like us, you watched the news reports and hopefully put your hand in your pocket to help out.  It was twitter that suddenly came to the for ground as a source of information and communication during what can only be described as a the complete failure of a country's infrastructure and communications grid.  Where a email or telephone call could not get through, people on the ground in Haiti fouind that a tweet would make it through.  All of a sudden, realtime news started to filter out of a disaster zone.  Whilst PC's and other energy hungry devices were without power, cell phones can be easily charged from a car battery and only need a fwe seconds of service to be able to send a tweet out.

It did not take people long to realize that Social Networking could be leveraged to not only provide insite and report on the events but be used to actually respond to the disaster with meanginful information and relay requests & responses around. 

Enter Project Epic. 

As their bio on Twitter states: "Bio EPIC is a research effort at CU and UCI to support the information needs by members of the public during times of mass emergency.".  The concept is simple enough - agree on a standard set of terms or codes to transmit that shorten the message whilst maintaining the sctructure and effectiveness of the information.

Some of the hashtags they are trying to standardize are:

#closed (to announce something is closed, e.g. school, road)
#contact (to include a username or other contact details)
#imok (to let people know you’re alright)
#injured (to report someone or yourself as injured)
#loc (to report your location or the location of a need/incident)
#need (to broadcast a need like food or water)
#offering/#offer/#have (to broadcast something you have available)
#open (to announce something is open, e.g. hospital, shelter, road, or shop)
#ruok (to inquire someone’s status)
#trapped (to report someone or yourself as trapped)

If you follow @epiccolorado you will not only help spread the word but see some examples of actual requests coming out of Haiti right now.  Also check out @RAMhaiti from the Band RAM who has been recharging his cell phone from a battery and trying to get information out to the world from inside the quake zone.

Please, if you have not already done so, consider donating to a charity of choice and helping those people effected.