talkingDigital

In 2010, my daughter began having mysterious health problems. We spent a lot of time traveling to Children’s Hospital in Denver while doctors tried to pinpoint a diagnosis and treatment.

My family is active in the community, and my wife and I each have a lot of family members. My daughter had her own group of friends, too. All of these worried people wanted regular updates about our medical situation.

We felt loved, but it was extremely difficult keeping up with all the phone calls and emails. Communicating with everyone became almost as much of a burden as the health problems.

Finding a better way

I used to help snowbirds create free blogs so they wouldn’t have to spend time writing letters and emails to friends and family back home. I would teach people how to post pictures and updates, and answer common questions about their day-to-day adventures. That’s one way to keep a group of people updated.

When my daughter got sick, I realized there was another way: Facebook is a built-in crisis management tool.

What Facebook can do

In addition to allowing individuals to create accounts for online personal interaction, the platform also provides the ability to set up groups and pages.