MessageNet Connections unifies safety, security, and communications systems where so many other products provide just one of these. Why is the unification of these systems so important?
Users only have to log in to one system to control and send messages to any connected device, whether it’s for safety, security, or every day communications. In addition, as a unified system, three user interfaces are replaced by just one, reducing training and increasing user confidence with the system.
Because they’re connected, devices don’t have to compete to be heard. With Connections, an emergency message will pause any other messages so it’s guaranteed to reach people in a timely fashion.
Too often, an emergency system goes un-needed for so long that people forget how to use it. Connections is used for both emergency and every day communications, so when an emergency situation arises, users are already familiar with the system from using it every day, so they can respond more quickly.
Because the unification of safety, security, and communication facilitates daily use, it improves the return on investment (ROI) and combines multiple capabilities provided by MessageNet Systems and the spectrum of systems it connects to. Daily use continuously verifies that the systems are always maintained to a state of verified readiness without incurring the expense of periodic formal systems testing that is necessary with systems not subjected to daily use.
Unifications of safety, security, and commmunications also shares hardware and software resources across these technology platforms, increasing synergies while reducing cost.
With a daughter about to leave for college, I began to look into the Jeanne Clery Act. Professionally, I was surprised, and as a parent extremely concerned, that even after almost 25 years since its enactment, compliance to the Clery Act remains a problem across many U.S. campuses. A safe learning environment should be a right for any college student or employee. Why is compliance such an issue when there are solutions easily available?
Issuing “timely” warnings of crimes that represent a serious or ongoing threat to the safety of all students and campus employees.
Publish and distribute an Annual Campus Security Report to all current and prospective students and employees.
Devise emergency response, notification, testing policies and publish these policies in their Annual Campus Security Report.
Compile and report fire data and publish annual fire safety reports.
Maintain a public crime log of the most recent 8 years, disclosing crime statistics for eight major categories (Criminal Homicide, Sexual Offenses, Robbery, Aggravated Assault, Burglary, Arson, Motor Vehicle theft, and Arrests and/or disciplinary referrals for Liquor-law; Drug-law; and illegal weapons possession violations)
Enact policies and procedures to handle reports of missing students.
Many emergency communication systems have proven ineffective for mass notification of ‘timely’ warnings during an emergency as these systems are reliant on mass dial to cell phones, which depends on the capacity of the cellular towers servicing the area. These towers are designed to meet the needs of normal daily communications, far less than the volume required during an emergency. When tower capacity is exceeded, messages are delayed and even discarded by the cellular service due to the ‘bottleneck’ of outgoing bandwidth.
MessageNet Connections is an on-site, network-based, emergency communications systems; it doesn’t have the capacity limitations of mass dialing and texting systems and can deliver thousands of messages simultaneously. Additionally, Connections can provide location-specific messages instead of a ‘blanket’ message as well as specific instructions in relation to the event or emergency. Location-specific messaging can save lives by providing unique directions to individuals to seek safety with respect to the location of the danger at hand.
MessageNet Connections also provides detailed logs of all messages, including both emergency notifications and daily communications. This information trail is very helpful in meeting Clery Act requirements for compiling and publishing annual security reports.
Lastly, MessageNet Connections integrates both a daily communication system with an emergency notification system. Staff become very comfortable sending and receiving messages since it’s part of day-to-day operations. In the event of an emergency, staff members will react and respond quicker because they are very familiar with operating the system as part of their daily work. Minutes saved at a critical time can minimize dangers and save lives.
In the MessageNet Connections video found on our home page (and on the right side of this post) we try to provide the viewer with a concise introduction to the features and benefits of our product and describe how Connections addresses the safety, security and communication challenges facing organizations today. What follows is the complete text of what I said in the video with an explanation of what I said and its importance to you, interleaved on a point by point basis.
Many emergency communication and mass-notification systems deployed now and in the past have relied heavily on mass dialing phones and text messaging as the primary or exclusive way to notify people. For all of the significant incidences mentioned above, the internet is full of documentation that these methods have failed to effectively direct or even notify the affected people.
“These methods of notification fail because they don’t notify the majority of people fast enough to protect them from danger.”
Many emergencies evolve rapidly, often requiring life saving decisions to be made within a few minutes or even just a few seconds. For example, the shooter at Virginia Tech killed over 30 people in less than 10 minutes. A simple Google search of the incident reveals that many people received the warning as late as hours after the events occurred or didn’t receive it at all.
“On-site, network based emergency communication systems are needed to deliver information and instructions fast enough and specific enough to save lives.”
Mass dialing and text messaging are essentially completely dependent on the capacity of the cell phone towers servicing the area. These towers are designed to meet the needs of normal daily communications, far less than the volume that would be required to notify everyone in an affected area during an emergency. Though these systems advertise that they can send a large number of text or calls very quickly, the cell phone towers are limited and the delivery of the phones calls and text messages can be delayed and messages can be thrown away by the towers entirely. On-site, network based emergency communication systems like MessageNet Connections, which uses the high speed enterprise communication backbone, do not have these capacity limitations and can deliver many thousands of messages in a few seconds. Additionally, because Connections communicates to both mobile and fixed-location devices, it can provide instructions unique to the needs of people in specific areas during an emergency so they have the information to make better decisions that can save their lives.
“MessageNet Connections combines your emergency communication systems, with your everyday communications forming one, unified system.”
Connections, as the name implies, communicates across the spectrum of communication systems and devices, such as PA systems, fire and life safety systems, and security systems, integrating them with your PC network and phone systems to form a very cost-effective system that presents a unified functional capability to your staff.
“By having everything integrated, your emergency communications are given immediate priority delivery, with the ability to override daily communications, ensuring that your emergency messages won’t be drowned out by daily communications.”
As people become aware of impending danger, their stress levels quickly rise. This effect greatly reduces people’s ability to process information effectively and make decisions that can save their lives. By using the same communication equipment for emergencies that’s used for daily purposes means that Connections will suppress normal communications during the delivery of high priority messages reducing the stress and confusion.
“And, because your staff is using Connections daily, you know the system works and you can be confident that your staff will know how to operate it in an emergency.”
Study after study has shown that people under stress fail at executing procedures that they are not used to doing. By unifying emergency and daily communications under the same functional system, your staff can use the same skills and behavior when communicating and responding to emergencies that they use daily.
“MessageNet Connections is a multi-user system that allows your staff to send important messages from almost any device through a central system to virtually any combination of other devices.”
MessageNet Connections integrates your existing phone systems, cell phones, PA systems, fire and life safety systems, security systems, camera surveillance systems, and e-mail systems with panic buttons, sensors and your network of PCs.
“In addition to emergency communications, Connections is a great tool for everyday communications as well. It lets you get the most out of your investment in existing communications systems and appliances.”
Because Connections allows you to integrate your disparate communication, safety and security systems into one unified system you derive new synergies between these systems and deliver a real return on investment.
PC Alert can be used for everyday communication, but it’s used best for emergency situations. Because it can pop through other windows and even through password-free screen savers, PC Alert is ideal for making sure the message can be seen. And because PC Alert can be disabled only by a system administrator, you can trust that any emergency (or everyday) message will reach its intended recipient. To see an informative short video or more information on PC Alert, visit http://www.messagenetcommunicationsystems.com/computer-pop-ups-instant-messaging-pc-alert-for-mac-and-pc/
