| | October 20169CIOReviewas well as GIS maps required for the investigative and emergency response team. Active cyber security monitoring was also heightened during the immediate response period.Another unique aspect of the IT support for the Pulse tragedy was the increased need to support the City's ESF-14 Public Information function and their coordination of social media. There was an enormous increase in volume for digital media storage. Tooling requirements for communication had to be adjusted to account for analytics and collation of data. It was humbling and a great honor to support their efforts as they worked around the clock to ensure that a grieving community--and the world--were updated as information was authorized for public release. The evolving role of social media to engage citizenry in a positive and constructive manner is a reminder that even during tragic circumstances, creation of public value is a government responsibility. It is an opportunity to reinforce public perceptions about the legitimacy and value of government as a public asset. Additionally, the City's direct response to the tragedy and its response to the spontaneous outpouring of support from the community created public value by reinforcing desirable social norms of tolerance and inclusiveness. I believe IT, in its role as an enabling presence, contributed to that value chain.As we rely more and more on technology to provide municipal services, it is essential to have strong and reliable partnerships that go beyond the transactional. To offer support to the victims and their families, the City established the One Orlando Fund through the City's non-profit, Strengthen Orlando. This decision was made in the early days of our response and as a result, the IT team was required to develop a fundraising page that would be launched within 24 hours of the request. Recognizing the overwhelming support of the community, we knew we had to provide a platform that would be able to support the high demand and traffic to the website. As a result, we reached out to a technology business partner for support. Microsoft activated a crisis response team of employees who volunteered their time to work with us to deploy the One Orlando Azure environment. The direct role of the One Orlando Fund web presence for post-event acceptance and accounting of monetary donations also reinforces the importance of the collaborative relations between the City's financial policy team and IT.Some of the key takeaways from this event include the importance of partnerships, planning and a caring staff. The IT team is critical to an emergency response and must be comprised of members who can address task requests with clarity, timeliness and accountability. Logistically, assignment of a single IT incident commander is crucial. And, in the uncertainty of the moment, faced with conflicting reports, flexibility is key to providing immediate response to the needs of your colleagues and the community. Throughout our response, our top priority has always been to support to the victims, their families and all of those directly affected by this tragedy in a dignified manner without jeopardizing the active investigative process. Partnerships, trust and a good grasp of compliance and State of Florida mandates for handling public records allowed us to provide timely support and services with professionalism.Finally, I encourage you to expect the unexpected. One of the last things I expected to do was to call our cloud email vendor at 2300 hours to unlock the City's press secretary's email address due to being (incorrectly) identified as a spammer as a result of the volume of emails sent during a very short time frame.In the face of tragedy, the actions of our police officers, firefighters, civilian staff and community have been nothing short of extraordinary. Orlando has stood up and stood together to show the world the best that humanity has to offer. We are Orlando United. One of our critical focus areas is preparing for emergency response to major planned events and disasters
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