Carrier Cooperation – WebLink Wireless, an International wireless paging and data company offered to supply commercial two-way messaging devices from Motorola and their own airtime for the study. We also solicited the cooperation of Arch Communications and their field staff to help us find additional participants for the study. Cooperation was also received from Nextel engineers early on who assisted in some compatibility issues with existing customers. Regional assistance was also provided from Metrocall.
Participant Criteria - Participants needed to be emergency service organizations that included first responders from local, regional, statewide, or national public agencies or any private agency or organizations needing to respond to critical emergencies (i.e. oil refineries, nuclear power plants, OSHA regulated firms, etc.), Internet access was required as well as having ample wireless coverage from their existing wireless provider or from WebLink Wireless. Participants were also required to sign two agreements. The first was a mutual non-disclosure agreement (Appendix C) and a hardware liability form from WebLink Wireless when opting to use their devices. This form simply placed the liability of the replacement cost of the equipment on the user in the event of a lost or stolen device.
Initial Survey – The initial survey for participants was placed as an electronic form at: http://www.westlakesoftware.com/whsproject.htm. This included contact information and several questions up front to gather additional statistics (see Appendix A; Results section Table 1).
Promoting and Marketing the Study for Participants – The Internet was extensively used to drive potential participants to the study. First, over 1000 e-mail addresses were mined from hundreds of state emergency service websites. These included fire department organizations, police department organizations, ambulance services, etc. The request for participation in the study was covered in many state newsletters, placed as a link on Intranets, etc. Extensive use of media outlets were also used to publish our request for participants (i.e. Law Enforcement Technology, Journal of Emergency Management Services [JEMS], Nuclear News, etc.). This strategy was highly effective in driving more than 600 submissions to the study within the first 90 days of our initial promotional efforts.