Influence of the Crowd: Crowdsourcing Effects on the Management of the NIMS Response During the Waldo Canyon Fire

The purpose of this study was to explore and document the effects of spontaneous crowdsourced response on the management emergency response under the National Incident Management System. The general research question derived for this effort is: What effect does the incorporation of social media enabled crowdsourcing have on managing domestic emergency response? The utility of crowdsourcing for various purposes has been explored by research and academic institutions in recent years. There has been little or no research on the relationship of spontaneous crowdsourcing to emergency response under the National Incident Management System (NIMS). Web 2.0 enabled crowdsourcing efforts are becoming more and more prevalent in crisis response and recovery efforts. Spontaneous crowdsourcing appears likely to manifest in future large scale disaster events. Spontaneous crowdsourced efforts generating from organizational and community reaction to perceived need, result in unsolicited, undirected, and uncontrolled "crowd" organized efforts and may affect managed response. The research employed a case study design utilizing interviews with emergency managers from various agencies associated with formal response to the 2012 Waldo Canyon fire. Interviews provided primary source data for analysis and comprised the principal data collection category for the study. An initial relational framework for was derived from the existing literature. The data collected from the research informed and adapted this framework to reflect the actual relationships and crowdsourcing effects during Waldo Canyon. The results from the study are intended to provide further insight into the relationship and effects of spontaneous on the management of emergency response efforts.;Keywords: Crowdsourcing, Emergency Management, Emergency Response, Crisis Management, Crisis Response, National Incident Management System, Resilience, Web 2.0.