IFTF's After Shock: How to Play

In addition to just jumping in and playing solo as an earthquake survivalist, here are some thoughts about how you might play IFTF's After Shock with others.

Beginning this Thursday, November 13, and continuing for 3 weeks, After Shock will simulate the landscape of Southern California after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake as if the disaster is happening in real time.

Through headlines, photographs, maps, and continual updates from After Shock’s grassroots reporters “on the scene” spread over Southern California, visitors to aftershock.net will experience the earthquake from the immediate aftermath of the initial 2 minutes of shaking, to the crucial 48-72 hours afterwards in which life-saving decisions still need to be made, to a massive aftershock that hits a now weakened region. Finally, the timeline of the After Shock simulation will accelerate to weeks and months after the earthquake, as Southern Californians shift from survival and recovery to rebuilding: lives, schools, businesses, networks.

How are you going to survive? Imagine your future now so you will be better prepared prepared for this inevitable future. How you are going to respond to a major earthquake in your city? Tell us your story by writing a scenario, uploading images, drawings or creating videos.

1. Join the After Shock Facebook group and the Twitter stream.
2.. Play as a Group: SURVIVAL to RECOVERY to REBUILDING
* Choose a group to play (2–10 people, or more) from your organization to play as a team project for the 3 weeks of game play
* Decide on a minimum amount of time to devote to playing, say an hour a week, to make it fun and realistic (create a competition in your group for best stories and solutions)
* Tell stories about what your organization is doing to address the disaster for individuals and for the company
* Start an After Shock discussion group focused specifically on your community or organization (for example, new ways your company/org can come together to assure that everyone has survived or has communication tools )
* Create a discussion to engage with new kinds of groups you don't ordinary work with to solve disaster-related issues
* Use your networks and preferred networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook to convene your peers in other groups/organizations in After Shock to start discussions on issues you all share
* Look for other institutional players you may not have worked with in the past to team up with

3. Play even though you are out of the CA region!

Imagine you have colleagues or loved ones in So. Cal:

1. How would you communicate with them?
2. How would you transfer support resources (money, water, health care)?
3. Tell you story about what is happening outside of the disaster region.
   

At it’s culmination, data will be collected and analyzed to help us understand how Southern California citizens might respond to this type of disaster and their degree of preparedness which IFTF will share in addition to key learnings form this project.

Be sure and watch the video at and game play starts Thursday!