According to Boston.com, a man escaped police custody while being transported to a medium-security facility in Bridgewater. He managed to evade the unit for two hours, during which officers used One Call Now’s group notification service to coordinate dog units and helicopters to bring him back into custody.

You may know One Call Now as a helpful communications tool for your local sports team or church, or you may be using it to communicate with customers or staff, but to your local police department, it’s a life saver.  Police departments all over the US utilize One Call Now every day not only for staffing needs, but also in the search for and apprehension of criminals.

During Police Week, we honor those officers who lost their lives protecting our communities.  We thank the peace officers who put their lives at risk every day in order to protect ours.  Keeping communities safe is no easy task for authorities, but One Call Now helps to protect, inform and engage officers and their units using a single call, text, or e-mail, keeping them— and you—out of harm’s way.

Is that call dangerous?

We’ve all received that phone call from an “unknown” number. At first, you think it might be important; maybe you’re job-hunting and think it could be an employer calling to set up an interview. What if it’s that guy you met on Saturday? He was cute, maybe he’s calling to ask you out.

Then you answer the phone. It’s not the job, it’s not the guy – it’s a bank, and they say there’s been an error in their system, and they just need your account number so that they can make sure your money is available to you. Better yet, it’s a representative from a major cruise line claiming that you’ve won a free cruise, and they’ll just need to ask you a few questions before they send your tickets.

By this point, I sincerely hope you’ve hung up the phone and reported their number to Scambusters, 800notes, or a similar organization, as someone has just tried to cheat you out of your money, and possibly your identity. How did they get your number? They have ways. Some companies will sell your number purely for profit, and you end up on a list as a potential victim for identity theft. Someone will call you in hopes of convincing you to give out private information over the phone. They’re clever, too: they will do their absolute best to convince you that you need to give them the information they seek. They are manipulative and they prey on ignorance – they want to make you believe that it’s normal to give out your credit card number, your bank account number, or even your social security number over the phone to a total stranger. Please, understand that you never, ever need to give that sort of information out over the phone to anyone, not even if the person is actually from your bank or your credit card company. The people who need to know that information about you already have it and do not need complete numbers over the phone. Keep that in mind when you get a phone call, text message, or even an e-mail that claims to need your personal and private information. That, and let’s face it: as hard as we wish, cruise lines are not going to randomly call and say you’ve won a free cruise.

So, how can you tell when you’re being scammed? Pay attention to the following things to protect yourself:

• Is there a good reason for this company to call you? At One Call Now, we call to give you urgent and informative messages regarding your business, church, sports team, club, or other organization. Companies should not be calling you to gather private, personal information. If they say you’ve won a prize, they should already have all the personal information they need from you if you actually entered/were entered into any contest.
• Does the person calling you claim to be from your bank or other financial institution? Your bank or financial institution already has the numbers they need from you. You should never need to give complete numbers to them over the phone, text, or e-mail. If you have any concerns regarding your bank account or finances, hang up and call your bank or financial institution. They are the people who can tell you if there is a problem with your account.
• Are they insisting upon getting private information from you? You have the right to ask questions and get informative answers. If the caller is insisting upon getting private information, even when you know they shouldn’t need it, they are trying to manipulate. Hang up and report the number to Scambusters.org or 800notes.com.

The next time you get a call from an unknown number, listen carefully to what the person is saying.  If a situation seems fraudulent or too good to be true, it probably is. Remember to think twice about giving away any personal information, don’t be afraid to ask questions, and don’t let anyone intimidate you into giving away private information over the phone.

As a leader among message notification providers, we are frustrated by those who use the phone for fraudulent purposes. At One Call Now, we specialize in protecting, informing and engaging groups by sending their messages with a single call, text or email. We have multiple security measures to protect your private information and will not divulge your personal data to outside parties. Additionally, we never SPAM— our recipients are all members of the organizations from which they receive messages. We hope that you find this information helpful. Please pass it along to anyone you feel it would benefit.

Today our managers met to discuss our company’s health care renewal plans.

The bad news from our agent? Our plan rates are going up by 13%, but we decided to absorb 100% of the increase for all employees. We also decided to triple life insurance— and pay for it all as a company enhanced benefit. We pay 100% of health care for all employees, and 80-100  100% for family plan based on tenure.

Having spent time in an Emergency Room recently, it’s disheartening to see those with no choice, no family doctor, no coverage and no prescription plan who beg and plead for help. As an executive, it’s frustrating to know that their unpaid bills are the major cause of our insurance plan increases…

Many will argue that no one should be forced to pay for health care if they don’t want it. Some compare it to being forced to eat broccoli.  That analogy is wrong. People choose their vegetables, but they do not choose their genes, viruses, bacterial infections, cardiovascular disease, or accidental injuries.

We provide company paid health care for everyone because it helps our people, their families, our community (and yes, our barely perceptible turnover). Given time, The new mandate will  lower our overall costs, while eliminating the threat of uncovered catastrophic illness for all.

How much more justification is necessary?

1974 Xenia, Ohio Tornado

Xenia, Ohio is very well known for its dances with tornadoes over the years. In 1974 it experienced a devastating hit that leveled the town, and again took a massive blow in April of 2000. So, when this week, during an unusually active storm season, Xenia Schools sent out an urgent parent broadcast message using our system… we thought the worst. It turns out they’d only had a power outage at the school and needed to let parents and staff know that school would be cancelled until the repairs were made.

That’s the beauty of One Call Now’s message notification service. Whether it’s the emergency you expect, or the one you don’t, you’re always prepared. We breathed a sigh of relief for the City of Xenia, and they did, too. They’re prepared. Are you?

I love that corny line from the 1950’s because it rings true for almost everything; music, sports, and even communications.  Practice makes perfect.

Having said that, this week has been declared Ohio’s official Severe Weather Awareness Week. Communities across the state are practicing their tornado drills and emergency response systems, especially here in Tornado Alley where 5 tornadoes already hit earlier this month.

In addition to practicing physical or “take-cover” drills, practicing one’s communications procedures is also critical to avoid any delay alerting your citizens, students, or employees.  If you only use your emergency notification system once a year during drills, or worse, not until there is an actual severe weather emergency, you risk needless delays as responders and administrators struggle to recall – under intense pressure – how the darn thing works.

In such situations, the One Call Now mass notification system offers a significant advantage for officials:  Familiarity.  While One Call Now is a world-class emergency alert solution, it is usually used on a regular basis for more routine communications as well. Therefore, the people responsible for sending alerts are completely familiar with the system through constant use.  So, when an actual emergency hits, there is no delay as people struggle in the urgency of the moment to recall how to initiate their emergency communications.  In a situation where mere minutes can make a difference – familiarity matters. Practicing all your procedures, including sending critical communications, saves lives.
5 Top Tips for Tornado & Severe Weather Preparedness.

1.  If you remember nothing else, remember to DUCK:

D – Go DOWN to the lowest level
U – Get UNDER something
C – COVER your head
K – KEEP in shelter until the storm has passed

2.  Develop and document a disaster plan.

• Make sure everybody in your organization knows their roles and responsibilities; where to go and what to do.
• If you are a business, school, or agency, you should also have a specific safety plan for those with special needs.  Narrow stairwells may not accommodate wheelchairs.
• Keep a battery operated NOAA weather radio on site so you can receive information and instructions from emergency response officials even if the power goes out.  Also maintain a supply of flashlights, batteries, and drinking water.
• If you are responsible for your physical facilities, make sure you practice turning off the utilities at the main switches. This is an often forgotten step.

3.  Practice your emergency procedures and conduct drills on a regular basis throughout the year, not just annually prior to the severe weather season.

4.  The safest place to be during a tornado is a basement. But if there is no basement in your building, go to a small windowless interior room such as a bathroom, on the lowest level and as close to the center as possible.  Avoid large rooms such as auditoriums or cafeterias.

5.  If you’re caught outside or in your car, head to the nearest building and find a suitable safe room on a lower level.  Your car offers little protection during a tornado. Nor do bridges and underpasses offer any additional safety. As a last resort, lie flat in a low spot or roadside ditch.

As early as the 1950′s, Ma Bell, as we lovingly called AT&T, tried to get away from operator dialed calls; and found ways to use a variety of clicks, tones and whistles to connect and route calls. A fascinating NPR story on Radio Lab on the sounds that drove Telco is here… The story speaks of a blind boy Joe Engressia, Jr. who could mimic these sounds to control phones with his perfect pitch voice.

The right sounds could cause a pay phone to connect calls to California without inserting money (and a trans-continental call was about $10.00 a MINUTE in today’s dollars. The clicks and whistles could connect a call in about a minute. Although most long distance calls were connected by an Operator, because without perfect pitch; you needed a perfect substitute– a helpful, American based Operator; who typically worked in the local phone company office down the street. What a great time when your voice could be heard thousands of miles away, after waiting just a few minutes  to reach the Operator and have your call connected.

In 1964, AT&T (The nation’s only phone company at the time) introduced touch tone dialing at the 1964 NY World’s Fair. I was amazed by the ability to press keys and ‘dial’ a number compared to needing to call an Operator or slowly spin a rotary dial. It was ten years before the phone system nationwide (and in our home in New Jersey) was upgraded sufficiently to allow anyone to order touch tone service.
The now familiar DTMF (Dual Tone Multi-Frequency) tones you hear on virtually every phone, and replicated on many cell phones, were interpreted by telephone company circuitry as the numbers you dialed to connect the call. This was really cool leading-edge technology in 1964 and is still used as-is in every land-line phone.

Now I get impatient when the iPhone display says ‘connecting’ for more than a second or two; and technology introductions are seen as failures if they are not universally adopted by 80% of Americans within five years. Rotary phones, party lines and local operators have been replaced, several times over, as we seek ever more sophisticated and faster ways to connect with people, but the principle hasn’t changed. Information must be sent to others frequently, efficiently and smoothly. Messages are sent to Protect people, Inform them, and Engage them. We have so many new ways to send them, and to block, parry and avoid them.

I’m excited about the ever growing ways we have to make sure critical messages DO get through.

With One Call Now, schools improve their safety communication capabilities.

School safety is often strained during unexpected events like tornadoes, fires, floods and, occasionally, tragic occurrences that devastate communities. These types of incidents are so dangerous that the Ohio Department of Education will host a statewide tornado drill and Severe Weather Awareness Week to prepare students and school staff for emergencies.

The state’s education department also issued a statement regarding the recent shooting at Chardon High School that resulted in the deaths of three students.

“Teachers and administrators, students and parents across the state are processing the horrific events and realizing that this can happen anywhere,” the Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction Stan Heffner wrote on the department’s website. “I encourage all of you to review your school safety plans and take all necessary steps to assure that you are living your plans.”

Whether a school needs to notify students, parents and staff members of early releases, class cancellations or lockdowns or provide safety tips for families, school messaging systems from One Call Now achieve all of these goals.

The service is so effective because it utilizes a system with multiple notification options. Administrators send a uniform message through voice, text and email so everyone receives the update simultaneously. Even if an emergency strikes at a moment’s notice, One Call Now is the calm during the storm.

Whether it’s to cancel practice, announce an upcoming event, or to see who is able to volunteer this Saturday, One Call Now’s message notification service saves group leaders time, and helps protect children, inform parents and better engage everyone in the group.

For more information about how your organization can benefit from this free program, please contact Excellence in Dentistry at 937.335.4630 for details. Group size may be limited.

About One Call Now

Founded in 2002, One Call Now has offices in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Georgia, and Florida.  The company has been honored as one of Inc. magazine’s fastest growing privately held companies in America for four consecutive years.

One Call Now has grown to be one of the largest locally-owned companies in Miami County; and is honored to be named one of the 50 best places to work in America by Inc. Magazine and Winning Workplaces.

Schools with messaging systems in place can make sure students and staff stay updated during crises.

High schools across the country must be prepared for the unexpected, but there are solutions that can help bridge the communication gap between staff members, students and their parents. Whether a district is conducting a standard evacuation, or an incident occurs that involves a lockdown, school messaging systems from One Call Now are ideal during these events.

The ability to send a unified message to several endpoints makes the solutions extremely effective. For example, students, parents and teachers receive alerts through their mobile phones, email account or voice messages to ensure they remain updated regarding a specific event.

However, some occurrences are more serious than others. A suburban Cleveland, Ohio, high school recently experienced a shooting tragedy that has left several students dead, once again highlighting how an ordinary day can turn into a crisis situation. The incident in the morning before the school day had started, according to local police.

Although high schools cannot predict the actions of some, they can ensure proper communication is upheld during stressful and dangerous times. Parents will appreciate such systems during an event of this magnitude, knowing that authorities are doing all they can to protect their children.