Last week at Virginia Tech, we saw the student-alert system perform in less-than-stellar fashion.

After the first two murders, some students received email notifications that there was terrible violence afoot, and to stay hunkered down in their classrooms rather than go outside to their dorm, car, or next class.

Points were raised about whether SMS alerts wouldn't have been more effective means of alerting the students to the dangers. After all, just about every college student carries a cellphone around.

Of course you know that this violence- and the requisitite safety alert challenges- are not unique to college campuses. As the Friday slayings at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston show, virtually no environment where workers gather is immune from the threat of violence.

Given that potentially, tragic truth, I would like to ask you a question.

What type of danger-alert system do you have deployed at your enterprise or institution? How is it deployed? What would you change or update about it if you had the authority and the available funds to do this with?