Marketing

As the number of residential fire sprinkler systems in the country continues to grow, fire service leaders need to ensure that our fire officers and firefighters have the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities to work with these systems to effectively ensure extinguishment of the fire and effectively address property conservation, the third incident priority.

In the absence of factual information, most people will believe whatever they hear or will Social media mind mapmake up their own version of reality based upon their past experiences. In today’s “informational overload” world there are more than a few ways for people in a community to know what the men and women of their fire and EMS department are “up to”, both good and bad. Successful departments are those who've embraced social media in a proactive way to engage their communities in two-way communication.

A Fire Medic Perspective: Delivering Customer Service with Lights and Sirens. Rom Duckworth discusses how a culture of customer service can work in the real-world with retired Battalion Chief (and prolific author) Rob Avsec.

Picture if you will the L. A. Police Department posting images and videos of the Rodney King incident. Or maybe imagine FEMA sporting "EMA porn" taken during Katrina in New Orleans on their website. Now imagine the public outcry that would occur if say LAPD made a music video out of the Rodney King beating with the soundtrack of Pat Benatar singing Hit me with your best shot or FEMA posting a video of the Katrina disaster images to the soundtrack of Scorpions singing Rock you like a hurricane. Two very extreme examples I admit, but just as questionable. In both cases, someone would end up with an express ticket to the unemployment line.

Networking is the lifeblood for your professional life, but how can you effectively and efficiently network in the digital age? It can be relatively easy if you have an action plan and that’s my purpose with today’s post: Help you to develop an action plan for your professional networking.

Summer fire camps provide a great opportunity for girls and young women to discover what an exciting and rewarding experience being a firefighter can be. Camps also provide fire service organizations an equally great opportunity to begin "growing" the next generation of women firefighters.

Behavioral research shows that by the time they begin their school years, young girls and boys already have some pretty “defined” ideas of what men and women can or cannot do, especially regarding jobs.

Sound rather harsh? Sound unrealistic? So does closing fire stations and laying off firefighters. So does continuing to expose firefighters to increasing levels of risk of injury or death because of negligence on the part of building occupants, developers, and builders. So does continuing to increase the fiscal burden to local taxpayers to pay for an antiquated fire protection model that is reactive rather than proactive.

And that’s the real focus of Fire Corps. Getting more people with varied backgrounds involved in the multitude of tasks that are required to run a fire department and provide services to the community they serve. Think of the possibilities ...

Photographs and other imagery that predominantly portray female firefighters as sexual objects first, and firefighters second, communicates a very powerful “marketing message” whether men and women in the fire service choose to accept it or not. (Don’t think so? Just ask any marketing professional “worth their salt” what they think).