Showcase

CAL Fire was recently featured on Fire Department Network News for the addition of their Public Information Officer marked SUV. View the video report below, and pay special attention to what PIO Mike Mohler says about his role and activities regarding Social Media:

From the associated article with my own added emphasis:

CAL FIRE’s PIO vehicles are outfitted with Tough Books. Not only can they get information on the call that they are going to, but they can update their Twitter site, blogs and other websites.

Social media plays a large part in the distribution of public information. Many of CAL FIRE’s followers are gathering information from social media before they turn on the news channel or look in their newspapers.

It’s great seeing agencies understand where information distribution is going. Taking the initiative to serve their communities where they are gathering and to use the community as an asset instead of a liability is the direction we all should be headed.

You can read the CAL Fire San Diego Blog, follow them on Twitter, or check out their Flickr Sets which are quite compelling

Neil McDevitt, program director for the Community Emergency Preparedness Information Network, has written an article about how emergency managers can use social media tools, like Twitter and Facebook, to increase accessibility to safety and preparedness information.

• Read Neil’s Article
• Learn more about CEPINTDI.org

When engaging your community with social media consider different methods to transmit messages including text, captioned video, and audio with transcripts available. As an emergency manager or PIO you might need to ask for requirements and opportunities to provide information in a variety of formats to ensure accessibility.

Last week I presented at the Wisconsin Technical College EMS Instructor/Coordinator conference. The focus on my presentation was on how educators can create social media for professional development and/or as a classroom education activity. Below are the slides I presented. I am sharing these slides here for several reasons:

1. Many of the skills that educators should have regarding social media content creation are the same skills that PIOs should have.

2. I was surprised (and not surprised) by the lack of familiarity with social media and even the consumption of social media among the conference attendees. It was an important reminder that a small percentage of emergency responders actively consume and create social media.

3. This is my first Slideshare upload. There are some intriguing capabilities available to Slideshare users that might be of interest to you. Slideshare content could be an additional spoke to add to your agency’s hub.

The Bellevue Nebraska Police Department Community Oriented Police and Problem solving unit has established an excellent social media presence. This screencast explores the COPPS Blog (the agency hub) and several spokes (Twitter, Facebook, and Nixle).

The Social Media Responder 2009 nominations closed last week on December 10. Over the course of 10 days we received over 200 nominations for 33 different responders/agencies. There were 2 nominations that were disqualified because they were featuring cruise line information, 1 nomination disqualified because they were featuring domestic tips, and 1 nomination disqualified because of their involvement with PIOSocialMediaTraining.com (sorry Greg).

Here is a list of the 29 nominated Social Media Responders in alphabetical order now being evaluated by the Judges:

• Alonis
• Angeles National Forest
• Apollosfyre
• Bellevue Police
• Big White Fire Dog
• California Fire News
• Charlotte Fire Department
• Chronicles of EMS
• City of Keller
• CJamz
• Colorado Department of Emergency Management
• Craig Fugate
• East Long Meadow Police
• Eric Neitzel
• Fireground.com
• Justin Schorr
• Kristiana Kocis
• Los Angeles Fire Department
• Mark Glencorse
• Mesa Fire Department
• Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service
• MsParamedic
• National Fallen Firefighters Foundation
• Salt Lake City Police Department
• Thadeus Setla
• The EMS Garage
• Toronto Crime Stoppers
• Toronto Police
• White Mountain Joint Information System

We’d like to offer our congratulations to all of our nominees! Finalists will be named this Wednesday, December 16. Voting will be taking place here on PIOSocialMediaTraining.com.

The final free webinar presentation of 2009 will be held at 2:00pm EST on December 16. Click here to learn more and register for the webinar

Bill Delaney of Montgomery County Fire Rescue used Blog Talk Radio to create a podcast about Holiday (really year round) cooking safety tips. Blog Talk Radio is a free social media tool to record a podcast. The file can be embedded in a site as I have done below, accessed from Blog Talk Radio, or used to generate a podcast.

Blog Talk Radio allows live call in and text chat. I called in with two of my questions and was pleased to interact with Bill voice-to-voice. Previously we have interacted just on Twitter and Facebook.

Bill is the Social Media public information officer and program manager for community safety for MCFRS. You can follow him on Twitter or visit the MCFRS blog.

The Toronto Traffic Services social media hub is a “A social forum designed to make Toronto streets safer for all road users through education and awareness. Road safety is everyone’s responsibility.”

The hub is a blogger blog and currently consists of spokes to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. This screencast showcases the efforts of Toronto Traffic Services to use social media.

What do you like about the Toronto Traffic Services hub and spokes? Provide us a link in the comments area so we can showcase your organizations social media efforts.

October 4-10, 2009 is Fire Prevention Week. Emergency response agencies should combine traditional fire prevention week activities – station tours, school visits, press releases, and public service announcements with social media efforts. This screencast showcases the efforts by Montgomery County Fire Rescue Service to use social media tools – blogger, Facebook, and Twitter – to talk about Fire Prevention and to bring attention to its traditional fire prevention week activities.

Links for MCFRS Social Media Sites:
Hub – MCFRS Online
Spoke – @mcfrs
Spoke – Facebook page

Public Information Officers and social media advocates discuss their presentation about the importance of social media at the Fire Rescue International Conference.

Important points of the interview include:

1. Importance of emergency responders to get involved in social media.

2. Apply basics of PIO to new media and social networking tools to expand your message.

3. Social media is easy to use and departments can get started quickly at little or no cost.

4. Messages can be shared with local media as well as a broader national and international audience.

Link to the video.

Success in Social Media depends on two key elements. High quality engaging content coupled with a design that is simultaneously aesthetic and functional. The Social Media presences that we Showcase are putting those elements into practice

About Cross Blog

Cross Blog is the official blog for the Oregon Red Cross. It is a two-column layout hosted on the Blogger Platform. The blog had a slow start in March of 2007, averaged two posts per month and concluded the year with 25 total posts. In 2008 they posted over 750 items and are on a similar path for 2009.

Content

The content of Cross Blog is a diverse mix of national preparedness themes, local stories, and disaster response notifications. The content is well composed for Social Media audiences including images and relevant links. Posting frequency varies from one post a weekday to multiple posts a day.

Cross Blog is engaging their audience through both interactive polls using the Twtpoll service and most recently with a Twitter contest. The contest asks participants to tweet #just1thing that they are doing to become better prepared for a potential disaster during September, which is National Preparedness month. This is obviously a group that understands the 140 character limit of Twitter and are modeling their engagement to fit within those limitations while still using their blog as a hub.

Overall Cross Blog is providing solid easily consumable content in a timely manner.

Design Elements

Header

The Cross Blog header is both well designed and functional. The key graphic is both aesthetically pleasing and links to the home page. Below the graphic is a header wide link to the Oregon Red Cross main site, and below that are links to the blog’s own Labels allowing a quick and easy search of the content.

Contributor Panel

I love the composition of this Contributors panel for a variety of reasons…

First it clearly identifies the fact that Cross Blog is a team effort. More importantly, it shows that the team is a diverse collaboration of the different services that the American Red Cross Oregon Trail Chapters provide. This provides both diverse content to readers and the opportunity for all departments to get their message out.

Another great thing about the photos themselves is that they are not your typical Contributor photos. The different poses that Lise Harwin and Robin Parker are captured in are both complimentary and comical, adding a personal touch to what could have been a stiff corporate image.

Finally, they link directly to their Blogger Profiles. This furthers their ability to connect on a personal basis with their audience by revealing a little bit more about their personal nature. Social Media is about being able to connect, and the Contributors to the Cross Blog give their readers every opportunity to do so.

Subscription Boxes

The subscription boxes that Cross Blog uses are highly important. While we often refer to things such as netbooks, RSS Feeds, SMS messaging, Twitter, and Smart Phones as ways to deliver our message, there is one method that has and continues to dominate them all in its effectiveness.

E-mail.

While it is probably the oldest method of electronic communication, it is also the most widely adopted. Having a blog that offers e-mail subscriptions is imperative to being able to appeal to as large an audience as possible in getting your message out.

Currently Cross Blog is running two different e-mail lists. One of them is a subscription through Feedburner for the actual blog content, and the other is for a newsletter. Having two different subscription boxes so close together can be a little confusing, but they did separate it by an image feed from their Flickr account. Sticking a Social Media spoke in as a divider between the two lists works… especially if the Flickr content freshens up once a week.

5,701 Pixels

This is the one thing that I would have to suggest an improvement on. The Labels in the sidebar run approximately 5,701 pixels long. Converted to a more standard measurement system, that means that if it would be a list just over 6 and a half feet long.

Unfortunately this isn’t an uncommon occurrence because of the way that Blogger handles Labels. I did find a tutorial about rolling the Labels up into a drop down box, which is really something I think they should consider from both an aesthetic point of view as well as from a usability aspect. At the very least, I would bring my dated archives above my labels.

In Conclusion

Cross Blog is a shining example of a Public Safety Agency blog. If you are running a Public Safety Agency Blog or are planning on one, definitely spend some time looking at how they are doing it…

- Teamwork across all departments/services
- Connecting to their audience on an individual level by displaying their own personalities
- Having their own unique voices
- Fresh and timely content
- An aesthetically pleasing and overall functional design

Kudos to Cross Blog, they are a true Showcase of Social Media done right.