Thanks to a Twitter message from Rex Hammock about the Los Angeles Fire Department’s use of Twitter, I was able to find that they were doing a live broadcast radio show on Blog Talk Radio. I listened intently while a senior reporter of Computer World Magazine, Heather Havenstein, interviewed two Fire Fighters and spokespersons, Brian Humphrey and Ron Meyers, that are embracing Web 2.0 and using the technology to communicate with their consumer, the people of the City of Los Angeles.
One of the quotes that stood out to me as the interview and show was progressing was a firefighter’s statement about what he thought about social media:
“I’d rather run into a burning building than go online”
This fear that he describes is a fear we find many companies and individuals experience. I listened yesterday to Jason Calacanis’ Calacaniscast when Robert Scoble said that “blogging and commenting is like public speaking”, and you can understand better that fear. Some people just cannot speak in public without equating that to running into a building on fire.
When they discussed the idea of how they were able to move into the social media arena, the firefighter interviewed talked about being on CNN and speaking to Wolf Blitzer while a disaster was occurring and how their management trusted them to to have these conversations. They said it was time to used technology and continue that trust. A great quote he stated was:
“We can no longer afford to work at the speed of government”
They began blogging at the LAFD in May 2004, and as a result, they were also able to adopt other tools to communicate with the people of the City of Los Angeles. They have a Twitter page, and they are reporting some of the 1500 emergency calls they receive every day on that page. This allows people to get disaster information reported via their cell phones. They have a Flickr account to post pictures people take via cell phones and other ways to show them in action, and YouTube page as well. This is very refreshing to see that an agency as large as the LAFD is embracing social media. As Ron Meyers said:
“Web 2.0 is not just disseminating the information about the LAFD, but it is also gathering information.”
They use Google searches, blog polls, RSS and other ways to take advantage of web 2.0 to get information. I apologize in advance if I have misquoted the speakers, spelled their names incorrectly or stolen some of Heather’s thunder, but think these guys really get it, and I can’t wait to show those companies reluctant to join in with the social media movement, this example of a perfect use of technology.
