Social Networking With Bajan Firefighters

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As social networking sites continue to grow in popularity, the Barbados Fire Service is the first emergency service agency in the island to seize the initiative and maintain a strong connection with the public.

“We have been following the development of the various social networking sites, looking at the ones that are popular and user friendly, selecting Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, Ning, YouTube and Ustream,” informed the man behind the scenes, Fire Officer Glyne Alleyne.

“The Fire Department officially came on the Internet in 1998, but Bajan firefighters came about because, while the department’s website gives us an official web presence where we disseminate information to the public, we realised no provision was made for fire officers to interact.”

As a result, Alleyne started the blog: Bajan firefighters, in 2001. Since then, the group has embraced public interest and diversified, with 950 members (and counting) having signed on to the Bajan firefighters Facebook page.

“We are very pleased with the response from the public so far. People generally have a curiosity about the Fire Service and I find that by putting what we do online – our major incidents and various events in the department – we’ve managed to attract and maintain a public following that is more concerned and who is interested in the Fire Service.”

Updated almost daily, the information remains timely, relevant and credible – with all posted in-cidents being validated. Members of the public can follow fire incidents, motor vehicle accidents and rescues via the feed on twitter.com/bajanfire and are updated as incidents escalate or are brought under control.

Alleyne indicated that the initiative has also served to “provide a bridge between Barbados and the rest of the world”, with firefighters from across the globe being represented on the Facebook community. “Aside from Facebook and Twitter, we have also been making good use of YouTube, and one of the things that we are looking at introducing this year is the video diaries,” Alleyne revealed.

These video diaries will give persons around the world the opportunity to have a look at the Barbados Fire Service’s day-to-day activities, allowing viewers the chance to see the fire officers in operation – on and off station. “This will provide better insight of the job we’re doing on a daily basis,” stated Alleyne, adding that he is “very excited about that prospect”.

Alleyne specified that he also hopes to launch E-Reports (electronic reports) and give the fire officers the ability to send, via their mobile phones, video clips and photos from various incidents back to the site. “As we look at how well it works, we’ll also invite the public to do the same thing,” said Alleyne, while urging the public to utilise this facility to report grass and cane fires (as well as other incidents) to the service when it is made available.

Persons interested in becoming a member of the Bajan firefighters community can do so by heading over to facebook.com/bajanfirefighters or bajanfirefighters.blogspot.com, where links to other social networking sites are included.

Source: www.barbadosadvocate.com

Comments

Barbados Apartment Hotel said…
woow... social networking is truly a big thing now... :)
March 2, 2010 at 3:01 AM
AirBourne said…
http://bajanreporter.com/?p=8203 What about Volunteer phone operators?
March 9, 2010 at 1:12 PM
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