Away from the fire house, in other work that I do, I have quite a bit of interaction with the United States Army and several of their PAO’s. I have been amazed over the last few years of the new openness the Army is exhibiting to the media as well as their attempts to start embracing various forms of social media.
I just finished watching an interesting interview of Roxie Merritt who is the Director of New Media Operations at the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs at the DOD. I had worked on a project called America Supports You where Roxie was a key player and I was impressed with her media knowledge.
The DOD is both experimenting with and already putting in place the use of podcasts, mobile messaging, blogger engagement and other “new media” platforms.
She is a true professional that makes some great points on the video including -
The immediacy of news and the importance of fact checking.
How the social media community is a self-correcting mechanism and how to lose control of the message.
What the department of defense is doing to reach out to bloggers and how building relationships with bloggers is similar to media relations.
Well worth the watch.
Also on The Fire PIO…
- Some Simplistic thoughts on Social Media – December 17, 2010
- Twitter in the Snow – January 3, 2011
- A PIO Social Media Christmas – December 22, 2010
- Even the Walls have Ears – November 24, 2010
Jeff –
I had a similar experience this fall while working with the National Guard on Vigilant Guard – a week-long earthquake preparedness and response exercise we hosted in Erie County NY that included 4,000 responders.
I had the opportunity to work side by side with a Lt. Col. from the NY National Guard Public Affairs Division and was quite impressed by their interest and capabilities in setting up a JIC and maximizing the use of what would normally be considered alternative media by previous military standards.
On another front, we’ve created a partnership with the NY National Guard to do joint recruiting with the volunteer fire service in our county. Our program is based largely around social media to attract new “X-Box Firefighters.”
Thanks for the motivating blog.
Hey Tiger,
Love that term “X-Box Firefighters.” A group we need to reach out to for sure!