A few days ago I was the guest speaker at the local Rotary. I was giving the Rotarians a general overview of my department and how we provide service to the community. In preparing an outline for my remarks I recalled that a member in the club always throws out a historic trivia challenge during the meetings. His facts are great and always met with amazement and a rumbling across the room of “I didn’t know that!”

Not to be one upped I needed a great wow factor fact about the fire service to win over the hearts and minds.

The trivia King took the microphone and spoke his pearls of wisdom –

“Since we just celebrated Thanksgiving I have a question. When was the holiday not celebrated on the last Thursday of the month?” You could literally hear the head scratching in the room. Knowing he had the luncheon crowd  in the palm of his hand he continued, “President Lincoln in 1863 declared a day of Thanksgiving making it the last Thursday of November, but in 1939, 1940 and 1941 President Roosevelt, seeking to lengthen the Christmas shopping season, proclaimed Thanksgiving the third Thursday in November. Controversy followed, and Congress passed a joint resolution in 1941 decreeing that Thanksgiving should fall on the fourth Thursday of November, where it remains.”

Wow. The crowd applauded in amazement.

Could I possible top this?

I got up to speak after lunch. All I could think about was the point in my remarks where I would attempt to one up the Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler of the obscure.

Towards the ends of my remarks I was ready to fire my big gun.

“I want to now give you a quick overview of the Smithtown Fire Department’s fire prevention program, but first I have my own historic trivia question today.”

“Who said, – an Ounce of Prevention is worth a Pound of Cure?”

The trivia know it all quickly yelled out Benjamin Franklin. Now I was getting mad. He looked at me like I was some rank amateur asking a weak round 1 trivia question that anyone in the masses could answer.

“True” I said, “but why did he say that?”

The King gave me a stare and squeezed his eyes as if he was trying to get some extra horsepower going in his brain. Smoke was coming out of his ears and I knew he was stalling out.

Giving me no credit, he just uttered the word “why?”

Knowing I had had him on the ropes I taunted him for a moment just looking at him with a smile before I delivered the knockout punch.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, was used by Franklin in a letter he sent to a newspaper. Franklin is considered one of the founding fathers of the fire service and was concerned about fire suppression and prevention. Not only did he start the first organized fire brigade in Philadelphia but was a tremendous advocate of fire safety.”

At this point I could see the King taking notes under his table to covertly use this one in the future and take his own credit for it.

I continued, “For the February 4, 1735 issue of The Pennsylvania Gazette, Franklin sent an anonymous letter to his own newspaper entitled Protection of Towns from Fire. Using the pen name “old citizen” he admonished readers with this statement -

“In the first Place, as an Ounce of Prevention is worth a Pound of Cure, I would advise ‘em to take care how they suffer living Coals in a full Shovel, to be carried out of one Room into another, or up or down Stairs, unless in a Warming pan shut; for Scraps of Fire may fall into Chinks and make no Appearance until Midnight; when your Stairs being in Flames, you may be forced, (as I once was) to leap out of your Windows, and hazard your Necks to avoid being oven-roasted.”

The crowd loved it!

After the meeting a humbled King came up to me.

“A great trivia fact, but next year I’ll have a better fire related story then you. It’s my challenge.”

I can’t wait!!

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Yesterday evening I was watching the Mike Huckabee Show on Fox. I like Huckabee. He’s sort of like a left over relic from the Leave it to Beaver era when the country was a kinder, gentler place.

Huck had a cooking piece on about deep frying a turkey. It got me to thinking that many of us as PIO’s are getting ready to let our community know, through releases, speaking engagements or on our websites the numerous dangers presented around Thanksgiving  by this form of cooking.

The Fox segment not about dangers, but about the taste of deep frying, triggered a memory that I recently received an email about a public information campaign about fire and burn danger in this form of cooking.

I opened the email and State Farm insurance has done a great job in producing a bare bones video of the dangers of deep frying. It’s easy to understand, does not use a narrator, fancy graphics or high end production techniques, but certainly hammers the point home in a minute and ten seconds.

This is the one I’m going to use this year on our department website.

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An interesting incident took place at work late yesterday afternoon. I was sitting at my desk reading a copy of MEDIAWEEK when a colleague came into the office to report on a meeting he had attended. He asked if I had time to chat with him and I told him I was reading an article and could he shoot back in ten minutes. He gave me the strangest look and then I realized that I had committed the most heinous workplace crime of all – reading while on the job.

What is it with reading at work? Most people that spot you reading surmise that you are slacking off and shirking your responsibilities to waste valuable office work time. They equate it to reading an Archie comic while on the job.

In the marketing and public relations arena, if you are not on the cutting edge you quickly become one step behind the competition. In fire and police public information you never want to be one upped by another department or branch of public service.

I must spend several hours each day absorbing information both on the computer and in print to keep me current on what’s happening in the profession. We cannot step ahead unless we settle down to take in the wealth of information that is now at our fingertips.

I financially subscribe to over 20 different online and print publications in addition to scanning on a daily basis numerous free websites and blogs that give me the tools to better inform and market to the public.

What a fraudulent conception. I guess if you’re hunched over your computer buying a pair of pants online that is work, while getting print ink on your hands is punishable by the law.

P.S. As an aside, the fire house is the best place to read. There is a certain understanding that if you are reading magazines like Fire Rescue you are trying to hone you skills. Most guys ask you what you are reading and what you have learned. Heaven!!

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During my quick trip to Las Vegas, I’m glad someone was on fire watch at The Fire PIO desk.  I want to thank Bill Carey at Fire EMS Blogs who does such fantastic work managing these blogs as well as well as websites for  FirefighterNation.com/ Fire Rescue Magazine /JEMS.connect/JEMS.com LawOfficerConnect/LawOfficer.com.

The first piece Bill brought to my attention was written by Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post. It is about stressed newroom budgets and how reporters must multi task to get a story out.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/07/AR2010030702506.html?sub=AR

The second piece is about a great public information partnership between the Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department and Metro bus.

http://pgfdpio.blogspot.com/2010/03/pgfd-pepco-and-metro-partner-for-fire.html

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As a PIO I always look for opportunity to educate the public as the result of a specific incident that my department responds to. When we have the first chimney fire of the year in the fall I usually float out to the media a story on chimney safety. Similar lessons to be learned are sent to the media after CO incidents, MVA’s, electrical fires etc. It’s a great way to let the public know about an incident and ultimately how it can be avoided.

My fire brother, the world renowned Firegeezer, scooped me on covering a Massachusetts Fire Chiefs partnership with Boston’s WFXT-TV to tell the public about the dangers of some modular homes.

 TAKE A LOOK AT THE GEEZERS STORY

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I have recently read a number of articles about whether hard copy print materials should be distributed as freely as in the past.  The volume of printed materials distributed by public service organizations is massive. Just think about how many department newsletters, brochures, and flyers go out to your community.

The question is if all this paper is really necessary?  I think an assessment of your outreach materials is a good start. A summary of some of the tips I have culled are as follows -

Assess your print needs. Review the brochures and printed materials that you frequently distribute. Are you duplicating similar information on the web and your Facebook page for example? If many of your constituents are getting your information electronically, maybe it is time to start ordering less printed materials.

No matter how technically proficient members of the public are in computer use, there is still a number of folks who do not have computers or printers and still want a hard copy in their hands. The newspaper industry is hanging on by a thread in many markets. Although a number of papers have gravitated towards a stronger online presence, many readers still need the comfort of actually holding newsprint in their hands. I don’t think actual printed newspaper will ever totally disappear.

Cut costs. Think about posting info to your Web site, instead of printing the usual10,000 brochures about your Fire Prevention Day, for instance.

Find a better way. Why not place PDF’s on your web site and print them out and mail them to individuals who still request a hard copy? Why not integrate info into one, all-encompassing capabilities brochure?

 “That’s the way we have always done it.”  Marketing and public relations materials, especially printed, can be crutches for a lot of departments. I’ve heard comments such as, “But we’ve always had these brochures,” or, “We do a flyer for this every year.” OK, fine. But we wouldn’t be doing our jobs as PIO’s if we didn’t look at the “why” and figure out whether there’s a more effective, responsible way to disseminate information.

My take – Offer a well rounded menu, based on your own internal survey, of how your community likes to absorb information. There is no one fit, right fit. It is our job to reach out to the public to get them the most information possible through a well rounded blend of print and electronic means.

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