There’s been a lot of talk recently at conferences I have attended about whether websites have outlived their usefulness and are merely dinosaurs left over from 1990s.
I think in our line of work where fact and not hype are the foundations of our websites, a no frills approach is warranted and the website model fits quite well thank you. Whereas a consumer product or service might look to gain interest through blogs, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube first, most folks who want fire and EMS information will visit our websites as the main source of information. With that said though our websites should still serve as portals to assist in integrating our traditional website and social media marketing efforts.
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.
I wrote a post a few weeks’ backs about whether we, as PIO’s, are carrying the heavy load for the media in regard to supplying them with information from incident scenes. 
There are many cycles when I am constantly sending releases and news to the media. If my department has a particularly busy run schedule, newsworthy assessment of the incidents quickly follow. There are other cycles though when alarms settle down and the flow of information to the media takes a brief hiatus. To avoid being out of sight, out of mind, I make sure that my department, especially in the local community newspapers, has placement at least twice a month. One way I do this is with news “fillers.”
I want to thank Doug Walton who forwarded me this story from Gerald Baron who writes 
Occasionally The Fire PIO will reach into his old hydrant bags of tricks to make life easier in various situations for my fellow PIO’s.
