Head on over to Backstep Firefighter and watch this interesting video from 1982.

After watching the video, editor Bill Carey suggests some thoughts to contemplate as he begins his focus on “whether or not various safety initiatives and programs have developed a culture of digital safety officers and keyboard battalion chiefs.”

Like it or not, tomorrow’s technology is here. In fact, next year’s technology will be here within months. Such advances in the internet and social media continue to have profound effects on each of our departments and agencies (think back to all the “what the hell were they thinking?” YouTube videos as examples).

Bill also steers us to the last Firefighter Netcast which featured the topic of old-school vs. new school firefighting and the effects of social media and the internet. You can
link to that program here, or download the podcast for later listening over at iTunes.

So are we ready to handle all this technology?

When we see firefighters making mistakes on a video, the unfortunate yet inherent desire to criticize others combined with the immediacy and worldwide distribution that new technology offers often results in departments shying away from such exposure.

Yet, the same technologies that scare some away presents unparalleled opportunities to all of us to learn. And the curiosity to continue learning makes you a smarter, more professional firefighter (as opposed to the comfy-yet-surprised 4-year veteran I posted on earlier).

My hope is that we all reach a certain level of new-age maturity, where knee-jerk criticisms can be throttled so
that departments increasingly share the wealth of what they have learned from their mistakes.

Because the reality is simple: with today’s technology, far away is now in your day room, and tomorrow is here yesterday.

Stay Stoked!

John Mitchell is a fire Lieutenant and paramedic in suburban Chicago. He is a fire and EMS instructor, certified fire investigator and Chicago Blackhawks fan. He is the editor of FireDaily and co-creator of FirefighterNetCast.