Excellent Example of How Collaboration Should Work

OnFirehouse Zentoday I posted a reflection on the collaborative effort undertaken by the Seattle and Raleigh Fire Departments to use the lessons learned from Raleigh's 2009 TDA rollover to teach others. What resulted was an excellent video that should be viewed by ALL drivers, much less TDA chauffeurs and tiller operators.

While the value of the video and the lessons learned is without question, the point I actually want to make is that we as an industry have a lot to learn from each other. We have so many tools out there in which we can facilitate those efforts:The Secret List, social media, attending conferences, or just asking questions. This is truly the value in networking, not the trading of patches (not that there's anything wrong with that) or discussion on POV lighting.

I have been in the fire service for 31 years and while I have seen much, I have certainly not seen it all. But so, neither have you. We must share our experiences and learn from each other or be cursed to learn the hard way (through personal experience in often less-than-desirable situations).

你有创新的合作伙伴,你有吗developed between your organization and others? With community partners or corporate/departmental partnerships? Or anyone else for that matter; if you have something you have done that is pretty striking, I'd appreciate it if you share it. We all can learn from each other and we all should do just that.

Hope to hear from you all,

Mick Mayers

Firehouse Zen