Developing PTSC-Online & Continuous Improvement
Suggestions to improve PTSC-Online
As one who has been involved with emergency management in a corporate environment, in industry mutual aid programs and as an emergency management consultant, I have had occasions to discuss career development with groups and individuals. As I reflect, these were some of my more rewarding experiences. . We have a mentoring opportunity which might interest you, if you would like to help folks who want to pursue careers in emergency management or the emergency services.
As community manager for PTSC-Online I've had the opportunity to meet or web conference with groups of aspiring emergency managers and work with a few individuals. I have also had some discussions about organized mentor programs, most of which did not appear to be very effective. So what is the problem? We have a potentially rewarding activity (mentorship) which does not apear to work well as an organized program. The answer appears to involve the amount of bureaucracy and paperwork associated…
A common challenge organizations and individuals often face today is how to continue operation and in many cases meet higher expectations with fewer resources. We have all experienced budget and or staff cuts but when this happens we need to think "outside the box" and consider different ways to get the job done. Have you considered how on line networking may help you work more efficiently and effectively?
Because my company has a partner agreement with IGLOO software, the company which hosts PTSC-Online, I am aware of the growing trend of working on line as a more effective way to manage internal teams or network with partners and customers. IGLOO Software, a Kitchener Ontario based company which specializes in on line communities, provides this service worldwide to organizations some with over 18,000 members as well as smaller organizations. The purpose in using an on line community is to…
The Partnerships Toward Safer Communities - Online community has two types of residents (for lack of a better term) members and viewers. The purpose of this article is to learn more about our members and provide information about membership with the hope that this information will help us better develop our community.
As you may be aware, PTSC-Online is owned by the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs (CAFC) but it was created to serve a much larger audience than members of the fire service.
To help prepare for some upcoming discussion with CAFC it would be very helpful to know the extent to which members of the Canadian Fire Service are involved with PTSC-Online. There is a quick survey on our home page which asks members of the Fire Service if they visit our community as members or viewers. Please follow…
This is the first of a series of articles designed to provide our members and viewers with an opportunity to help shape the future development of PTSC-Online. We would appreciate a moment of your time to help PTSC-Online develop into a more valuable and sustainable resource for Canadian emergency and continuity managers.
- QUALITY RELEVANT CONTENT: It is important to our community to provide timely quality information to our viewers that will will help them accomplish their organizational and personal objectives. This may be awareness of upcoming events in the events calendar,…
This is a follow up to my January 28th article on the important role our steering committee plays in helping us develop PTSC-Online into an even stronger sustainable on line community. I am very encouraged after our first web conference.
For those who did not read it here is a link to my last article which highlights the important role the PTSC-Online Steering committee plays.
The purpose of this article is to share a few highlights from our steering committee web conference with you; (a) to let you know what is happening and (b) to hopefully encourage you to identify more opportunities for us to strengthen our on line community. Please note, I am using the term "on line community" not web site as some would call PTSC-Online…
If you are reading this article I assume you have some interest in Partnerships Toward Safer Communities - Online and have been viewing our articles and on line discussion and have possibly participated in some of the discussion. You may have been viewing articles which are available to all or you may have joined our community to partake of the advantages membership provides. This article is about ensuring you can continue to do what you have been doing and providing you with more value for the time you spend in PTSC-Online.
The About PTSC / Leadership section explains how PTSC-Online is managed and describes the role of our steering committee. Our sustainability, or our ability to continue to operate and provide these services to our viewers and members is our primary challenge from an operational perspective. Our Steering Committee is an asset which has helped us significantly in the past and we are in the process of strengthening it to tackle the challenges which face us in 2013.
The quality articles…
2012 disappeared all too quickly and 2013 is now here. If you are anything like me, there are still things left on the 2012 to do list. Are there ways we can work smarter in 2013 to most effectively use the resources available to us?
One of the things I liked about industry or government / industry committees i served on is that I could likely find some of my peers that were facing the same issues or opportunities as I was. That opened up the opportunity to share ideas or work on projects collectively to our mutual benefit. As I look back I can recall several situations where by working collectively with other industry responders we were able to make significant improvements in industry's collective emergency response…
Wishing all our PTSC-Online members and viewers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Thank you to the over 20,000 unique visitors who viewed PTSC-Online throughout 2012. Your taking time to visit our on line community was most certainly appreciated and we hope to see you continuing to visit throughout 2013. Please take time to leave your challenges, comments and suggestions on your next visit as sharing and interacting with each other will add significant value to our community and the value we each get from it.
Thank you again and Merry Christmas.
Bill
Your PTSC-Online…
I am encouraged at the number of new opportunities I encounter to help PTSC-Online grow and and add value for its viewers. Some of these opportunities materialize and some do not but I am thankful for each one. Here are some recent examples.
Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs: Our viewers should be thankful for the support CAFC provided which enabled the creation of PTSC-Online. Without the support of their well established respected association, Public Safety Canada funding would not have been available to help us develop, promote and operate PTSC-Online. We are thankful for members of the fire service who have joined PTSC-Online and I appreciated the opportunity to speak with newly elected CAFC President Stephen Gamble to…
I am encouraged by recent Canadian initiatives aimed at improving Canada's resiliency by enhancing our capability to prevent, mitigate, prepare for respond to and recover from a growing number of incidents which can affect our communities and businesses. The purpose of this article is to highlight a couple of these initiatives and ask how PTSC-Online can work with and support them.
The first event was the was the Round Table on Disaster Risk Reduction which was held on October 23rd. This was a combination on site event and a virtual talk show which was supplemented with social media to make the message available to a broader audience. Speakers presented different suggestions for disaster risk reduction but one common thread across the presentations appeared to be a need to broaden the groups with which we collaborate, build bridges between the silos and I believe one…
About this channel
- 18,585 views
- 83 articles
- 3 followers
Recent Contributors
- Offline
William MacKay
Recent Comments
- Emergency Managers /…
- Emergency Managers /…The following discussion from the IAEM Canada Student Region Facebook page adds some good comments to our discussion.
Bill MacKay: Could mentoring help advance your emergency management career?
Emergency Managers / Emergency Service Careers - Mentoring Opportunity -
As one who has been involved with emergency management in a corporate… - Emergency Managers /…Posting e-mail received from Patrick Monaghan in support of the program.
Hi Bill:
I am available to assist with the mentoring programme. My skill set includes EM/BCM/DR (physical and IT) and training. I am currently working with an Ontario municipality to revamp and improve their emergency management program with a view to doing BCP work as… - Emergency Managers /…I'm looking forward to developing this program. The experience of emergency managers and other professionals has been a driving force pushing me forward in my career. This is especially true when it comes to applying to positions for different organizations. Every organization has different standards, and my mentors have been invaluable for their e…
- Crowd Sourcing the F…Excellent comments and suggestions Corey and thank you for contributing to this important discussion.
Regarding our coverage in Canada we most certainly try to reach outto all areas. Any suggestions on how we can do that better will certainly be appreciated, Lynn Orstad with the BC Association of Emergency Managers is on our steering committee.… - Crowd Sourcing the F…Hi William, I'm a new member to PTSC and am taking your advice about getting involved and commenting. I'm currently studying for my BA in Emergency & Security Management, and am a 6 year veteran with my fire department. I'll say that so far I am really impressed with the PTSC on line community, the wealth of information, and what I see as…
- Crowd Sourcing the F…I don't want to monopolize the discussion but I want to build on a comment recently made by one of our steering committee members because I believe it pertains to the content we see on PTSC-Online and I think it may add value to this discussion. The statement was " I am currently spending the majority of my time trying to find funding for our…
- Crowd Sourcing the F…Referrals as a Source of Revenue: I am not necessarily recommending referrals as a revenue source for PTSC-Online but it is an option that should be considered so I am putting it on the table for further discussion. There are two types of referral options I am aware of (1) Opportunities to promote (not necessarily recommend or endorse) emergency…
- Crowd Sourcing the F…Thanks Mark. This discussion is very good and I look forward to the steering committee discussion on how we should best proceed. Your suggestion is somewhat similar to that which Peter suggested for members but I believe it should be expanded to include viewers as many more folks view PTSC-Online than we have as members, approximately 2000 per…
- Crowd Sourcing the F…Useful article. However, the concept of crowd sourcing has often involve number of people giving a small amount of money. Sometimes this is for no demonstrable return as it is too small an amount for an individual to worry about , but there are models that involve membership/ownership.
I am not sure that we could apply these models but it is…
Archives
- April 2013 2
- March 2013 1
- February 2013 1
- January 2013 3
- December 2012 1
- November 2012 3
- October 2012 1
- July 2012 1
- June 2012 2
- May 2012 3
- April 2012 2
- March 2012 3
- February 2012 2
- January 2012 4
- December 2011 2
- November 2011 1
- September 2011 1
- August 2011 2
- July 2011 3
- May 2011 2
- April 2011 3
- March 2011 5
- February 2011 4
- January 2011 4
- December 2010 6
- November 2010 4
- October 2010 3
- September 2010 7
- August 2010 7
Page Options
-----------------
I posted your above comments as a comment to my original article in PTSC-Online so all the comments would be in one place. I am hearing some support for…