CFA Connect Blogosphere

Manager of Strategic Communications, Liz Armitage describes how Twitter emergency warnings are being incorporated within the fire agencies “One Source One Message” (OSOM) system. This means that warnings will be published on the CFA Updates Twitter account as soon as they are published on CFA website by OSOM. The Twitter account is also updated by the CFA media team and State Control Centre (SCC) media unit during emergencies.

A new landscape is developing in the online world. When people log on to the internet now, they expect to be able to engage with corporations. Simply providing information without further means for discussion is no longer enough.

At CFA, we're embracing this new wave of online engagement; not because it's trendy, or it's fun to use the latest gadgets, but because it's what our community is demanding. Increasingly, our members, and the wider community, are relying on the online environment to find news, incident information and community safety advice from CFA. As a community service organisation with a diverse and geographically spread membership, we must listen and respond.

Do you remember that terrifying moment at school when you had to make a presentation to the class? Every kid was watching. The teacher was watching. It felt like time was standing still.

You spoke, you waited, you held your breath. What happened next generally depended on whether you chose to talk about something interesting, like the footy, or something that could sink you in three short minutes of desperately mumbled phrases; your pet dog's new kennel perhaps.

Mick Jagger couldn't get no satisfaction.

What a day it's been so far! I was literally shaking before we launched this morning and haven't been that nervous since the Dogs ran out after three quarter time in the prelim last year.

We've had hundreds of people sign up and we're even starting to get some news stories come through from contributors, which is a great result for the site. I hope you'll all stay involved and we'll see a whole lot more.

After years of stubbornly refusing to build a presence in cyberspace, I have finally made the big leap into the blogosphere.