It started with a tweet

I wonder how many events these days come from inspiration found on Twitter? About a year ago, I read a tweet by an academic from a research centre in a northern English university that really struck a chord with me. He talked about information sharing. I studied Librarianship for my Masters degree: I like information; I was intrigued.

I suggested to him via Twitter that maybe the fire and rescue service and in particular the fire prevention side of things might benefit from improved information sharing. He agreed. And there it was: a new connection was made and on Monday this week we brought 60 people together to explore this approach.

I couldn’t do this on my own so I linked up with Deputy Chief Officer Neil Odin, leading on this area for the Chief Fire Officers Association. It was the CFOA networks that found all these people who were interested enough to give up a  Monday in November to share our curiosity.

Fire and rescue services don’t traditionally have much to do with the academic world, but Monday's event at the London Fire Brigade HQ became part of the Economic and Social Research Council’s Festival of Social Science. This was new to me, but it is now in its 13th year.

We saw representatives of 23 out of 46 English fire and rescue services come together with academics from leading UK universities to consider the question: “how do you talk to people if they don’t exist?” This title came from a throw away comment made by my new academic friend, Professor Rob Wilson, Director of the KITE Research Centre at Newcastle University.

Underlying that title was a serious issue: the desire to find new ways to find the most vulnerable members of our communities; to not only look to reduce the fire risks in their homes but also how to connect them with other service providers.

We intended to send our guests home with some inspiration, some head scratching and a new desire to explore the techniques that are being used in academic circles to help go forward with the fire prevention journey.

I am encouraged that Twitter can act as the inspiration for a new conversation, let's see where it goes from here.

Event information and access to presentations are now on the CFOA website.