Interconnecting to Make a Difference

I received the following comment from Debbie Wappula via our Facebook page:

"I work at a hotel. I had never dealt with a fire before and when we were home to almost 100 firefiighters over the month of October, I took it upon myself to learn everything I could as quickly as I could to help make the jobs of the overhead team a little easier...I took ICS 100, 700, and 800 online while they were here. I developed a hotel spreadsheet that the logistics guy requested when he was sent to NY for Hurricane Sandy...anything they needed, I became."

Debbie is an example to follow for our fire leaders. She willing went above and beyond her normal job duties to become a part of something bigger. Being in training, my office has addressed more requests to avoid the very classes that Debbie volunteered to take to learn more about our business. That is leadership!

Debbie in now a fan of our social media platforms and provides comments on our pages as well as supports other wildland fire partners. She embraced what many of us take for granted! Debbie became a part of our world when we entered hers. We are interconnected.

Nick Skytland, NASA, shares his experience of being a part of something bigger in an interconnected world. He shares wildland fire's connectedness with NASA during the Columbia Space Shuttle Recovery Operation. He also shares a national effort to "bring together citizens, software developers, and entrepreneurs from all over the nation to collaboratively create, build, and invent new solutions using publicly-released data, code and technology to solve challenges relevant to our neighborhoods, our cities, our states and our country."



Video Highlights:

• We are more interconnected than ever.
• Technology is shifting the way we look at our problems.
• Many citizens want to participate in government.
• Mass collaboration is possible today through technology.

Teamwork and collaboration are core principles within the Wildland Fire Leadership Development Program (WFLDP). How can we come together to make the world a better place to live and work.

The NWCG Leadership Subcommittee wants you to be a part of shaping this country and the wildland fire service for years to come. Together with the private sector and this nation's citizens we can grow and learn and be better.

Through an informal partnership with Drexel University's LeBow College of Business students have become a part of government and the development of wildland firefighters across the nation. They saw the benefits of the Leadership in Cinema program and will begin populating our library with new and innovative leadership lesson plans. This is a win-win situation for anyone wanting to grow in leadership whether a wildland firefighter or not.

I have a few questions to ask of our readers:

• How will you make the Wildland Fire Leadership Development Program more interconntected?
• How will you lead the wildland fire service to work with others to solve the problems of this great nation?
• Will you participate in the National Day of Civic Hacking in June 1-2, 2013?

For more information on the shuttle recovery effort, read "Searching For and Recovering the Space Shuttle Columbia."