How to calculate downtime...

The impact of a fire related incident can be devastating, resulting in loss of property, financial hardship, and often times, death. I started this blog as a way to ensure the continued success of its readers  organizations by eliminating the risk of fire loss.

Here at the Code Coach I attempt to do just that in the following ways:

• Education - through this blog and shared articles readers are educated as to what fire/life safety components should be in place, and how to prevent fire/life safety issues from occurring.
• Consulting - providing FREE plan review services to ensure fire/life safety code compliance; providing life safety evaluations of facilities; being part of the commissioning process; overseeing new construction and incident recovery projects.
• Speaking - host and speak at fire prevention/life safety conferences/seminars/events; conduct site specific training; provide employee fire prevention and life safety training.

By combining these elements fire protection and life safety can be achieved. To determine the value that these tools could have for your organization, check out this "Downtime Calculator".  This calculator lets you see the cost of lost time due to a fire or other emergency.

3 Skills To Unlearn for More Powerful Presentations

In this short video from youth speaker, Josh Shipp, he shares 3 skills that every public speaker, teacher, or trainer needs to unlearn in order to present a powerful presentation.  Unlearn these skills to be more effective, and leave a lasting impact in your public education presentations.

1. Stop speaking to the audience; start speaking to the individual.
2. Stop caring so much about audience feedback.
3. Stop thinking that you are changing lives.

6 Ways to Get People to Your Presentation

Our fire department has begun implementing the Remembering When program.  This program, produced by the National Fire Protection Association, is a fall and fire prevention program for older adults.  The program consists of 8 fall prevention behaviors, and 8 fire prevention behaviors. 

During the creation of this program, focus groups determined the following top 6 ways to get people (especially older adults) to attend and listen to your presentation.

1. Good quality presentation.  Content is always king.  A presentation that adds value to the listener and is well presented,  lets people leave with a sense of having gained something, not just wasted time.  A good presentation will also attract future audiences, due to word of mouth (especially applicable to the older adult demographic).
• The presentation should be brief, 20-30 minutes.  The Remembering When program has several time ranges, however, the main messages and presentation does not exceed 25 minutes.
• Focus on key messages.  Focus the presentation on the most important messages. It would be impossible to make an exhaustive presentation (on any topic) in only 20-30 minutes.  The object of the presentation is for the information to be retained, we do not want our listeners to suffer from information overload.
• The presenter should be a trusted expert.  The donning of our firefighters uniform, automatically  makes us the trusted expert.  Do not do anything that would violate this trust.  A well rehearsed presentation can make anyone seem like an expert on any subject.  Practice!
2. Transportation provided or easily accessible.  Our library system has branches strategically located throughout the county.  Partnering with them provides a convenient location.  We also partner with our local Council on Aging, they have a transportation service that picks up and brings people to there facility.
3. Food provided, include this information in the advertising.  Everyone loves going to a meeting, knowing that food will be provided. Also, provides a free meal for those who are financially disadvantaged.
4. Door prizes.  Everyone loves free stuff! This also creates a buzz among the participants, and a certain level of competition.
5. Time of day.  Focus groups determined that the best time of day to offer a presentation (for older adults) is at 10 am or after noon, around 2 pm.
6. Provide follow-up session.  Collect names and contact information, at the very least provide a phone call or e-mail as a follow up.  Remembering When, also has a home visit/risk-assessment component that provides a great method for follow up.