Editor’s Opinion | By David Rhodes
Back in the day, as we like to say once we have reached our perceived combination of age, wisdom, and experience, your career reputation took a lot of effort. It aged like fine wine over a long period of time that encompassed an entire body of work. Gaining a national reputation in our business meant developing expertise in a particular area, then being able to communicate that through published articles, books, a lot of public speaking, and conducting numerous training classes. This, coupled with the in-person interaction, conversation, and relationships, left individuals with an impression or at least an educated perception of who you were.
The written word sticks around forever and is an historical reference of your thoughts, work, and opinions during a particular point in time. If it’s in print, it’s hard to delete or separate it from your body of work. Your spoken word, unless recorded or videoed, on the other hand, is left strictly to the memories of those who heard your conversation or attended your class. Ah, back in the day, it took some blood, sweat, and tears to build up that stellar reputation.
Nowadays, more than ever, it is pretty easy to game yourself a reputation with a large audience. All you need is some catchy videos, stickers, slogans, and memes and you can pull off some perceived expertise delivered in short 30- to 60-second videos on any social media platform. There are algorithms you can tap into that will propel you to overnight popularity that would have taken a decade to develop in the past. This is the downside of the great tool we have now in social media. We don’t need to throw out social media because of it, but we do need to be aware of how easy it is to get starstruck over tiny bits of information that feed our cognitive biases, play on emotion, or simply entertain us.
As the consumers of content, we have to understand that popularity does not equate to expertise and depth of knowledge. We have a responsibility to investigate the body of work these individuals have contributed or not contributed to our profession. Maybe we ask the ones who work closely with them if they are the real deal. We don’t want to find ourselves in that Wizard of Oz moment, pulling back the curtain to reveal a simple carnival ring master instead of the great and powerful Wizard of Oz or something that is not what we had envisioned. To quote my late, old friend Alan Brunacini, “You can fool the spectators, but you can’t fool the players!” If we are only seeing someone through social media, then we often are only participating as a spectator to that content.
We all compete for reputation, and that should be something founded in productivity and the value of contribution. Our reputation is everything! Those with good and positive reputations are often successful by the virtuousness of their character and competence of their work. Many who do not have those traits but understand the value of reputation are willing to take shortcuts. They may be the first to signal their own virtue, often manifested by a bravado that attempts to upstage or even sabotage others. Be wary of slogans and stickers that make you feel really good and tap into your emotions, and slow down to take the time and research the body of work of those individuals who captivate your attention. Ask yourself, has their body of work contributed to making others better? Has their body of work, in turn, made our profession better? Has the combination of effort led to making the least privileged in our society better? Or has it only made the individual some good side money and created a marketable popular moment of fleeting fame? In other words, be careful who you hitch your wagon to!
There are so many great fire service members and officers out there doing the work that, in turn, builds a good reputation—a group with character and competence who grind it out daily, who take the time they could be promoting themselves on social media and spend it with the new members, teaching or coaching them quietly in the training room, checking on their practice, or maybe just having some one-on-one conversation or story time.
The majority of you have very little social media presence or national popularity on anything and are only known on a local or individual station basis. Please don’t think that you are unnoticed. Your reputation is within your community, your department, and your crew—exactly where it is most important. You are the quiet, humble professionals who keep our trust levels at the top of the charts. We all see you, but you are rarely acknowledged or recognized and, for the most part, you have no problem with that. That is what makes you the guardians of our way. I see you! I appreciate you! I want Fire Engineering to be the platform and a voice for you to share your gift, and I just wanted to shine the spotlight your way!
