Discover what's new and what's next with the Blue Card Program as Josh Blum and John Vance provide an essential update on the evolution of our training system for incident commanders. Tune in to find out how we've conquered the challenges since the old system's shutdown, from swiftly resurrecting the learning management system to fixing pesky bugs. Get the insider scoop on the latest curriculum enhancements and the sleek new website design ushering us into 2024. We're also unveiling exciting upcoming content, including a series dedicated to Silverback Leadership.
We are here to support our Blue Card incident commanders who deal with unique challenges daily. With the promise of continuous improvement to the system, our gratitude runs deep for the patience and engagement of our community of IC's. So, fire up your podcast app and join us as we navigate the ever-evolving landscape of Blue Card training all while ensuring you have a robust support network at your back.
This episode features Josh Blum and John Vance.
We want your helmet (for the AVB CTC)! Check this out to find out more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg5_ZwoCZo0
Sign up for the B Shifter Buckslip, our free weekly newsletter here: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/fmgs92N/Buckslip
Shop B Shifter here: https://bshifter.myshopify.com
Register for the 2024 Hazard Zone Conference here: http://hazardzonebc.com/
All of our links here: https://linktr.ee/BShifter
Please subscribe and share. Thank you for listening!
This episode was recorded at the Alan V. Brunacini Command Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona on March 15, 2024.
Discover what's new and what's next with the Blue Card Program as Josh Blum and John Vance provide an essential update on the evolution of our training system for incident commanders. Tune in to find out how we've conquered the challenges since the old system's shutdown, from swiftly resurrecting the learning management system to fixing pesky bugs. Get the insider scoop on the latest curriculum enhancements and the sleek new website design ushering us into 2024. We're also unveiling exciting upcoming content, including a series dedicated to Silverback Leadership.
We are here to support our Blue Card incident commanders who deal with unique challenges daily. With the promise of continuous improvement to the system, our gratitude runs deep for the patience and engagement of our community of IC's. So, fire up your podcast app and join us as we navigate the ever-evolving landscape of Blue Card training all while ensuring you have a robust support network at your back.
This episode features Josh Blum and John Vance.
We want your helmet (for the AVB CTC)! Check this out to find out more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg5_ZwoCZo0
Sign up for the B Shifter Buckslip, our free weekly newsletter here: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/fmgs92N/Buckslip
Shop B Shifter here: https://bshifter.myshopify.com
Register for the 2024 Hazard Zone Conference here: http://hazardzonebc.com/
All of our links here: https://linktr.ee/BShifter
Please subscribe and share. Thank you for listening!
This episode was recorded at the Alan V. Brunacini Command Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona on March 15, 2024.
Hey everyone, Josh Bloom and John Vance here and today we want to provide an update for blue card users, blue card instructors, the people who are using our system on a regular basis. What is going on? I know we've had a lot of changes, a lot of good upgrades lately, so Josh is going to bring us up to date on that.
Speaker 2:Hey, josh, yeah, so hey, john, hope you're having a good day. So we just want to bring everybody up to date. So you know, blue card launched in October-ish 2008,. We'll just say 2008 and you know, here we are March of 2024.
Speaker 2:So, as everybody is aware, we shut the old system down in October of 23, right after the conference. So about four and a half months ago. We shut, you know, the previous system down and we wanted to have the ability to continue to grow the program, add CE and do some other things for the customer base really. So you know, when it was shut down, the priority was, hey, we got to be able to get it right back up and our first priority was the learning management system. So it took like six weeks and we had some bugs that we worked through. The system was never down for six weeks, it was only down for a few days, but over like a six week period we worked through most of the learning management system of bugs. So, and that focus on that was the eight functions of command system, because we're our focus is training firefighters. So it was important that the eight functions of command get back up and that we work through and fix that and while we were messing with that, we updated some tweaking with some of the CE modules and pushed out we have pushed out several new CE modules over, you know, the last six months. So if you haven't looked at those, you can go and if you have full access, get those CE modules and go ahead and go through those.
Speaker 2:And then we've done tons of curriculum updates. So really, since 2021 we've done all kinds of curriculum updates and it's interesting you know when the trainer this week, departments have been on blue cards since 2010. They've got new instructors coming on board now. But though we do instructor updates and we push out stuff through the podcast and the buck slip and emails to instructors and all that, they haven't. They didn't get the information or they weren't looking for the information or whatever. So you know they weren't current on what we've done with the program since 2010. So you know the entire day one power points been updated. The whole made operations piece has been updated. All of our big box materials been updated. We're getting ready to push out the new updated previews, which brings the fireman back to or anybody going through the program back to decision making. So we used to call them reviews and then it was preloads, but we're relaunching again, going to get rid of all that old and we're going to have previews, which helps the instructor facilitate a simulation and take you down the path of decision making, because that's what it's all about. Right, one of our big slides is the strategic decision making model.
Speaker 2:In addition, just a few weeks ago, though, though, our website came right back up. After, you know, a few days, the new website. We didn't have a huge focus on trying to just get a landing page. The focus was on learning management right, we want to train people, so that that's was the big focus. So we're super excited that the landing page is back up and we're going to continue to refine that. But there's already things on the landing page that that make it look like 2024. It's just been updated. We got all of our workshops, you know, posted on there. You can, you know, renew on there, you can buy subscriptions on there, dispatch your information kind of an overview of what all information blue card offers, and we're going to continue to grow all of that.
Speaker 2:And really, with this new platform, we're in a position that we're going to start pushing out much more CE. So an example of that is the, the silverback leadership stuff that Terry and Nick have been working on. So just stay tuned because in the very near future that's going to come out in modules, right. So it's not like we're waiting on an entire program to come out. They're going to start releasing that and small digestible pieces really that people that have full access to full CE will be able to to go through and do. And then the long-awaited ARF module is pretty close to completion. They're actually doing a bunch of the talking heads and wrapping that up very soon. So yet this year that's going to come out.
Speaker 2:And then we kind of debuted, if you will, the the after-action reporting system, that where our focus is really on continuous improvement and how do we, how do we measure our success on the fire ground and what we're doing. So at the conference last year we debuted that and we got a lot of great feedback and we took some of that information and on this new platform we stopped what we were doing before and on this new platform we have tons of more capability. So we're super excited about that and it's actually kind of back in development. So we didn't throw everything out that we were doing. We kept all the ideas, but we're building it on a new system and by the conference in October that will be fully functional, operational, and the nice thing is going to be that anybody that's an instructor is going to have access to that. So that was another one of the big questions, right? So there's a ton of stuff going on.
Speaker 2:Just stay connected.
Speaker 2:If you ever have something or a question or an idea or whatever you know, reach out to us. I do want to tell everybody thanks for being, you know, patient with us. I think everybody understands, if you work at the fire department, if you switch from one records management system to another, you know it sucks because we lose functionality or maybe we just don't know exactly how it works. And I just want everybody to rest assured that we're working every day to continue to update and build the system to make it more user friendly for you, because you all out there are the ones that are using it. So I think we continue to operate in the command function seven and review, evaluate, revise and then take action and actually be in a state of constantly fixing ourselves, like we tell every fire department to do so, super excited.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, john, I think we need to mention a few things here about like the buck slip and the information that's coming out and what they can find on YouTube and all the podcast information and all that, because, if people haven't heard, you're retired now and you're working full time for us, so we've had quite an uptick in our presence and everything we're going to push out. You know, through social media, our ability to push out videos and provide relief. In a lot of cases, free training to everybody, whether they're engaged with Blue Card or not, is going to be good. Moving forward and thank you for doing all the things that you're doing with that.
Speaker 1:Well, I want people to know if they're not accessing the B-Shifter buck slip right now. It is the place to go on the fire service for news, information and training for people who are incident commanders and leaders of fire departments. So I look, I put time into it every week. We have authors that contribute to it every week. It's really what we used to do in the magazine. So our magazine used to come out three times a year and it was a big production because we'd have a lot of people write for it. Now, in real time, we're putting out articles every week. That really more timely. We're not waiting for a trimester to be over with and put that article out, we're putting it out in real time. So if you're interested in information that is really germane for an incident commander or a leader of a fire department, read that B-Shifter buck slip, because there is so much information in there for folks. And then we also put links to everything that we're doing. So if there's a new class that's out, if there's a new thing that we put out on YouTube, a new podcast. We have a couple of features, like show us your buggy, that we highlight different command vehicles people have. So it's just a really nice, timely publication. If you're not getting it for whatever reason, there is a link right now that we have on this video that you can subscribe to it. And the other thing I want people to do is check out and make sure it's not going to your junk mail, because we email that to every blue card user every single week and there are some people out there that unsubscribe to it and they care not to get it, but it goes to 27,000 people every week right now and about 1,000 people have opted in lately. So these are people who you know. Your department maybe hasn't paid for blue card or you haven't gone through the program, but they're interested in it and it's open to those people too. So even if you're watching this and you happen not to be a blue card user but you want to down the road, you can still get it for free. It's absolutely free and in your mailbox all the time. Then, of course, the B shifter podcast we have about three times a month there's a new podcast and it's information and news for incident commanders, for people who are leaders within their department. We really try to balance out the operational stuff where we talk about applying blue card and fire command and then the leadership issues that you might be facing within your department. So lots of good stuff out all the time. We want to be a resource for you, so if you have any ideas for us, you know, feel free to let us know and contact us, and we're always looking for ideas. We have some more audio coming up. People submit their incident audio and even better when they give us their helmet cam footage so we love to share that with everybody too.
Speaker 1:This is a community of incident commanders, right. So it's an elite group of people that few know really the pressures of our job and the importance of making good decisions, keeping our people safe being in these critical time crunches, like we are, and we want to build that community and be here to support everyone who's part of that. So we push that information out all the time for you, and I think another part of this website is you're going to see that grow on the website, and one of the questions I've gotten lately is like, why did you guys get a new website? Well, our old website did not give us the opportunity for one reason or another Some of it was how it was built, because it was 15, 16 years old to do the things that you're going to watch it expand. So, while Josh and the team are working on enhancing our instructor tools and everything else, we're also looking at the background of building the B-Shifter Bucs Slip, so you're going to be able to get it on our website all the time. So lots of exciting stuff going on there and every day there's something new with us, so you got to stay tuned, stay informed and we'll bring it to you either through the Bucs Slip or through our social media platforms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great John. Thank you and thanks for everybody who engages with us. If you ever need anything from us, just in the bottom of the show notes there's always information where you can reach out email, call the office, you know. Whatever we're here and if I'm not standing in front of a class or on the phone with somebody, I will get right to your right, back to you. All right, thank you, josh.
Speaker 1:Yeeah man.