Abby Ferri

I’m an early adopter of social media and have retained a few apps as old standbys while adding new apps. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are my go-to’s. Google+ is a necessary (and automated) platform for me. And Snapchat has become one of my favorite platforms.

I’ve been able to use all of my favorite apps for personal as well as business communication and content, however Facebook is the most recent social media tool I’m using for business. It seems a little backwards, but for the longest time I maintained a firm line between business and personal use of Facebook.

I started using Facebook more for safety information in the past year because I’m the Assistant Administrator of ASSE’s Women in Safety Engineering (WISE) common interest group. The WISE Facebook group is amazingly engaging. There is fresh and relevant content daily from our members who post, but do not over-post – it’s a great dynamic that needs very little moderating.

Engaging. That’s the key. The WISE Facebook group is successful because the members want to hear what others have to say or have found something valuable to share.

As I’ve experimented with different types of posts on my business Facebook page, I’m learning some hard lessons about engagement. I spent $40 on boosting two different types of posts and learned a lot. One post was an infographic about safety and the internet of things. I boosted it ahead of a speaking engagement on the same topic at a regional safety conference. The engagement was abysmal, barely a blip.

The most recent boosted post was something I almost walked by. I had just dropped off my daughter at daycare and was walking home when I greeted a construction worker who’s been working on the road in our neighborhood for weeks. I usually say hi or good morning to the crew, but that day, the worker was particularly engaging, most likely because the weather was nice, so we commented on it (because it’s Minnesota). As he continued walking ahead of me, I saw his high-visibility shirt had a custom message that you can see in the photo below. I asked him if I could take his picture and immediately posted it on my social media platforms.

CHECK OUT THESE ANALYTICS! It’s a little ridiculous, isn’t it?

Something Gary Vaynerchuk has discussed on his show came to mind as I reviewed the results of this boosted post – people take photos for the purpose of sharing them on social media to put a specific persona out there to the world. 

Stay with me here…

Safety is boring to those who are not safety professionals.

Safety professionals are always trying to find ways to make safety training or programs more engaging and memorable so that people remember the “rules” so they don’t get hurt.

Safety professionals who can make safety *not* boring have more success with retention of training by their students.

Many safety professionals do not know how to not be boring, and seek out content from colleagues or the internet to improve their training.

Here’s where my silly Facebook post comes in – it makes people laugh, engage, and share the post. It’s sneaky safety, which is a tactic I employ frequently. I hope some of my boring fellow safety pros steal the post and use it in their training. I hope non-safety pros who engaged with the post thought about safety a little more after seeing the photo, and it sets them on a path that safety is not boring.

For more info on making safety fun, check out the podcast that originally accompanied the viral photo here.

There’s a lot of chatter on LinkedIn and other business social media channels about artificial intelligence, how much those with AI skills can earn, and robotics. All of this information can be overwhelming and it can cause a person to push back saying it’s too futuristic.

The future is here, now, and you’d better get educated! For my fellow safety pros, there’s so much opportunity to get in at the ground floor in our organizations with using AI and robotics. This post is for safety pros to begin their study of AI and robotics so you can talk intelligently about the topic and be a leader at your organization.

The lowest hanging fruit is fear. No matter the organization or how techy the individuals, there will be fear that robots will kill us. It’s something my favorite podcaster Gary Vaynerchuk casually mentions all the time.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO for short), published a Technical Specification (TS) in early 2016 about working with “collaborative robots.” It’s ISO/TS 15066:2016 and it’ll cost you about $140 to download or receive a paper copy. The TS and related article can help you begin the conversation with personnel at your company about fear of robots.

This article is a great start to begin answering the question “how can we work safely alongside robots?” The challenge is programming AI to understand safety. Think about how hard it is to “program” safety into a human worker and you can see the challenge ahead for AI developers. The Safety Principle is part of 23 principles for AI developed at the 2017 Asilomar AI Conference. The 23 principles are supported by Steven Hawking and Elon Musk as part of 1200 AI/Robotics researchers and 2342 others. You can add your name to the support list by going to the previous link.

The Safety Principle is the first listed under the heading of Ethics and Values and reads as follows –

Safety: AI systems should be safe and secure throughout their operational lifetime, and verifiably so where applicable and feasible.

What about a worker that’s part robot and part human? That’s HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) from Japan – and it’s meant to assist human physical functions for workers, elderly, and those with nerve and muscular disorders.

The next logical way to approach the AI and robotics topic at work is injury reduction. No matter the industry, soft tissue injuries like sprains and strains are a common source of injury, often resulting in costly and lengthy workers compensation claims. It makes sense to look to technology to reduce this type of claim. Contrary to what some fearful people at your organization will say, robots will not completely replace humans! I believe that there will always be work that will involve a human touch, and that work can, and should, be made more efficient with technology.

Wearable exoskeletons are currently in use in several industrial settings and construction sites. NIOSH published a blog in early 2016 that has many links for further study. Here’s a post from NIOSH from this summer about exoskeleton use in construction.

The last approach I’ll discuss here is motor vehicle safety. Telematics and other monitoring applications are already in use with most large fleets. These systems enable managers to know where vehicles are, how fast they are going, and receive exception reports when braking is too sudden, cornering too fast, or a vehicle is outside of its intended geofenced range. You’d have to be living under a large rock to not know about the push for self-driving vehicles. They’re already being used by consumers – take a look at Tesla’s AutoPilot system for their Model S and X vehicles.

I’ve personally driven a Tesla Model X with autopilot and this article from Business Insider echos my feelings on it being both awesome and terrifying!

The foundation of self-driving vehicles is lidar – short for “light detection and ranging.” You can learn more about what self-driving cars “see” by reading this post from the New York Times. If your company is looking into expanding their fleet with vehicles that have self-driving capability, it’s important to evaluate the lidar system the vehicles have – not all systems are created equal.

January 2, 2018 update, here’s the OSHA enforcement guidelines for the construction standard.

The image above is part of a series from OSHA that has been used in publication of the new silica standard. One of the quotes is from former Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins. Did you know that in 1938, she convened a “Stop Silicosis” conference? We’ve known of the impact of silica on workers’ health for YEARS. Please use this information for anyone who is slow to adopt or understand the new standard, it is way overdue. Here’s a vintage video that was produced during Ms. Perkins’ Stop Silicosis initiative.

I also found these letters, written to Ms. Perkins. It is sad how their words echo concerns I hear from workers now.

Earlier this week, I partnered with Nilfisk to deliver a webinar on silica dust and strategies for compliance. The recording of the webinar can be accessed after providing your name an email at this link.

The Q&A includes 12 questions answered in depth by the Nilfisk rep and me, and can be accessed at the link below. The slide download is also below. Please feel free to pass this information along to anyone you think can find it useful!

Silica Webinar Q&A

Silica Webinar Slides

As usual, if you have questions or need to discuss this or any other safety topics further, please reach out via social media, email, or text!

You can also read up on my previous posts on the topic:

Silica Summer Ahead

Silica September

Silica Safety for General Contractors

Silica Safety for Specialty Trades

Silica Safety for the Safety Professional

Silica interview with Nilfisk

I’ve been working as an independent safety consultant for almost five years now.  That means my office time is usually spent solo and just lately with the addition of an Amazon device which I can’t name because otherwise it will start talking to me….it kind of feels like I have someone else in my office. Which is so weird! I’m starting to work on some presentation material for a conference I’m speaking at next week where I’m going to be discussing “The Internet Of Things.” It made me think that there are some kind of low hanging fruit with devices that we already widely use… like our cellphones that we may not be using as much as we could to bring our teams together. Whether it’s about safety or in general team building.  So, I thought about my days when I would work at one job site and I would be stationed in a job site trailer where we had our team of project managers, project engineers, superintendents, foremen, safety, quality control, and other people that were project stakeholders that would be in and out of the trailer at typical intervals.  We had our “kind of” stationary team that was there.  That was some really fun “team building” days. It was fun to be in a office atmosphere at a construction site where things were always changing. There was always new challenges and having us based in the job site trailer, we had very frequent team communication. I always felt part of a very functional team. I know that not everyone has that in their office or even on their job sites. I was trying to think of ways that you could use “The Internet of Things.” or just our regular old cellphones that we all have to bring the team together.  One of the things I thought of was instant messaging.  Even about maybe two years after I left the last job site that I worked full time out of a trailer at…I was still in almost daily contact with my previous team members through instant messaging.  Whether they were still at the same company or we all kind of branched out to different companies  after that, we still used our G chat or our Google instant messenger.  It felt like we were coordinating just like we used to.  That was a really cool way to stay connected and I think it’s a good way to stay connected even with teams within your own company.  So whatever instant messenger feature you may have…I think some Microsoft programs and other email messaging programs also have instant messaging features.  Which, I know people are kind of hesitant to use but they can be a really awesome tool for quick communication and to get a decision made fast or just say “Hi” in the morning and find out what someone is thinking about. Another low hanging fruit…something we all have and we’ve all got is cellphones.  Whether it’s a smart phone or a dumb phone you probably have text messaging capability.  I really have been trying to use text messaging a lot with my clients and also with potential clients as well as my safety colleagues because it seems like a really quick way to just kind of cut through the noise. Especially,  when people are receiving hundreds of emails a day. A text message can get through a heck of a lot quicker than an email.  I never use text messaging or email if something is very urgent.  For that type of communication I always pick up the phone for a voice call.  But, for things that are just kind of a quick “I’m thinking about this.  What do you think about this?”, a text message can definitely get that message across  very quickly and easily.  So, instant messaging… take advantage of what your company may already have.  Or you can use Facebook messaging, you can use Google,  Gmail messaging, or G chat. I’m not even sure what they call it now? It might be Hang Outs.  That’s a quick way to get some messaging in and then also text messaging is something we all have on our phones like I said…smart or dumb phones. Everyone has text messaging. Those are just some quick ways to check in with your team, check in with your colleagues, check in with former colleagues which you still value what they have to say and just a quick way to let people know that you’re still out there. And…to get their input on things.  What are you using? Are you using devices beyond what I mentioned? Or are you using the devices that we all have and that we widely use? I’d like to hear from you!

Hi there, safety professionals! I wanted to record a quick message about making safety fun.  The last few messages that I’ve had, have been about how safety’s not rocket science and how to work with the different generations in the work place.  I know that having fun is something that seems to be a great equalizer although, not intuitive for safety.  I know better. I know that a lot of my safety colleagues are funny people, they have a sense of humor, they like to have fun on the job but, often we are pegged into this serious “not fun” safety person role.  So, whenever you get a chance try to make sure to show that human side…It goes a long way towards safety culture and making sure that people understand that safety is not always super serious, difficult, or dark & heavy. You can have fun with safety training. You can have fun with an inspection of your work place. And, you could have fun with a safety meeting that happens at the same time, on the same day, every week, and often might induce naps. So…never miss a chance to inject some fun in to your day as it relates to safety. What reminded me of this today is that… I was at a client’s site where they get to wear shorts. We were walking the site and noticed someone’s really crazy socks and that’s when I remembered that I had crazy socks on today.  So, no matter if your work place wears shorts I always wear pants, shirt with the sleeves, work boots with a composite toe, and eye protection at minimum. Sometimes I’ll even wear a vest even if the site doesn’t require that I wear a vest. I like to keep my stuff handy in the vest pockets.  So anyway, I was wearing my awesome socks today which I learned about  from a fellow safety professional who works for the AGC in the Pacific North West and her name is escaping me right now…and when I post this I will make sure to tag her.  She had posted a picture on Linked In where she had these awesome caution tape motif socks. And, I thought it was great! Some other people commented that “Who would ever see her socks? You’re a safety person you always wear boots.” But, I didn’t care. I thought the socks were great.  I was always on Amazon ordering them.  In two days I got the socks…that was two weeks ago.  I have not gotten the chance to show off these fun socks until today! Someone at the work site had these weird like hot chili pepper socks and I said “Hey! That’s some great sock game. Check out my sock game!” And, I lifted up my pant leg and you could see my cool caution tape socks.  So, we all laughed about it and it just kind of injected a little bit of fun into what is “usually” a pretty boring site safety walk because we’re just looking at the same stuff and coming up with the same “unsafe” conditions or improvements to make. Just take the time. Take the two seconds to make something more positive, more fun, and point out something funny. Bring up something unexpected. It is expected for us to be stuffy, dark, heavy safety people. It’s cool when you can disarm people and bring in some humor to your safety message.  So, that’s my quick note for today.  Try to have fun! I’m interested in hearing how some of you have fun on the job as it relates to safety?

I was the featured speaker on the ASSE’s Training and Communications practice specialty open call yesterday. They invited me to talk about social media and how it fits in with a safety professional’s career path and even daily life. No pressure – training a group of training professionals!!!

The recording of the open call is available on Vimeo by clicking here.

My goals for the call included presenting multiple social media platforms and how they can benefit a safety pro and how to use social media for advancing your career and keeping your training modern and fresh.

Before approaching any social media platform, it’s important to respect yourself and others online in a couple of ways:

• Be cautious with social media interactions while on the clock.
• Give others the same courtesy.

Social media is a great way to get in front of an audience. This is important for those who are full-time employed as well as for consultants like me. For the latter, a social media presence ensures that the industry and your peers know that you’re still involved in the industry and that you have relevant information to share. This can be straight up data and information or it can be sharing of your story.

To understand the story you have to tell, you may want to do some homework. At the 2016 Women in Safety Engineering (WISE) personal development retreat, we were able to discuss storytelling and safety with prolific author Pamela Slim. Ms. Slim wrote Body of Work, which I highly recommend to anyone who is getting serious about blogging and social media.

Speaking of blogging… I’ve categorized that as a macro platform. I use my company blog as my macro platform, for long-form blog posts and hosting media files like program templates, photos, and audio (yes, I’m trying my voice at podcasting!). From a macro platform, choose the social media or “micro platforms” that you want to use to get your information or story out to others.

My flow of information from macro to micro platforms goes like this:

1. Develop content for blog: either written blog post or audio “podcast” file using voice notes feature of my cell phone.
2. Host that content on my blog with a photo.
3. Use auto-share feature of my blog to ensure each post goes directly to Google+ (this is for optimum Google search ranking).
4. Customize a post for each micro platform natively:
   1. LinkedIn: I post directly from my profile, I no longer use the LinkedIn Publishing feature as the analytics didn’t point to any benefit.
   2. Twitter: I post directly from my account and tag other accounts as it makes sense either in the post itself (within 140 character limit) or tagging up to 10 other accounts on the image that accompanies the post.
   3. Facebook: I post as it makes sense in industry-related groups that I’m a part of as well as on my own business Facebook page that I just started a few weeks ago.
   4. Instagram: If my post is visual, I may use Instagram to get information out. Often, my safety-related Instagram posts are one-offs that do not link back to my blog – they’re just fun posts from the field. My most recent safety-related Instagram post was of a fire extinguisher with a funny sign!
   5. Snapchat: Please refer to my deep-dive on custom geofilters for more info on how I use Snapchat – I see this as a huge opportunity for large trade shows and events. Think of creating buzz and fun, less about getting information out.
   6. YouTube: I need to get back to this as a platform, but for now, I’m using it to curate lists of useful or funny safety training videos by industry/topic. When I use YouTube as a platform, there’s nothing technical – just me and my cell phone in selfie mode!

The list above is my preferred social media platform list for safety-related information.

If you are on any of these platforms and are looking for work or gigs, make sure to tune up your profile photo and bio. It’s OK to use a selfie, but make sure it still looks professional! My profile photo is from a family photo shoot a couple of years ago – the photographer was really smart and suggested a “mom head shot” that I could use for work. If you have holiday family photo sessions planned, I encourage you to do the same!

Network mindfully by evaluating who you follow or who you allow to follow you. My best advice is to put some thought into who you follow, but unfollow QUICKLY if you do not find value. If you don’t take this last step, you will have a trash timeline that does not provide value. This is why many people have abandoned LinkedIn or Twitter – they have not taken the time to curate their feed to ensure it’s what they want to see – it’s your own fault! Social media is a tool, it’s up to you to maintain it.

When using offbeat feeds for training information, make sure to verify the source. I often reach out to the people behind #safetyselfie posts or wild videos on Snapchat, Instagram, or YouTube to make sure of the validity of the posts before using them in training. You never know who you’ll meet!

So what’s next?

ASSE is launching a micro-learning initiative – this plays into our students’ diminishing attention spans. Watch how this goes and take lessons as they apply to your industry.

Alternate Reality and Virtual Reality are becoming more available – make sure you understand how these can be used as tools at your workplace. Do not adopt fun new stuff for the sake of having fun new stuff… get an advance copy or demo, use it, try it, and see if it would really work for your students!

Social media will continue to be a great way to keep your safety network close. In the three years that I have spoken at the ASSE’s annual conference, I have been able to expand my safety network and maintain the relationships via social media. Then when we are at the next national conference, we pick up where we left off!

Internet of Things and Voice Skills – Figure out what you already have in your office or workplace and start using the IoT features. If you have an Amazon Echo device, try out the Flash Briefing skill and other skills that can relate to safety and training. Look for my Flash Briefing skill soon!

No college – You will have personnel at your site or in your department who do not have a formal college education, but did you know that there are college courses available for free online right now? College may not matter as much in the near future as it has in the past. This does not mean that EDUCATION is not important, it’s just going to be different. Get ahead of the trend and offer solutions.

Questions or comments? I’ll see you on social media!

As a follow up to the Safety Is Not Rocket Science concept I had the opportunity to listen to a podcast by my favorite podcaster Gary Vaynerchuck and he had this guest on there who I just found to be just completely amazing. Her name is Cy Wakeman…I think that’s right. And…she’s in the human resources field and she has a really cool concept about ego. And…about how it plays into the work place and there’s just…just look up her stuff and you’ll see there is so much cool stuff going on. She has a really interesting way of looking at it but…the..one of the gems from the podcast that I listen to was about self reflection and how self reflection can lead to accountability. And….accountability is a huge word in the field of safety. Us safety professionals are always trying to um…make sure that there’s accountability amongst managers, front line supervisors, and individual employees. So, but especially management. So I thought of something that I just did a recent training with a client and…there were a lot of good things that happened and there were some things that I think if they thought about it that they would want to approve. And…in order to not lose any of those lessons I’m going to take what I learned from Ms. Wakeman’s appearance on Gary V’s show and kinda try to force some accountability…in a good way. So all I’m going to do is ask the client: How do you think that went? I’m not going to push my opinion, what I thought (unless they ask me) but I’m going to just ask them: “How do you think that went”? And…so without judgement, without inserting my opinion I’m putting it back on them to think about the training that we just had and…since we were all there and they’re intelligent people. I know that they’re probably going to arrive at a lot of the same conclusions that I did. But, they’re the ones that can do something about it so….there’s the accountability aspect. So,  it’s kind of a huge concept but I just really latched onto it from that podcast. Self reflection is opportunity for accountability. There’s probably a better way to say it but I’m not finding it right now but I just wanted to make sure to remember this lesson. So….how you can push accountability through self reflection is by asking an open ended question that is meant for the person that you are asking to self reflect on it? And if you’re in like a manager situation where you are asking that question of a direct report…you could give some kind of follow update and say… well… in this situation that I’m asking my client I would say “How do you think that went”? Why don’t you think about it and let’s talk in a couple of days. So…putting some kind of end point on it and some follow up so there’s some accountability within the accountability. So let me know how that goes I think it’s a really ….it’s a simple concept but it’s so just so fine tuned and it’s so smart. And…it’s so different from um..any other way that I’ve heard safety accountability be discussed and of course it comes from an HR professional…so that’s not surprising. So…again accountability…opportunities from self reflection. Just ask an open ended question you may or may not want to give and end date for when you are going to meet back up and talk about it but… just ask that open ended question to find out what someone thinks about something and push them to reflect on it themselves without you interjecting your opinion and meet back up with them and see where you can go with it.

There is kind of a weird thing going on right now in the world of safety professionals…not in the world of safety itself but the world of the people that are safety practitioners. And it’s frustrating. It’s something that I’ve observed for many years that has bothered me about some of my fellow safety professionals. I always try to let my students in classes know that safety is not rocket science. That safety is for everybody. And what gets some safety people into trouble is that they try to make it seem like safety is super difficult, it’s rocket science, and you need the safety person at every step of the way to get the job done safely. So, this creates a problem with safety cultures right? That a safety professional gets super frustrated at their company because the people don’t care about safety. When…for years that same safety professional, has most likely been telling their people in training that safety is difficult, that they need safety at every step of the way, that the actual safety professional needs to be there every step of the way instead of being that resource and education point & letting their people know how they can get the job done safely while having a safety professional at their disposal is the wrong word….but someone at their convenience that can reach out anytime and have safety professional provide their opinion, resources, expertise, and be there for them. But, safety really is our people’s responsibility. It’s the people in the field. They must make the safety program live at the field level. No matter what type of job it is…it’s a manufacturing plant, it’s a construction job site….it is those individual workers who are doing the difficult tasks. They are the people that need to make safety live every day while doing their job. And if they need you or they have been trained that they think they need you there as a safety professional every step of the way…..short cuts are going to happen, excuses are going to roll out, and you are going to have a safety culture problem. So, my challenge to fellow safety professionals is to adopt that attitude. Safety’s not rocket science. Safety is for everyone. And, safety truly is everybody’s responsibility right? I need you to actually believe that and live that and train your people that way. That…they will do things safely even if you are not around. Because, that’s the whole point. That…you want them to have integrity in the safety program that no matter if you’re there or a manager is there or anyone is there watching them…or not watching them, that they are doing what they have been trained to do. Because, it is the right thing to do. So what do you think? How can you step back a little bit and…I’m not asking you to say that safety is not difficult or that there are not difficult things that a safety professional needs to weigh in on…but overall the day to day safety…we should be able to train our people and have that confidence that they are going to make the right decisions. Because, you provided the resources, you provided the knowledge & the training, and you’re there in case they need you. They can text you, call you, call for you because you’re within ear shot. So how can you make sure that when you deliver your next training class or next tailgate meeting…or plant wide safety meeting…that you are giving people the resources and information that they need so that when you go back to your office, or if you’re at a  safety conference, or you’re doing something else…that they still are going to make safety live on the job?

Spoiler alert! Not much has changed since last year.

Ladders and Powered Industrial Trucks swapped rankings and training requirements for fall protection bumped general electrical citations off of the top 10.

See the data for yourself from 2016 here, and 2017 here.

“Only” three of the top 10 standards cited are 1926, construction standards, however all of the standards on the top 10 apply to construction. I’m sure, as usual, construction site citations skew the top 10 list.

What can we learn from this snooze-fest of a repeat top 10 list?

Training and allocated resources must translate to correct use of equipment and application of concepts at the worker level. This is a tremendously loaded concept because it involves a healthy and functioning safety program and culture. As a safety consultant, I’d love to be able to bottle and sell safety culture to you, but I just can’t.

OSHA actually has a really great guide titled Recommended Practices for Safety & Health Programs that covers everything a safety professional, whether in-house or consultant, should implement for success. That guide is here.

I recorded this message in 2017 and it’s true for 2018… As the National Safety Council Congress & Expo 2018 begins this weekend, I am hoping to see some more posts on social media from my fellow safety pros. There are many of us who are not able to make the trip to Houston, and we are seeking more social media updates from those “on the ground.” Listen to my quick message for more on why I think there’s not a lot of social media chatter surrounding this event – it’s both positive and negative!

A lot of my fellow safety professionals are at a huge safety conference this week. It’s the National Safety Council Congress & Expo. It lasts all week and it’s taking place in Indianapolis, Indiana. I haven’t really seen a lot of information on social media about the conference besides information posted on Twitter and other social media channels from conference exhibitors. This is a little different than other safety conferences I’ve been to in the past few years where a lot of the social media content is coming from those who are attending the conference. First, i’ll talk about the positive aspect of that and then what I think might be going on maybe… on the negative side. First the positive. I think there’s not a lot of social media activity because it’s a huge overwhelming conference. I’ve been to the National Safety Council conference as just an “expo only” attendee which is overwhelming in itself to walk the expo hall and see all the products, talk to all the exhibitors, and just to have a conference experience that way with out even attending an educational session. You can still get a lot of information from the event. So, that may be going on. Another part of that might be that often there’s not really reliable cell phone or wifi service in these expo halls. Even if people are finding some really great information and products they may not be able to post about it in the moment. Then the are not posting about it later on when they get to dinner, happy hour, or their hotel room. It’s kind of a missed opportunity there. And, I have some thoughts on that as well. Being overwhelmed by the expo hall, that could be one reason why I’m not seeing a lot of social media chatter about the event. The other thing that could be a positive slant about what’s going on and why there’s not a lot social media talk about the conference is that people are attending the educational sessions. There’s a couple of different ways to slice and dice the National Safety Council event. One, that I already mentioned, is just going to the expo hall only because there’s so much there and that can be your experience without even going to educational sessions. The other angle to take is to go strictly to educational sessions and a lot of times when employers pay for a safety professional to go to these conferences…especially if there is a team of safety professionals at a company…often the team divides and conquers. They are required or strongly suggested to go to specific sessions, so the safety team can cover as many sessions as possible and then regroup together when they get back to work. I think that might be what’s going on or part of the picture on why I’m not able to follow this event so closely via social media like I had intended. Another part of it is that maybe there’s just not a big push to use social media to augment the conference experience. At other safety conferences I’ve attended there’s games that are centered around using the conference app. The mobile application sometimes is a little bit clunky for these conferences and tough to use….knowing that, conference planners plan games around it to get people using the app and posting to social media. Really making the conference come to life outside just the walls of the conference. There may be that sort of thing going on here with the National Safety Council is that people are just not using the app and not using their mobile devices to supplement their experience. That’s great for those that are there at the conference. But, for those of us who are trying to hack the conference and watch it via social media… are not getting a lot of content. I want to encourage any of my fellow safety pros that are at NSC whether they’re exhibiting or attending…Please, start posting more on social media. Let us know what you’re learning. Let us know the trends. I know that my friend Tim from Safe Start that he’s taking part of the keynote…giving the keynote right now as I speak… at the event. I know he’s got some good information and I’m hoping to see some posts later on from people that attended his keynote and also from Tim himself to give some more information on the keynote topic which is the future of safety. Hopefully the future of safety includes mobile devices & social media. I sure think it does. I’m hoping that in the last few days of the safety council congress & expo to see just a little bit more chatter on social media to bring in the rest of us who were not able to go, due to timing, budget, & other factors. So again, looking for more social media chatter & trying to bring social media into the conference experience in these last few days of The National Safety Council Congress & Expo. We want to hear from you!