The Industrial Equipment News (IEN) blog post, Now Playing: “Death in the Oilfield” reminds me of an earlier line of thinking about the growing importance of some of the social media technologies, often dubbed “Web 2.0“.
I’ve harped about zealous IT organizations in the past and their quest to block sites that potentially are “time-wasters” including YouTube videos, Flickr photos, Facebook and other social media sites (are any of these blocked for you?) If you’ve ever seen teenagers in action, there is little doubt these sites can appear to waste time.
But they can also be put to very good use, like how the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (USCSB) is using YouTube. From the IEN post:
It’s easy to zone out on those repetitious building fire drills, even though we know they’re important. Industrial safety managers face the issue of inattention in safety training workshops regularly, but some are finding that the U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s videos can help to focus attention. The most recent video, Death in the Oilfield, was released just this week. The 9-minute presentation, based on an explosion at an oilfield in Raleigh, MS that claimed three lives, uses 3D animation to illustrate the sequence of events that led to the explosion. Also included are interviews with CSB investigators and key safety lessons to be learned.
If permitted by your IT organization, visit the USCSB YouTube Channel to see their full list of videos. I’ve also embedded the video here as quick test to see if your organization blocks these:
This particular case did not involve automation-related equipment but rather work practices. Other accident investigations on the USCSB channel involve the combination of human error and equipment failure.
From the quote above, there just might be some, “…key safety lessons to be learned.” If you think it might help, point your IT folks to this post and ask why you can’t access this type of important safety information.
Update: I just saw a tweet from Control magazine editor-in-chief and Sound OFF! blog’s Walt Boyes:
talking about putting the Process Automation Media Network on YouTube…
Sounds like another reason to unblock your network.
