If you find someone questioning why frontline people should have access to social media show them this video.
Two officers return to the home of a 93-year-old crime victim to check on how he is.
They’ve listened to his stories of the war, heard how he got his pilots wings and his sadness on losing his wife one Christmas Eve a few years before. One officer spots the sheet music on the piano. This was his grandmother’s favourite too. So he gets up and plays it. A colleague decides to record it. A spontaneous use of a mobile to record what was happening. Not scripted. Not staged.
The identity of the old man is preserved but you can see his hands playing along and the delighted clapping of his hands.
This is beautiful.
It should be shown to officers to remind them of why they do they job they do. This is not CSI Miami this is PC Mansfield and it just works.
It can’t be built into a comms plan can this. But comms can create the environment where frontline staff are trained and given the tools. This was posted to the Mansfield Police: Forset Town, Wood Hill and Surrounding Areas Facebook page rather than the Nottinghamshire Police corporate page.
For a Facebook video this is far longer than the 21 seconds which is optimum. It is also shaky, not polished and you don’t see the people involved. But that’s part of the reason why this works.
Be more human. Be like Mansfield Police.