I offer this post as an open book as to some of the issues I had, lessons I learned, and practices I will continue. The contest ended in January. I have finally gotten around to posting what I learned.

Medic 999 has been declared the winner! Read more about it here

First of all, let me say how I feel that the contest was a huge success. I enjoyed putting it together and watching it grow. As some of you might know, I enjoy showcasing other blogs here on Fire Critic. I will continue to do so, and I love to see more and more people becoming connected with blogs that cater to their needs for reading, learning, and networking.

Here are some lessons learned. Feel free to post your thoughts, frustrations, or praise in the comments section. I love hearing feedback and will need it to make this grow into a World Class Contest!

Announcing the Contest

• It is clear that this contest might have benefited from a longer time frame. However, I am pleased with the way it turned out. I am not sure if I will lengthen it or shorten it next year.
• A press release will be provided next year to announce the contest.

Nominations

• There were some issues with nominations like more than 1 a day by some people. I tried my best to take care of this and inform them. In th end most of the blogs were nominated by more than one person which alleviated the issue.
• Nominations were somewhat difficult to track because they were coming in via email, twitter, and contact form. I hope to add facebook next year. While they were somewhat difficult to track, none were left out.
• Some of the nominations were made with great comments on the blog being nominated. Others were a mere nomination.
• I tried to ensure that every nominated blog knew they were nominated. This became difficult when I realized that some blogs do not publish an email address. However, I believe I was able to contact each and every one!

Judging

• The only issue I had here was that I waited too long to get my judges on board. In the end, I didn’t hear back from 1 judge after I asked them to judge the contest.
• I tried my best to get judges from inside and outside the Fire and/or EMS service, but I think it is important to have some from both sides and outside our service.
• I believe that the judges did a great job in dissecting the blogs and rating them!
• I will allow more time for the judges to judge next year. This was not possible due to the time crunch this year.

Voting – here is where a majority of the issues came in

• I realized early on that I will not be able to make everyone 100% happy!
• I need to have a backup plan! During the process I had to change voting platforms. The swap was fair and all votes were imported into the new platform.
• The reason I switched from the first platform (a wordpress plugin called WP-Polls) to the second (PollDaddy) was because of issues with people not being able to vote at all via some versions of Internet Explorer as well as some smartphone based browsers.
• I got a lot of feedback during the voting which helped me understand what issues there were and for me to make proper adjustments.
• Voting should be carried out using IP logs and cookies.

The Contest in General

• I really wanted to offer a prize for the contest. It just didn’t happen, therefore I will work on this more next year!
• I had fun doing the contest, but I cannot deny that it was a lot of work!
• I believe that a lot of blogs were given plenty of traffic which hopefully will build to their readership.
• The contest was definitely Worldwide! We had a blog nominated from the UK as well as one from Poland.
• Next year, I need to have everything in line prior to starting the contest next year.

Moving Forward

• Next year, I would like to expand into different categories for Fire/EMS Blog of the Year. For instance EMS Blog of the Year, Fire Blog of the Year, Best Fire/EMS News Blog of the Year…and maybe even get into web sites themselves. I will have to see what I come up with or what I hear from you all…

Below I will list the Finalists in finishing order, followed by the rest of the nominated blogs. Please be sure to check them out, follow them on twitter and facebook, and subscribe to their rss feed!

We had around 70 nominations for 23 blogs, 10 finalists who garnered 3,381 votes.

1. Medic 999 – 999Medic.com
2. FireGeezer – FireGeezer.com
3. Engine 9 RFD – EngineCompany9.Blogspot.com
4. STATter 911 – Statter911.com
5. The EMT Spot - TheEMTSpot.com
6. The Happy Medic – HappyMedic.com
7. Rescuing Providence – RescuingProvidence.com
8. Everyday EMS Tips – EverydayEMSTips.com
9. Fire Daily – FireDaily.com
10. Firehouse Zen – FirehouseZen.com

The rest of the nominated blogs who were not finalists are below in no particular order:

• Life under the lights
• Rogue Medic
• Siren Voices
• The Insomniac’s Guide to Ambulances
• To Old To Work, To Old to Retire
• A Day in the life of an Ambulance Driver
• Michigan Fire Service
• Command Safety
• Basics Doc Blog
• FireGround.com
• Wildfire Today
• Ratowniczy.net
• Chief Reason Art

If anyone has any comments, suggestions, questions, or ideas for next year please feel free to leave a comment, use the contact form in the navigation bar above, or email me at firecritic@firecritic.com.