How to stay up to date

I have a back ground in public management specifically aimed at safety. However there are many government cut backs and emergency management is just as affected by these budget cuts as other government tasks. I'm currently not employed in this field directly. I work for a supplier of training software for emergency management, so clsoe but not clsoe enough. There are a few thing i do to keep up to date so i can get back in to this field of work. This is what I do:

• Follow all the news letters of all organisations related to your field. This keeps you up to date with all the new things.

• Following Linkedin group related to your field. This keeps you up to date with all the new things, but also what others think of it. Knowing what the feeling is amongst the crowd is vitally important as a policy maker.

• Following  additional courses to make you stand out. This can be expensive professional education, but MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) are also good option. MOOC’s have the advantage of being free, allows you to follow up to date courses and from university all over the world (different perspectives). But they generally do not provide with profesional certifications which are needed sometimes. It does nicely extend your CV and shows future employees that you are doing things to improve yourself and keep up to date. Professional education has the advantage of actual certification which are in demand. However also rather expensive.