NFPA Journal - September/October 2020 - 44

point of contact
In response to that demand, the association has developed NFPA LiNK™, a
new web-based application that promises to revolutionize the way NFPA
delivers its codes and standards and
other information to safety professionals.
"We've spent a lot of time listening
to you," Jim Pauley, NFPA president
and CEO, said during a recent web
event announcing NFPA LiNK. "We
have heard from you that a physical
code book or a static digital version of
a book are not the best means to help
solve problems on a real-time basis. You
want information faster, on different
devices-phones, tablets, laptops-and
with an easy-to-use interface. We also
heard that you don't only want the
text of a code or standard-you want
context and insights to help you understand problems and develop solutions."
The live announcement, held August
4, as well as subsequent visits to the
product's new web page, nfpa.org/link,
have attracted thousands of viewers.
Think of NFPA LiNK as an NFPA
code book meets Google meets Netflix.
Users pay a monthly fee for a subscription that provides them access to a
digital platform where they can find,
annotate, and share code information
relevant to their day-to-day work.

New content will be added continually
to the platform and evolve based on
users' needs.
Set for release on September 21, the
first version of NFPA LiNK will include
the contents of the current and past
three editions of NFPA 70®, National
Electrical Code® (NEC®). More codes and
standards are on the way, and upcoming versions of the application will be
equipped with groundbreaking features
aimed at delivering relevant and targeted content to users in an instant.
The product is already generating
buzz. "When I first heard about it, I
thought, 'This is going to be awesome,'"
said Larry Ayer, an electrical contractor and engineer who is involved in a
number of NFPA committees, including
as chair of the correlating committee
for the NEC. "The world is changing.
It's moving to a digital platform. It's
paperless. So this is going to fit right in
and be a game changer as far as how
people interact with NFPA codes and
standards."

'Curating your own
experience'

The rollout of NFPA LiNK represents
a radical change for a 124-year-old
organization like NFPA, Pauley said

during the August 4 event. So how did
the organization arrive here, and what
exactly will the platform offer?
When Erik Hohengasser was first
tapped to work on a project to develop
an NFPA content-on-demand platform,
as it was called in its initial stages, he
knew it was going to be a success. "It
just made sense," Hohengasser said. "It
clicked."
Hohengasser, an engineering technical services lead at NFPA with a
background as an electrical contractor,
was part of a six-member NFPA team
that spent more than a year developing
the platform. An important aspect of
the team's mission, Hohengasser said,
was to create a tool that was as technologically up-to-date as possible. "You
can always talk about the rapid pace of
change and the effects of technology on
every industry, and the same rings true
for NFPA," he said. "The reality is that
the digital platforms that we've leveraged in the past didn't take advantage of
the most modern technologies the world
has to offer, and NFPA LiNK does that."
Hohengasser emphasized that the
new tool is much more than just a digitized version of codes. "It allows users
to curate their own experience," he said.
"We've seen forever that users take

SITUATIONAL NAVIGATION A key feature of the new NFPA
LiNK platform is that it will allow users across a range of
professional disciplines to access code information easily
for an array of specific situations, making relevant code
language readily available to users who may not be familiar
with the code. GETTY IMAGES

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LiNK feature V4 DCS FINAL.indd 44

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http://www.nfpa.org/link
NFPA Journal - September/October 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - September/October 2020
