Tag Archives: crisis management

crisis response

Tourism Pro Questions on Crisis Management

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Recently, I led a breakout session at the Florida Governor’s Conference on Tourism.   My topic was “effective crisis management foundations” – a condensed version of a training program that we’ve built at Ketchum.  It’s our belief that you cannot have strong crisis management approaches, nor plans or systems, without the foundation of a strong crisis management leader.   SALES PITCH:  If you’re ever interested in learning more about this leadership training opportunity from Ketchum, drop me a line. 

During the Q&A session, the tourism pros asked questions that may yield lessons for others, so I’ve captured those here.  Disclaimer:  Everything below is paraphrased from memory, since I couldn’t take notes during the session. 

  

Q:   When an organization faces a determined critic, when should criticisms be ignored, and when is it time to address the critic? 

A:    This is difficult to answer specifically because so many factors need to be considered.  However, in general, begin by analyzing the critic…and the criticisms.  Is the critic credible to your audiences that matter?  Is the critic making an impact on your business?  How much traction might the critic or criticisms gain through social media?  Are the criticisms easy to defend, or do they require deeper explanation?  If the latter, is there a way to tell your side of the story in a compelling way?  These are just starter questions, of course – there are many more factors to consider before “getting down in the mud,” if required. 

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planning and prevention

Small-ball crisis management elements

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I’m currently enjoying a late-summer trip with my golf buddies.  The schedule is hectic:  early-morning Ryder Cup watching, a morning golf round, lunch-on-the-run, an afternoon golf round, high-calorie/fat dinners, no-limit poker and sports talk into the wee hours.  Since playoffs are imminent, Major League Baseball is heavily discussed.

Every year, I contend that the home run is overrated.  Heavy debate ensues.

I provide context for my runs-scored argument in this article of The  Public Relations Strategist, a quarterly publication of the Public Relations Society of America.  The baseball analogy helps me may a point about crisis management:  crisis response gets all the attention, but other elements of holistic crisis management also deserve a share of the limelight.

Check out the article and share your thoughts below, please. 

Does crisis response get too much attention?  Should experts in our industry do a better job of promoting the importance of preparedness and mitigation elements of holistic crisis management?  (Also, baseball fans can let me know if you agree/disagree on my point about the overrated home run!)

"Three Tough Q's" Interview Series

Three Tough Q’s: Mallen Baker

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If you’re in the business of reputation management and/or corporate social responsibility (CSR), you need to be familiar with the musings of Mallen Baker.  Mallen is the founding director of a UK-based website on CSR, Business Respect.  Last month, Mallen was named a contributing editor of Ethical Corporation, a global business intelligence organization.  His bio paints the complete picture, but I really encourage you to follow his blog.  I find his voice to be one of the most persuasive and balanced on CSR and reputation matters.

That is certainly the case below, as Mallen addresses some of the intersections between CSR and crisis management through these Three Tough Q’s:

 

Q1:  In your experience, how often do CSR experts team up with crisis management professionals to assess and address threats, before they become crises?
      
This happens a lot less than it should.  Part of the reason is that we are only gradually improving the understanding of what CSR should be about – that it can play this role of avoiding a crisis.  For too many businesses it remains a low-level function that is about issues seen as peripheral to the business, rather than central to it.

It is changing.  I see more companies appointing internal senior people to CSR or sustainability posts. These companies have understood that they need people with weight and seniority who understand the business extremely well.  Companies that seek to bring outside CSR experts or environmental scientists into their posts are more prone to sidelining those people as specialists.

The most effective CSR teams aim to influence across the business.  They are still in the minority, and many teams are too focused on what goes in the CSR report to make real headway in this regard.

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crisis response, opinion and insights

Pros and cons of “Citizen Broadcasting”

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Courtesy: 2mhdmdj

Last week’s dramatic, dangerous and bizarre situation at the Discovery Channel headquarters served as another reminder for the need to be ready to respond to senseless and unpredictable workplace violence.  

It was also a reminder that social networks are designed to scoop the media in the initial stages of an emerging crisis.  Some of the obvious reasons for this were captured in this story in The Washington Post.  Best callout:

Before camera crews and reporters could race to the scene, a shot of alleged hostage-taker James Lee was flashing around the world via Twitpic, Twitter’s photo-sharing service that lets people see whatever a cellphone camera captures seconds after the shutter snaps. The shot — full of menace and dread — was apparently taken by an office worker peering from a window several floors above the Discovery courtyard. The photo was apparently passed from an unidentified Discovery employee to another, who posted it on Twitpic.

 

Courtesy: Jeff Lake

Social networks “scooping” traditional news will continue and grow more common.  Some have tagged this as trend as “citizen journalism.”  I don’t like that tag.  “Journalism” typically provides context and has an embedded editorial process.  Instead, I prefer the term “citizen broadcasting” for these types of real-time alerts.

Depending on the type of crisis, “citizen broadcasting” can be a good or bad thing for the public. 

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opinion and insights, planning and prevention

Lady Gaga journalism and the reputation economy

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Two very interesting articles crossed my desktop this week.  Reading them within hours of each other left me head-scratching.

The first was from the Fall 2010 Preview issue of American Journalism Review, titled “Traffic Problems.”  The article summarizes how the ability to track the popularity of specific online articles affects a newsroom’s future focus.  Key callouts:

 High-minded headlines and stories about foreign wars, the federal deficit or environmental despoilage might have paid the bills in the age of Murrow and Cronkite, but they only go so far these days.  Shark videos and “naked Lady Gaga” headlines get major play on “serious” news sites for an obvious and no longer terribly shocking reason: They draw traffic….

“Journalism always put a premium on speed and scoops, but up until recently we never had to make the decision that speed trumps vetting or verification,” observes my colleague Roxanne Roberts. “That dynamic is shifting because of the need for hits. It’s a very slippery slope from an ethical standpoint….”

While there are consequences for being slow, there aren’t many consequences for being wrong, Roberts says: “The feeling nowadays is, ‘we don’t make mistakes, we just make updates.'” By trying to grab traffic at all costs, “We’ve placed the premium not on being correct or thoughtful, but on being first. When you do that, everything is Balloon Boy….”

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