Posts Tagged with crisis
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I’m just wrapping up a weekend in Seattle where I was a keynote at the Pacific Northwest President Elect Training Seminar, so I’m a bit late on my weekly best-of. In fact, I can tell that I’ll be running to catch up with myself this week… so here we go! You can learn more info about these “linky loves” and the background on the students’ assignment here. Oregon has the third largest twitter usage per capita of anywhere in the U.S. Sweet! Ten really (really!) great tips for acing the job interview (and, as someone remarked to me via twitter, for acing conversations!). Josh Bernoff shares that half the pitches he receives are irrelevant and shares some tips and a good pitch. Rogue Tweet! this was a great example of a mis-tweet and recovery from the Red Cross. What do you think? Need to convince yourself – or others –... Continue Reading
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What an amazing week! There’s nothing like watching a revolution via social media to bring the power of shared communication, collaboration and instant connections into full view. Besides the revolution in Egypt, I found lots of great content this week to share with you. This infographic is very busy, but has some good info about how people are using social media in crises and emergencies. Pretty remarkable, yet very intuitive. I’m sorry, the story of Sony’s social media blunder, to me, just doesn’t have the weight or consequence that some of the other recent social media blunders (like Kenneth Cole’s). But it is worth noting how far and wide a single tweet can travel. This Q and As on Quora is really interesting and has some good lessons about blogger relations with some of the most read tech blogs. I’ll note that most of the answers are not from PR... Continue Reading
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I was interviewed by KVAL news about reputation management and crisis communication this week. Our Duck athletes have been having some trouble staying out of trouble and the reporter wanted to talk to me about what they should do. I declined to comment specifically on the story – I don’t have enough “inside” information and because I both teach and have clients at the University of Oregon, I wanted to avoid any perceived conflicts of interest. But I did agree to talk generally about how an organization in a tough spot might respond and think about repairing. This is the short version of the story. If the longer version gets posted, I’ll update.... Permalink
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As part of our final report to Grayback Forestry, my partner Leslie and I wrote a media analysis, trying to capture the sheer volume of media contacts in the first 72 hours after the helicopter crash. I thought I’d share part of it with you here. I’ve found that the media attention tends to move in phases. I usually identify four phases of media attention based on my experience and here I’ll tell you about phase one as it relates specifically to this incident. Phase One: Breaking News The first 72 hours following the announcement of the accident were the most intense in terms of media attention. In an effort to best tell a breaking news story, the media seek the who, what, when, where, why and how. They want names of injured and missing (the fallen firefighters were considered missing, but presumed perished, for the first couple of days),... Continue Reading
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Most international events allow us to armchair quarterback the public relations outreach and response. The Beijing Summer Olympics is no different and provides some unique issues due to the Chinese political system and the international-scale issues around which the international community is raising a cacophony of voices. In 2001, after China had won the bid for the 2008 games, a senior official said, “Winning the host rights means winning the respect, trust, and favor of the international community.” The statement sums up what China wants to get out of these games, but it seems the country’s challenges related to its political system, primarily, are taking the luster off the games for the country. Issues and challenges that may be worth paying attention to during these Olympic Games: The “No-Fun” Olympics: Dubbed as such by some western media, the phrase refers to the massive, sweeping security measures put in place. Visa... Continue Reading
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I’m slightly embarrassed that it’s been a month since I posted. It’s summer here, which I assumed would allow me to post more. Not so. I’ve been busier than I’ve been in a long time… and it’s one of these cases I want to share with you. Wildfires have been raging in Northern California. When the resources of the U.S. Forest Service run thin, they hire private wildland firefighting companies. There are dozens of these companies. Firefighting is one of the most dangerous jobs in America and the men and women who fight fires often do so in perilous conditions and in extremely remote areas of the country. I work with several wildland firefighting companies, as well as the national association that represents these companies, through my association with DCS Consulting. (DCS is run by one of my dear friends and long-time mentor and I have sub-contracted on work with... Continue Reading
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“I thought I was reading the movie script for ‘Cuckoo’s Nest 2.” This was the reaction of Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem when he receive the report from the Justice Department regarding the deplorable conditions at the Oregon State Hospital. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, of course, was filmed at the Oregon State Hospital 30 years ago. The Justice Department documented incidents of patient-to-patient assaults, multiple suicide attempts by patients who were supposed to be on one-on-one monitoring, improper use of seclusion and restraints alongside mice in the rooms, outbreaks of norovirus and scabies and seclusion rooms where staff refused to clean up ‘messes.’ Courtney’s reaction, I think, was a bit flippant for such a horrible situation. Fortunately, he’d prefaced that comment with a more appropriate reaction at least partially in line with the crisis communication mantra of “tell it first, tell it fast, tell them what you’re... Continue Reading
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Sprint is skeptical. A Tacoma family insists that their phones are being hijacked. They are getting death threats, someone is watching them through the cell phone camera and leaving terrifying voicemails on both cell and home lines. You can see the Today Show story here. I’ve heard the story on a couple of news outlets, most recently on NPR. The NPR host characterized Sprint’s response as saying it was not possible to do what the family says was being done. From the Tacoma News-Tribune: Complaints to their phone companies do no good – the families say they’ve been told what the stalkers are doing is impossible. From KIRO-TV: “We are unaware of technology that would enable the activity portrayed in this story to occur, and we will support law enforcement as appropriate on investigating the issue,” Caroline Semerdijian with Sprint Nextel said. Media have trotted out a series of experts... Continue Reading
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This post is a letter from my mentor, Leslie Habetler, to some of her crisis planning and management clients. With her permission, I’m reposting it here. As I watch this unfold, I thought it might be helpful to point some things out that would be helpful if you ever face such a situation (in any scale). First it is obvious they have a crisis response plan and they are doing a lot right. For those of you whom I have helped in this way, you can see what they are doing right in handling the media. The President has obviously had good media coaching and they are keeping a careful log of everything they are doing so the media knows they are acting in anaggressively appropriate manner. The university media person is cranking out updates for him at a rapid pace and they are posting them on the website and... Continue Reading
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Crisis guru Jonathan Bernstein, will be joining my PR Campaigns class this Thursday to talk about the Matt Bandy case specifically and using the Web to fight crisis generally. To get you up to speed on this case, here are a few posts:The Matt Bandy Story: Justice4Matt.comThe 20/20 StoryClassically Liberal: They couldn’t win in court, so they smear a teen in the press (2/10/07)My post on the topicFox News story from 1/28/07 Looking forward to our chat, Jonathan.... Permalink
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