I think I’ll take this with me for the rest of my life.

I want to relay Garr Reynold’s comment on the black and white song and video “Yes We Can” mixed to Barack Obama’s recent New Hampshire concession speech. On his presentation and communication blog, Presentation Zen, Reynold’s has links to both the speech and the video. While I’ve already posted on facebook about Obama’s speech, I wanted to say thank you to Reynold’s for his reaction to this video; a quote, I’ll probably remember for the rest of my life.

“Leaders—and you are now, or will someday be, a leader—have a great many roles to play and responsibilities to fulfill. But great leaders inspire, pure and simple. There are many ways to inspire people (your group, your company, your country). Great communication skills are not the only way. Nonetheless, the ability to paint pictures with your words—moving people and inspiring them with your ideas and your vision—can take you far in this world. If you fail to inspire, they will fail to listen. Never underestimate the power you have to inspire.”

Thank you, Garr.

 

Local Response: a “Lesson Learned”

photo courtesy of Ontario Association of Food Banks

Low on supplies? Prepare for local crises by establishing relationships with suppliers long before a disaster strikes.

With my narrow focus of crisis management on a local, community level, it’s difficult to come across advice and tactics targeted toward such community situations. Jonathan Berstein, of Bernstein Crisis Management Inc., however, recently posted an addition to his 2005 published list of “25 Crisis Management Lessons Learned”, titled, “25 More Crisis Management Lessons Learned“, with some tips applicable to community crises and emergency situations. For my very small audience out there, possibly interested in this same topic, I encourage you to take a look at this list and realize that sometimes the simplest things to remember, often get overlooked. What I like about Jonathan’s list—a topic area where, I know, there are many lists of important things to remember—but what is particularly great about this one is that it compiles techniques for dealing with multiple types of crisis. In addition, Jonathan has some excellent nods to blogging on his list, noting consequences of the explosion of the blogosphere and social media—numbers 9, 10 and 11 are particularly great!! (Also, 19 – leading industry bloggers: KNOW THEM, WATCH THEM, TALK TO THEM…see 23).

The “lesson learned” I’d like to draw your attention to for my blog is the following:

# 17 “If you are likely to need certain types of products or services as a result of the types of crises most common to an organization such as yours (e.g., backup generators, testing laboratories), the time to establish relationships with product/service providers is now, not under the gun of a crisis. Corollary lesson: during times of widespread crises, such as a natural disaster, demand for certain types of products/services is higher than the supply; “preferred customers” move to the front of the line, last-minute customers may not be served at all.”

Currently, in my PR Plans class, my team and I have built an entire plan around establishing dialogue, and relaying to “our client” how absolutely crucial it is to create, and then nurture, communication with outside relevant agencies. In community crises, these agencies are food suppliers, warehouses for storage, churches for shelter, and many more. Forming relationships and ongoing dialogue with these agencies should be of high priority for every emergency response team before the emergency occurs. While I know local American Red Cross organizations and other volunteer emergency response teams do keep open relationships with local churches and food banks, this issue of crisis management is not discussed in any case studies I’ve studied in school. Consequently, I believe many fresh and young PR practitioners are not only unaware of this type of important preparation, but also unaware of a meaningful focus and use in crisis management.

And to leave you with a quote from Jonathan’s list:

# 10 “Changing copy less than once per week on a blog created as a primary communications vehicle (versus strictly for SEO purposes) is like riding a horse in the middle of the German Autobahn - everyone’s going to pass you by or run you down. If you don’t know what “SEO” means, see lesson #5, above.”

 

 

Photo of the Autobahn courtesy of msnbc.msn.com.

 

Hot Topic: Trust

With the recent release of this year’s Edelman Trust Barometer report (summary here), many PR bloggers are commenting on the claimed shifts of trust in all organizations. Trust in CEOs and other company heads is declining, while trust in ordinary employees, Edelman reports, is increasing. To narrow this finding down to its implications for my focus, new trends in trust means new efforts to convey trust in crisis communication. Blogger and ABC, Shel Holtz of Holtz Communication + Technology, recently posted a podcast where co-host Neville Hobson interviewed communications consultant Sarah Dean Forrester on Holtz and Hobson’s public relations commentary podcasts, For Immediate Release. This particular interview answered questions about additional implications this shift in trust has for effective crisis management. Forrester’s previous work includes—most interestingly to me—her position as Head of Press Office at the Greater Manchester Police in the UK for 8 years, where she dealt with operational crime, homicides, trials and reputation.

In response to the new trends in trust, Forrester smartly explains the new approach crisis management must take for communication to still be effective in an industry that has long tried to get heads of companies and departments to comment, believing they were most trusted by the consumers. This belief, according to Edelman, is far from accurate. The ideal first responder and spokesperson, Forrester describes, should be “everyone’s favorite sandwich,” or a BLT: Believable. Likable. Trustworthy. What is most important to realize, is that this very person—this BLT—is not necessarily the CEO of the company, or in Forrester’s case, the police chief, but it is the best person to speak on that particular subject, to ease the listener’s mind and handle the crisis with adequate information and empathy. What needs to happen in all organizations then, is the identifying of who the BLT people are for multiple situations. Rather than an immediate turn to the CEO as you hand over cue cards to read from, each situation should garner new thought as to who the best responder is for this audience and this situation. Identify who these common people are for multiple ‘like’ crises, but never limit your company to a fixed plan or person. Instead, Forrester advises, a pool of people in the company can be chosen from as the person most trustworthy for this issue.

I encourage all of you to listen to this podcast and its advice for crisis management, and, particularly, for my smaller scale, community emergency response focus. Each crisis is new, and, while general guidelines of how to respond to similarly grouped situations may be put into immediate effect each time a crisis hits, the next immediate step should be tailoring your plan to the situation at hand and reacting to its own unique questions and complications.

 

The ‘Lazysphere’.

As I’ve recently ventured into the blogging world, I’ve come across many a new word that accompanies this online network. Words like blogroll, trackbacks—all ones I’ve proudly come to understand and use as tools on my venture. And tonight, another new one. Scanning interesting posts to spark an idea for one of my own, I read the term “lazysphere”. Chuckling a bit to myself, I quickly realized this new term described a reality that had already occurred to me when I first started my blog. The ‘lazysphere,’ Steve Rubel describes, is made up of bloggers who fail to come up with new, interesting, and, most importantly, thought provoking posts, but instead merely mimic opinions already voiced rather than contribute new content. This idea occurred to be because, well, I feared I would become one of those bloggers. How, I thought, would I be able to bring to this much developed and professional network, ideas and thoughts of my own that people would respect, let alone be interested in. While I was not clever enough to coin this term, I do believe a realized fear of becoming another mindless blog in this million(billion now?)-wide online world is possibly the first step toward preventing it from happening. I will fight my settlement into the lazysphere and have thus far worked at keeping my next post in the back of my mind as I take in new information in classes, newspapers and—my favorite—conversation.

Aiding me in this attempt, Tiffany Monhollon describes in a recent post how to beat blogger burnout and fight the lazysphere. Among her seven tips, Monhollon advises tracking ideas, setting aside time to plan out your writing each week, and using features or ongoing topics to fall back on when fresh content just isn’t coming. Tips like these are useful guidelines when demanding of yourself a meaningful blog, but they are even more useful to me in the sense that they further drive home my new understanding of treating your blog as a commitment. After much reading of many types of blogs this past week—most of them posting about the topic of blogging itself—I’ve realized that this is truly a forum for professional conversation, and thus must be treated as a professional interaction. When put to good use, Monhollon’s tips drive this professionalism and create a format that can be used to fight the lazysphere. Back to Journalism 101: What constitutes newsworthiness? The answer to this is what should constitute our blogs. While few, and I mean very, very few people may be reading my blog, they are still my audience and I still owe them an interesting, timely and useful read.

 

Introductions: crisis managment, myself, and the web 2.0 phenomenon.

To sum up the attempt at my first blog in one word: Overwhelming. While I consider myself somewhat quick with computers, I have to limit that attribute to Excel and other database programs I use for most of my economics classes and research—the boring things computers can do, that I happen to be fairly good at. However, venturing into the much more interesting capabilities of the Web, I am simply overwhelmed, astounded, and somewhat confused at everything going on in the Web 2.0 world that I and many others just didn’t know about.

Some explanation. Overwhelmed, I say, because Wow! how do I keep up with all of this? Postings and comments, feed reading and taggings. All this while, of course, keeping up with Facebook and fine-tuning my Pandora radio stations. I remember feeling a twinge of pride the day I figured out how to add bookmarks on my PC browser tool bar, reveling in my one-click stops for Bank of America, the Weather Channel and GoDucks.com. Oh if only my former-self could see me now; posting after only some (ok, several) hours spent setting up a blog on the so-called “less intuitive” website (woo-hoo!).

Astounded, I say, because I am simply in pure awe of the millions who have the energy, time and quickness about them to keep track of all updates, news feeds and postings in the blogosphere. It has long been a goal of mine to keep up on my online news: CNN, the New York Times, and my local Oregonian. Outlets with all the information that my of-the-moment college budget disallows me to subscribe to in paper form (not that I would necessarily be able to keep up with rolled newspapers arriving at my doorstep everyday either). Alas, though, I have merely dabbled with news sites, once making CNN.com my homepage in an attempt to keep up with daily news, but eventually wimping out and changing back to my school’s homepage for quick links to e-mail and assignments. While I have not yet developed into routine of checking my newly created feed reader, I have been slowly surfing posts and blogs, letting links take me from page to page, wedging my way into, no doubt, the very tip of a billion-count blogosphere.

Lastly, I hesitantly add to my emotion of this experience confusion. I say confused because, well, how could I have never been a part of this? There are millions — millions — of people in this blogging community, and for a generation Y-er I’d have to say I am slightly embarrassed to feel quite so far behind. This feeling of frustration and confusion with technology makes me feel older than I should, and it’s also fair to mention I have a new soft-spot for my poor mom whom I’ve given such a hard time in the past when she navigates the screen with her finger, trying to maneuver her way through my parents’ dial-up AOL connection and web pages. Confusion will then be, perhaps, the first emotion I abandon as I venture on into the blogosphere. Blogging takes effort and interest, and it most certainly takes time. Devoting around a half-hour to hour per day, the haze starts to lift and the confusion dispels as I realize a relatively small time-commitment allows you to slowly gain a handle on the small blogging community you’ve introduced yourself to. Never, I know, will I be able to keep track of every blog I am interested in, but surely I can keep track of the ones I am gradually narrowing down to as my most important.

Introductions aside, I have created this blog to create conversation around crisis in public relations. Prompted to blog about a PR related topic, I’ve naturally sided with my favorite aspect of public relations: crisis management. However, I am not talking about corporate crisis management, nor am I particularly drawn to reactions to bad press or how to handle a recent Senator’s foul language. What I am interested in—and what I will try to blog about most frequently—is the lesser known, and surely, the less glamorous use of crisis management: that of community crises and local disasters. While it seems odd to be drawn to crises, I have both the personality and interests I believe are necessary to successfully plan and work through tough situations. Confusing to many, I thrive in stressful environments and somehow welcome consuming myself in a project or case. I am beyond detail-oriented and I respond to authority, believe in order no matter the chaos. This blog will serve as a forum for conversation around all crisis management uses, however, I will attempt to focus on this personal interest as much as news and recent blogging conversation allows.

To close, I’d like to draw your attention to a particularly interesting use of the public relations professional—or, as they say here, the news media strategist—in crisis management; that of mediator and manager to media in a child kidnapping case. This Laura Recovery Center manual lays out the PR professional’s function and purpose in working to find the missing child. Myself not initially realizing PR had a place in such a profound and intimate effort, it’s stories like these that put a human face on public relations and crisis management. This smaller-scale aspect of crisis management is usually not discussed nor addressed, yet is one of extreme importance to all local communities and emergency response teams. Should we drop a few corporate crisis case studies to make room for PR’s use on a human level like this child rescue effort? Absolutely. Not only can it advertise PR’s use to more than just offices and agencies, but it can help PR students like myself see a side of public relations I never knew existed.