What’s a crisis?  A crisis is a people stopping, product stopping, show stopping, reputationally defining or trust busting event that creates victims and/or explosive visibility.

The operative word in this definition is the word “victims.” Just blowing things up or burning things down, but failing to hurt, kill, or threaten people or animals are certainly adverse circumstances, but they are not crises. The production of victims is the crucial ingredient of crisis.

Continue reading " Metrics of Crisis: Building Effective Plans "

There is no better public relations teacher than a public relations blunder, a truth evident in recent headlines: “Stork Craft Manufacturing Experiences Massive Crib Recall,” “Tiger Woods Caught out for Adultery,” and “White House Suffers Breach of Security.” All of these crises were made worse by poor communication. Here are three vital lessons in crisis communications for public relations professionals pulled straight from the rumor mill.

Continue reading " Public Relations Blunders Teach “What Not to Do” in a Crisis "

This half-day, pre-Conference session by James E. Lukaszewski, ABC, APR, Fellow PRSA, CCEP, proves you don’t have to have all the presentation bells and whistles to hold the attention of your audience! Through strategic conversation, supplemental handouts and breakout sessions discussing real crisis scenarios, The Strategic Advisor in Action During Crisis session challenges public relations practitioners to re-evaluate how they interact with the media during a crisis situation and become better managers, leaders and people in these tough situations. Lukaszewski claimed he was not teaching public relations, but changing our mindset to view a crisis as an operator and management function. More than just a matter of semantics!

Continue reading " Crisis Communication: Your Mindset Rewired "

The emergence of social media in public relations strikes me as being like a lot of crises. First, it has the capacity to change our world profoundly — for good or ill. Second, it looked like it snuck up on us, bursting onto the scene with an urgency and impact that could be considered explosive. But the truth is, like most crises, it was there smoldering for a long time before it erupted into the single most compelling issue in public relations today. Third, while we’re in the thick of this “social media crisis,” it looks like it will never end. But like all crises, it too shall pass. The only question is, what will the future look like when it is superceded with some new form of normalcy?

At the recent Ragan Communications/PRSA Conference on Social Media in Las Vegas, I had the opportunity to speak on social media and crisis communication. It was one of the most engaging discussions I’ve ever had with a large group. Essentially what we discussed was the fact that social media is changing our world forever, and that social media changes nothing of importance.

Social media, as exemplified by three of the hot topics of the day — Facebook, YouTube and Twitter — is accelerating and emphasizing trends that have been in play ever since the Internet became part of our lives. These trends are the ever-increasing speed of news, the ability and expectation of audiences to get information directly from sources rather than from the media, the exponential phenomenon of word of mouth and the high levels of interactivity. These changes are profound for those involved in daily public affairs, issues management and crisis management. In this sense, it changes everything. Our work is faster, more direct, more interactive — let alone how styles and modes have changed.

Continue reading " Social Media and What Is Really Important "

What a time it has been for self-inflicted harm. In state politics we’ve seen the fall of New York Governor Elliot Spitzer and the re-emergence of scandal involving former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey. On Wall Street we’ve seen the implosion of Bear Stearns and Southwest Airlines was fined more than $10 million for flying more than three dozen jets that were out of compliance with airworthiness standards.

And we’ve seen two milestones in the U.S. war in Iraq: the passing of the fifth anniversary,
despite then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s assurance that “I can’t tell you if the use of in Iraq today would last five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last more than that;” and we’ve seen the four thousanth U.S. fatality in Iraq.

But we’ve also seen recoveries from crises. Senator Barack Obama, pummeled by criticism about his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, gave a defining speech  on race in America and maintained his momentum in his quest for the Democratic nomination for president. New York’s new governor, David Patterson, pre-empted media scrutiny of his personal life by disclosing on his first day in office that he and his wife had prior affairs.

Continue reading " The Human Dimension of Crisis Response "