My new Blog!

Hello everyone! As you can see I have not posted since very long time. And this blog was a part of my academics. Recently I've started my very own blog: http://www.clearpixels.net.

Please Do visit and leave some feedback. :)

Crisis Communication

Crisis communications are generally considered a sub-specialty of the public relations profession that is designed to protect and defend an individual, company, or organization facing a public challenge to its reputation. These challenges may come in the form of an investigation from a government agency, a criminal allegation, a media inquiry, a shareholders lawsuit, a violation of environmental regulations, or any of a number of other scenarios involving the legal, ethical, or financial standing of the entity.

Many organizations suffer extensively because they do not have proper crisis communication strategy setup. On February 2007 JetBlue had one of such crisis due to delay. 9 planes filled with passengers sat on the tarmac for more than 6 hours with no food, drink or polite handling, poor decision making, and a complete system breakdown that (even more frighteningly) indicates that JetBlue doesn't have the infrastructure or policies to cope with challenges that are going to crop up from time to time in the airline business. Now that was a serious situation and to come out of this situation JetBlue needed to execute the best in crisis communications.
Here's what JetBlue did do right:

• " I'm mortified," said CEO David Neeleman on February 19th, acknowledging responsibility, and getting that acknowledgment, and his vision for making things better covered in major print and broadcast media
• Put customers first. JetBlue built its reputation on customer service so last week's events really hurt. Yesterday, nearly a week since the problems, they released a Customer Bill of Rights feature it on the JetBlue homepage.
• Brought CEO Neeleman to customers via a heartfelt conversation delivered via a YouTube video.

According to Nancy E. Schwartz, Nonprofit marketing expert, JetBlue should have done more than what CEO David Neeleman did. She pointed out some great logical solutions in her blog.
Here is an interesting article where the author created a model of crisis and discussed several dimensions of crisis. Examining the dimensions of a crisis, which executives can clearly recognize and relate to, helps the public relations counselor provide truly meaningful, strategic advice. It is this kind of analytical approach that helps senior management avoid career-defining moments, unless the moments are deserved.

The most important communications strategy in a crisis, particularly in the first few hours, is to be open with the public by being available to the news media. There are several contradictory theories regarding what to tell and when to tell. According to Frank Corrado it should be “Tell It All, Tell It Fast!” and some other says “Tell as much as you can, as soon as you can”. Both of these theories may have some pros and cons, but organization needs to be careful and wise.

Bill Patterson pointed out some most important rules of crisis communications:

1. Have an in-depth crisis communications plan that includes dealing with the media, the community and your employees.

2. Make sure the crisis team has been professionally trained in doing hard news interviews.

3. Name a spokesperson and two back-ups today. Do not wait for the crisis to occur.

4. Deal with the crisis head-on. Do not hide out.

5. Respond to reporters’ questions immediately. They expect a return call or an on-site interview within 10 minutes of the request.

6. Never lie. The big lie would be stupid but many executives tend to tell the little white lie. When you even think of telling a lie in a crisis situation, say the name "Richard Nixon."

7. Never go off the record. In a crisis there is already much confusion. Do not add to it. Tell a reporter only what you want to see on the front page of the local paper.

8. Practice implementing your crisis plan by going through a mock crisis once a year. Do not forget the news media element during the practice.

Crisis communication is very important function of organizational communication. Organizations must handle it very carefully before it’s too late.

21st Century Communication Trends

“The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.” Joseph Priestley

Hey its 2007! Who bothers to write a letter, put it into an envelope, stick some stamps and then drop it to a letterbox? At least I don’t. Gone those days when I people used to wait for the postman to deliver letters from our nearest and dearest one. Now we just do is dial up the number and call. What could be simpler than that? If we do not feel generous then just write an email or IM. That’s the generic picture of 21^st century communication trends. The magic touch of technology is everywhere.

21^st century communication trends can also be seen in workplaces. People no longer send memo or notes from desk to desk, instead they send email, instant message. As I pointed out in my previous blog that fewer people actually meet face to face for a team project. Instead, they rely on various modern technologies such as email, intranet, VPN, net-meeting, video-conference and various customized team suit applications depending on the requirement. These kinds of technology not only help in faster communication but also reduce the need of paperwork. Boeing designed its flagship aircraft Boeing 777 without any paperwork. The 777 was the first airplane to be completely designed with computers, which insured the internal consistency of its parts. Using computer-assisted design and manufacturing software, Boeing engineers were able to take their numerically-controlled machine tool settings directly from their plans.

Another interesting development is CEO Blog. This is a great communication tool which helps the CEOs to put forward their opinions about things, ideas and public relations. As Sun Microsystems COO Jonathan Schwartz says:

There’s no fundamental difference between giving a keynote speech in Shanghai in front of 30,000 people and doing a blog read by several million people.

The trend of blogging CEOs and other high level executives has been taken up with such fervor that an international CEO Bloggers’ Club has been started especially for such corporate bloggers. In fact people started ranking these CEO Blogs.

Time change, people change so do technology. Since the internet became public in 1995, communication technology has changed the way we communicate. What may seem advanced technology today is bound to become obsolete tomorrow. It’s just a matter of time. But at the end of the day I do agree with the fact that the more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.