Saying the wrong thing during a crisis can make your organization look foolish Filled with quotes wherein “the speaker causes the listener to believe exactly the opposite of what was said,” Merrie Spaeth’s “Bimbo Awards” are a who’s who of bad crisis management. With the recent release of the “Bimbo …
New Crisis Manager
Another new Crisis Manager newsletter is up on the BCM website! This week we feature articles from two different PR experts about issues that many crisis management professionals face. First up, a piece by Spanish PR pro Carlos Victor Costa that describes valuable lessons learned from the BP spill regarding …
Crisis Preparedness
There are five steps to effective crisis preparation. If you don’t follow them before a crisis breaks, you risk serious reputation and financial damage, not to mention harm to employees or other stakeholders. In the latest Crisis Manager newsletter, BCM President Jonathan Bernstein gives a preview of one of his …
Preparedness Pays
Officials at MeritCare Hospital in Fargo, ND, were recently rewarded for their crisis prevention efforts when they successfully evacuated 180 of their most delicate patients in the face of a raging blizzard. With a flood predicted, executive vice president Bruce Pitts was forced to make a move and, kept tight …
Another Professional Opinion
“Perhaps not surprisingly I have recently had discussions with a number of CEOs concerning what politely we call Contingency Planning, or more brutally, Crisis Management. These discussions have ranged from a charity wanting advice in order to be prepared for difficult questions concerning donations, to companies investigating business-threatening product and …
It’s Not All Luck…
Fellow PR professionals are an important source of insight and knowledge. Today’s tidbit comes to us from the blog of Kat Waters, a freelance PR pro and writer based in Dublin, Ireland. In her latest post she uses the way the Irish Government has dealt with their current recession to …
They Assembled It Where?
As subscribers to my Crisis Manager newsletter may know, I am none too fond of Best Buy due to their consistently poor customer service. Unfortunately, a recent post on The Consumerist gives another example of Best Buy’s incredibly bad customer service that only serves to cement my opinion. Properly training …
Pilot Had Crisis Management Experience
Given my comment on my blog yesterday about the news of the US Airways crash into the Hudson River — pray first, analyze later — I found this article about pilot Chesley “Sully” Sllenberger interesting. He proves that being prepared for crisis means you can successfully handle crisis. Jonathanwww.bernsteincrisismanagement.com Added …
Great Crisis Leaders: 10 Key Characteristics
In the recent article, Great Crisis Leaders: 10 Key Characteristics, by Pat Rowe, we are reminded of how leaderships’ core beliefs will affect the success or demise of a company or country. These steps include intellectual integrity, the ability to see the big picture, willingness to consider mutiple options, decisiveness, …
Bernstein Interview re Minimize Reputational Risks
I was recently interviewed by Business Insurance magazine’s Gloria Gonzales for a story entitled “Preparedness can minimize reputational risks.” The story appeared in print, ran as a podcast, and is also available for you to hear as an .mp3 file, with the link printed by permission of Business Insurance.Your feedback …
Crisis Communication reality reveals a sad state of affairs
An article published on BizCommunity.com outlines that with chaos abounding in the world, “research shows that within the next ten years, it’s unlikely that the majority of corporations would have engaged in comprehensive crisis preparedness and planning.” As the article states, “A company’s reputation is its greatest asset. It can …