Awareness of your company’s communication history is an integral part of any successful crisis prevention strategy. Unfortunately for Southwest Airlines it seems that they are learning that lesson the hard way. This article from The Consumerist points out the absurdity of Southwest, the airline that not too long ago removed …
Specialty communications firm CommCore Consulting has provided communications strategy, message development, communications training, and crisis planning to the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors for over 25 years. This article from the CommCore Observer takes a look at what we as businesspeople should aim to achieve through the use of two …
The Internet is the largest media outlet in our known universe. It has already pushed the once mighty newspaper to the brink of extinction and television can hardly compete with the barrage of information the ‘net provides. This medium has spawned a new breed of reporter that blurs the line …
A little food for thought today (har, har) – KFC recently relocated the Colonel’s secret recipe to a new, high-tech safe in their corporate office. In order to prevent any foul (did you really think I could resist one more?) play the original handwritten recipe was kept in hiding for …
This Orlando Sentinel article provides an outside look at an organization doing just about everything wrong that could be done while managing (well, attempting to manage) a crisis. In the business world, choosing to employ a tainted individual is equivalent to placing a ticking time bomb in the office. If, …
This past edition of Crisis Manager featured a guest article by a source who is extremely familiar with crises. A 30-year veteran of the Oregon State Police, including his current nine-year stint as Public Information Officer, Gregg Hastings handled the media during the intense search for the missing James Kim …
The Bimbo Awards take a tongue in cheek look at prominent figures placing their feet firmly in their own mouths. Created by Merrie Spaeth of Spaeth Communications, the criterion for nomination is that the quote causes the listener to believe exactly the opposite of what is being said. “The winning …
Hopefully my readers will forgive me a bit of horn-tooting here as I celebrate another successful year for Crisis Manager! This newsletter has been a major part of my life – publishing two issues a month, every month, with very few exceptions during its entire nine-year run. I’d like to …
“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 …
“I think I screwed up,” Obama said in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “And, I take responsibility for it and we’re going to make sure we fix it so it doesn’t happen again.” In an astounding demonstration of JUST how different a communicator he’s going to be as President, …
The Courage Campaign, an online organizing network that pushes for progressive change in California, has launched a very unique campaign in an attempt to make Californians take notice of the current budget crisis. In an excellent example of a grassroots issues management campaign, they put a comedic spin on the …
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 …
My friend and professional associate, Gerald Baron, authors his own blog, the Crisisblogger, covering stories ranging from the recent salmonella outbreak to his opinions of the White House website. An engaging and enlightening read on the subject of crisis management in this new era of communication, I highly recommend that …
I try not to pull material too often from any one site but this story was too good (or rather, too bad) to pass up. Coming to us again from The Consumerist, today’s story is another example of spectacularly poor customer service, this time from Comcast cable. Apparently they charged …
Another gem from The Consumerist today. According to the Washington Post, Heartland Payment Systems, a payment processor that handles credit card payments for over 250,000 businesses, has had more than 100 million transactions compromised through malicious software that had been unknowingly installed on its network. As if the situation were …
