On June 15, U.S. Congressman Bart Stupak (D – MI) issued a statement on “misplaced priorities” of oil companies in the wake of the spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In it, he uses the ExxonMobil oil spill response plan to draw conclusions about oil industry lack of preparedness. Stupak concludes that the plans are “great public relations…. But these plans are virtually worthless when an actual spill occurs. And that’s exactly the kind of misplaced priorities that led to this disaster.”
In my opinion, Congressman Stupak’s conclusion is murky.
Don’t get me wrong – history will eventually assign plenty of shared blame for the Deepwater Horizon situation. The events leading up to the oil spill, the BP “responsible party” efforts to stop the leak, the ongoing and future clean-up work and the public relations responses all deserve to be scrutinized, heavily. However, the Congressman’s buckshot against the oil industry hits crisis communications planning with collateral damage. And that’s counterproductive.
Continue reading Crisis communications planning gets unfairly tarred by oil spill critic
According to a recent CNN report
Pick a team sport. Any sport. Your team gathers to prepare for the upcoming season. In your first meeting, your coach hands each of you a highly detailed playbook. He reads aloud each page to your team. The playbook details:
A pair of business continuity planning (BCP) experts recently voiced concerns about their profession.