Last week’s dramatic, dangerous and bizarre situation at the Discovery Channel headquarters served as another reminder for the need to be ready to respond to senseless and unpredictable workplace violence.
It was also a reminder that social networks are designed to scoop the media in the initial stages of an emerging crisis. Some of the obvious reasons for this were captured in this story in The Washington Post. Best callout:
Before camera crews and reporters could race to the scene, a shot of alleged hostage-taker James Lee was flashing around the world via Twitpic, Twitter’s photo-sharing service that lets people see whatever a cellphone camera captures seconds after the shutter snaps. The shot — full of menace and dread — was apparently taken by an office worker peering from a window several floors above the Discovery courtyard. The photo was apparently passed from an unidentified Discovery employee to another, who posted it on Twitpic.
Social networks “scooping” traditional news will continue and grow more common. Some have tagged this as trend as “citizen journalism.” I don’t like that tag. “Journalism” typically provides context and has an embedded editorial process. Instead, I prefer the term “citizen broadcasting” for these types of real-time alerts.
Depending on the type of crisis, “citizen broadcasting” can be a good or bad thing for the public.
I’ve had the pleasure of not working with 
Organizations are wise to adapt to the unstoppable force that is social networking. At this point, if you don’t agree please refer to the myriad perspectives that advocate this point, right after you crawl out from under your rock.
Crisis managers prefer to operate within established protocols, rules, laws and beliefs. Therefore, it’s not surprising these have already been established in the nascent area of 2.0 crises – those that erupt online. However, the online networking space is changing so fast it’s prudent if we didn’t etch our beliefs in stone just yet.