Tag Archives: social media

Pros and cons of “Citizen Broadcasting”

Courtesy: 2mhdmdj

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.

 

Courtesy: Jeff Lake

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. 

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NYIT asked, I answered

New York Institute of TechnologyBack in April, I was happy to lead a session on “Managing Online Crises” for a group of students at the Manhattan campus of the New York Institute of Technology. As usual, the best part of the session was addressing some really great questions.  Student-organizer David Shaulov was gracious enough to send a recording of the entire session and I edited clips with some of those great questions, such as:

Following are the remaining edited clips: 

I hope you find these useful.  They’ll also be made available through the Video Clips link above, under About J.D.

Comments?  Questions?  I’d love to hear from you, below.

Three Tough Q’s: Ed Eaton

I’ve had the pleasure of not working with Ed Eaton on two occasions. 

Allow me to explain.

Ed is an MBCI – a member of The Business Continuity Institute – and Principal of related firm Warner Gudlaugsson LLC.  (Ask him about the firm’s name if you get the chance – it’s a good backstory.)

Twice now, Ed and I were supposed to combine talents on assignments for two different organizations.  The first project lost its funding.  The second got postponed.  You can’t win ‘em all.

Fortunately, Ed and I kept in touch and I’ve really appreciated his perspectives.  We’re looking to join forces officially on an assignment soon.  When we do it’ll be like a Dynamic Duo of business continuity and crisis/reputation management.  Pow!  Biff!

Until that super moment materializes, Ed graciously agreed to participate here to answer Three Tough Q’s:

 

Q1:  Do impediments exist between integrated business continuity management and reputation management?

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Lessons from a Messy Diaper (Situation)

I have my reasons why I refrain from giving thumbs up/down opinions on specific crisis situations.  However, I try not to miss opportunities when current lessons can be applied to the profession of crisis management.  A recent Advertising Age article provides such a case, through its rare in-the-moment account of strategic planning and execution that takes place in a crisis “war room.”  Here’s a link to the article.

In this case, Procter & Gamble assembled a crisis team to help protect the Pampers brand of diapers when critics began to question whether its new Dry Max formulation was creating “chemical burns.” 

Although the situation is ongoing and a quick scan of the brand’s Facebook page suggests the situation is far from over, the article does provide insights to some very good crisis management practices:

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What’s good about networking is great for hackers

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.

Yes, there are reputational risks for companies/brands that engage through social media.  These have been well documented with ample perspectives on how to prepare against such risks.  (Ahem.  Cough, cough.)

In addition, there are technological risks.  Being “social” on these networks inherently implies that people are casual with information and, at times, complacent about how widespread that information is being shared.  When (un)official company networks sprout, it’s the candid banter of employees or alumni typically reveals more than an untrained eye can see.

Like mosquitoes to standing water, hackers love social networks.  The casual banter provides the information from which they can plan attacks against company infrastructures.   If you have the stomach for it, you should read the play-by-play account of how a team of hackers used information pilfered from Facebook to infiltrate the entire infrastructure of an organization: 

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