The .5 Second News Cycle and Crisis Management

Twenty-twofour people (including 156 client executives) sent me Business Week’s “Web Attack” (4/16/07) which provides a high-level overview of crisis management in the age of blogs, forums, camera phones, etc.

In the last eight weeks I’ve presented to Global 1000 brands and my colleagues in London, Chicago, Atlanta, New York and Austin our research and point-of-view on “The .5 Second News Cycle and Crisis Management,” and I’d say more than 90 percent of the companies that I’ve met with are not prepared to manage issues and crisis situations that increasingly are festering and escalating online.

Dell, who is mentioned in the Business Week article (and is one of our clients), has made significant investments and progress in all things digital media. They are a clear leader. But it did not happen overnight or over one plate of nachos (Business Week over simplifies Dell’s digital media efforts, but they describe “refreshingly straight- talking blogger-in-chief Lionel Menchaca” quite well:)).

So why are so many companies slow to take the steps to fully understand and manage issues and crisis situations on-line? There are many reasons but here are a few common ones: The people responsible for managing crisis situations in large enterprise are 1) primarily focused on mainstream media and managing 24-hour news cycles, 2) anchored in crisis management techniques learned from studying cases like Tylenol, Union Carbide Bhopal and Perrier, which all happened prior to the Internet and citizen-generated media, and 3) they are handcuffed by corporate counsel who does not get transparency and can’t move rapidly enough to deal with fast-moving, smart mobs.

While some traditional crisis management approaches are still valid today, they need to be adapted and fortified for the current environment. It’s vital that this process happen before a major crisis strikes so executive suites and crisis management professionals are in sync on what needs to be done.

To this end, we strongly suggest that companies work to answer six questions:

1. Where do your customers & prospects spend time online?
2. What are they saying about your brand, products, competitors and industry?
3. Who are the digital influencers around your brand and in your industry?
4. How would you learn about an issue or crisis that is festering online? How quickly would you be alerted (hopefully hours NOT days)?
5. How would you rapidly communicate (in near real-time) to customers and key audiences if a crisis escalated online?
6. Who needs to understand the .5 second news cycle and crisis management in your company in order to manage it? Are they well versed in new crisis management approaches and techniques?

The Business Week article is a good, high-level overview and should be shared with management and crisis teams. At the same time, they oversimplified some of the approaches and all of the solutions mentioned. BuzzLogic is promising software we’ve tested and in its current state it is not a good option (BuzzLogic folks should call Wilson Tan in my office if you have more to show). There are some beta tests going on currently (e.g., we are testing Visible Technologies software) that are beginning to yield positive results and may offer enterprise-class solutions for monitoring and response. Another company mentioned in the article reputationdefender.com is more focused on search engine optimization of positive content which makes their service useful AFTER a crisis, but they can’t do much to help you before or during.

This is an area in which we’ve done a lot of research and have real experience managing major crisis situations online. If your company is interested in learning more about “The .5 Second News Cycle and Crisis Management” drop me a note (pwalker@gcigroup.com) or give me a call.

Update:  To his credit, Rob Crumpler, CEO, BuzzLogic commented on my post within a couple hours.  We’ll take BuzzLogic for another spin in the coming weeks. 

7 April 2007 | Crisis, Research, smart mob | Comments