It's not just about tools ... twitter, facebook or others.

I'm usually on the side of proponents of the use of social media platforms during emergencies. It makes a lot of sense: engaging your audiences directly, quickly and effectively. I've modestly tried to push things along in my (limited !!!) sphere of influence.

In most cases, i hear the usual objections on the use of social media: not enough context, not enough info, need more facts ... can't respond too quickly ... they're gimmicky ... and the other chapters in a long litany of incomprehension, lack of knowledge or just plain stubbornness.

Well, that's fine! I can put forward great arguments on the use of social media as emergency info tools ... and I usually do.

Now, what I find as concerning, is the tendency by disciples of social media ... to confuse the tools (the actual platforms themselves: twitter and others) with the objectives: to inform the public and present your emergency response in the best possible light.

More important than an organization's ability to tweet ... is the foundation behind its desire to communicate quickly during emerging situations or incidents. It's grand and fine to be able to tweet, inbed social media platforms on your website and all that ... BUT ... are you prepared? What are you going to say?

Do you have a crisis communications plan? does it have a series of protocols that determine who will respond to an incident ... and how soon? does it include delegation of authority to do so?
we're now in world where a delay of 15 minutes ( as in the airline whose plane landed in the Hudson River) in responding to an incident brings you criticism ...

Let's not forget the basics: good sound crisis comms planning, prepared messaging (message mapping anyone ???), trained crisis communicators ... an experienced team that trains often ... significant executive support (that's when you get that delegation of authority) ... effective follow up and measurements ... http://http://www.hstoday.us/content/view/9638/128/

Some of you might think that we're going overboard ... it doesn't matter ... if your audiences demand a quick response of your organization ... and you stick to your existing practices ... you'll end up with egg on your faces ...

the top down strategy doesn't work ... in messaging (we now engage in conversations ... on line, thru social media ... we're not preaching from up high ...) nor does it work in the org chart sense either ...

the more of your people are empowered to respond to incidents ... with proper tools, training and support ... the better the outcomes will be ...

can we still afford to wait 6 hours to respond to media and public calls on a train quarantined in Northern Ontario on suspicions of some exotic disease ... i gather not ...

can we wait four hours to issue a basis media statement after a huge explosion in an industrial site in Toronto ... while images of conflagration and rocket-like tanks flying through the air flood social media sites?

the world is changing ... expectations are too ... it's up to all of us to keep up ... here's a useful link:http://http//webworkerdaily.com/2009/06/01/crisis-communications-for-the-social-media-age/

by the way ... are your media people available 24/7 ? ... your web folks ?
or do incidents only happen on business hours ...

As always I await comments

When to counter false allegations and dispel rumours.

OK ... it's been a while ...busy in the new job ... working on communications related to the security around next year's G8 summit in Huntsville, Ontario.

Which brings me to today's topic ... when is it relevant to engage in online activities to counter false allegations or help dispel rumours?

Should it be automatic? or are there other channels you can use? ... Is a combination of both approaches the best choice?

In the huge project I'm currently associated with (in my secondment to the Ontario Provincial Police) ... we face the situation where we need to spend a lot of efforts countering false rumours about the nature and extent of security measures for the 2010 G8 summit.

Some of these rumours are absolutely outlandish and grounded in nothing more than a very broad extrapolation of a TV show like 24. Those can be dealt with more easily than the rumours based on reality ... but that are just the products of wrong interpretations.

To counter these myths and rumours ... we're taking a dual approach: a web presence (which is so far limited to a website ... but don't despair, we're trying to bring it into the 21st century with a broad social media strategy attached to it ... more on that in the coming weeks) and some effective ground work done by our community relations folks.

Frankly, i would not discount the fantastic work done by the people on the ground ... whether they're meeting with 400 people ... or just 25 ... their local presence has helped establish our whole organization's credibility ... better than any electronic medium ever could ...

now ... what our web and social media strategy must do ... is support them with the right products and messaging ... the right channels for the right conversations to occur ... no matter where they're hosting or happen to take place ... in a way, we must re-create the town hall meetings that have been successful for us ... on the web/social media ...

it's that sense of conversation and personal engagement that we need to foster ... we (the communications team) face some corporate challenges in our ability to do that ... but we're making headway ...

As I keep saying ... our messages must not appear to come down from the mountain ... etched in stone ... yes, we have valuable and relevant info to communicate ... but we have to do it in a spirit of participation in a broad conversation with our many audiences ...

the fact is that we deal with sophisticated people ... who for the most part can anticipate some of the measures that security forces will put in place and that may impact their daily lives over the week of the G8 summit ... we have to respect that intelligence and engage them with relevant, up-to-date info ... from a broad array of channels ...

you can see how we've started to do this (modestly ...) at our website www.g8isu.ca

I welcome your comments and suggestions on how we can inform residents, visitors and other stakeholders ...

Occupying the public space

Is there such a thing as a "prime directive" (hello trekkies!) for crisis communications practitioners?

Well, I'd venture to say that in the social media world, there is an absolute need to occupy the public space soon after an incident or crisis occurs. I want to be very careful in how I position my rationale for this ...

First, the old model of uni-directional communications is really out the window ... despite an organization's ability to broadcast a message targeted to a large audience or many audiences, I think that's not just good enough anymore.

With the advent of social media platforms ... the audience can now interact amongst themselves ... so when an incident occurs ... they'll start those dialogues ... I make the argument that you need to join in that conversation or conversations ...

your ability to be heard is critical ... but do it in a participative way... you're not supplanting the information already out there ... rather, you should complement it ...

that's where credibility comes in ... by having a sound crisis comms plan, good social media practices and ongoing web/social media outreach ...you'll already have established your organization's credibility ...

by joining in the fray at the onset of an incident or crisis ... by occupying the public space ... you may provide a necessary counterbalance or element of veracity to the conversation ...

I believe the secret lies in the approach ... a collaborative one ... based on the sharing of information ... of integrating the ongoing dialogue into your crisis response ... that makes the use of an array of channels/social media platforms necessary ...

I'm trying to integrate these principles in my new position ... so far, so good ... lots of understanding and agreement on adopting crisis comms practices, social media outreach, open dialogue from the leadership ... without forgetting more traditional ways of getting our messages out ...

I'd be interested to hear from you on those principles ...

crisis communications approach

I'm a big fan of the message mapping technique developed by Dr Covello of the Center for Risk Communications in New York. I especially likes its science-based approach to crafting key messages that the audience can actually retain during a crisis or emergency ...

I've spoken to people who've used this approach during big events/crisis (9-11) and they told me that message mapping (and in particular, the ability it gave them to anticipate, prepare and practice) was a real key to their successful crisis communications practices ...

Here's a link to an EPA web page on message mapping which itself leads to a fantastic learning tool (a video of Doctor Covello speaking on message mapping and the differences between how our brains function during normal times and emergencies/crises) ... an absolute must read for all communicators ...
http://www.epa.gov/ordnhsrc/news/news040207.html

Now, I'm wondering what kind of techniques are being used out there ... and might be as efficient.

Comments anyone?

First visit to Huntsville

Had my first visit to Huntsville ... site of next year's G8 Summit ... a townhall was put together by the federal Summits Management Office with key participation from the Integrated Security Unit ... (my new employer through the OPP )

As expected, most questions dealt with security issues: impact on traffic, local commerce and residents ...

the event went well ... the presenters were solid and well briefed and questions and concerns raised by audience members were relevant and illustrative ...

But I found my visits to the shops of downtowm Huntsville the next day as illuminating ... talking to commerce owners and shop workers, waiters and young people ... there a lots of misconceptions about the security impacts for the Summit ...

We have our work cut out for us in stemming the tide of false rumours ...

Having had a first-hand look and many discussions with the locals ... I'll have a better understanding of what's needed and how to go about it ...

Any other communicator having had to spend a lot of time controlling/dispelling rumours ...your input is welcome !

Start of a new adventure

It had to happen ... I'm taking on a new challenge ... and it's a big one ... I'm going to help coordinate the communications activities around the security arrangements for next year's G8 Summit in Huntsville ...

Sounds like fascinating work ... team approach ... joint operation between the OPP, RCMP and the Canadian Forces ... lots of people on the ground ... and more importantly for us communicators ... lots of issues and public concerns to deal with ...

I'll be able to bring together my experience in project and issues management, strategic and crisis comms planning into a community outreach approach ... the main thing will be to learn how to manage different organizational styles (OPP, RCMP, DND) and how to help a team of communicators mesh together ... so far so good in that regard ... we all value each other's experiences and expertise ...

I'll keep posting tidbits about the work ... without going into too many details related to actual security measures ....

a question though for all of you out there ... how have been your experiences working with many partners and joint forces ops for big projects ?

let me know !

let's get started

Okay ... we can't escape it ... H1N1 ... the swine flu ... how do you think it's been handled so far from a crisis or risk communications perspective ...

DISCLOSURE: I work for the Ontario government ... however, I want to indicate that my views and opinions do NOT reflect official edicts or positions of my ministry (Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services) or EMO (Emergency Management Ontario) or any other provincial ministry or agency ...

Having said that ... what's my take on how the government has dealt with the H1N1 issue?

Let's just say: mixed results ... Lessons from SARS have been learned the hard way ... but still not completely ...

The Ministry of Health and Long-term Care did a good job communicating with the public and stakeholder in the health sectors ... a good job ... not fabulous ... certainly not very inventive and with very little attention to new media ... Now, that might have been enough a few years back when SARS hit ... but can't we do better now ... 6 years later ? with all the tools and social media platforms we have at our disposal ... Still ... they get a passing grade for me ... they did what they had to do ...

Now, the other shoe drops (and I might get some push back on this from people inside the Ontario Public Service ... some highly-placed people !!!) ... we did a DISMAL job on internat comms ...

it took us days ... a week even ... to get the most basic info to our most valuable group of stakeholders ... our own employees across the Ontario Public Service ... things bogged down ...

Question: what's the point of having plans of all sorts to deal with a pandemic, including plans to communicate with every group of stakeholders ... if those plan go out the window at the onset of an emergency ?

There has to be enough trust and buy in into the solidity of our planning for professionals to be able to do their job ... without levels of scrutiny and infighting that slow things down to a crawl ...

Opinions out there ?

Now, there's a way to get started ... I'll let you know next week if I still have a job !!!

OK ... after many months of "mooching" other people's blogs and web work ... I've decided to finally join the fray ...

My blog will focus on best practices on crisis communications, emergency information (EI) and emergency management (EM) in general.

I will also pay close attention to leaders in the field of social media integration into EI and EM. I particularly look forward to hearing from anyone with sensible comments and suggestion ( an open exchange of ideas ) on crisis communications, especially within governmental organizations.