Taking the Emotion out of Crisis Situations

One of the biggest obstacles to overcome in any organization undergoing a crisis is emotion: Stakeholders, especially management and employees, often become defensive because their livelihood may be at stake. It’s basic human nature.

When defensiveness rules, the lawyers are usually put in charge. Virtually all outside communication is then shut down or limited to stilted legalese, the goal being to limit discoverable materials and protect the organization from lawsuits. The problem with this sort of response is that it smacks of a cover-up. Unanswered questions lead to speculation and speculation leads to rumor and eventually, perception can become reality and you’re doomed.

Consider Arthur Andersen. When representatives of that firm aided and abetted Enron in perpetrating its massive fraud on investors and energy consumers, AA adopted a purely defensive posture. Andersen’s legal team and managers couldn’t see the forest for the trees. The central issue was not protecting the company against lawsuits by angry investors who had relied on its audit opinions regarding Enron’s financial situation, it was preserving the franchise itself. But AA’S lawyers, senior management and Board of Directors never realized what was at stake until it was too late. As a result, the franchise that had been built up over 89 years was destroyed, along with 85,000 jobs.

AA could have weathered the fallout. A new leadership team, headed by some prominent person with impeccable credentials, could then have launched an internal investigation into how the AA-Enron scandal came to be and into how conflicts of interest among Andersen’s different lines of business might have contributed to the scandal. Changes in policies and procedures, divestiture of conflicting lines of business, full cooperation with the authorities and perhaps a name change might even have saved the firm.

Crises that threaten an organization’s reputation or franchise are essentially public relations problems. A good consultant will put all emotion aside, examine the situation as a detached observer and thereby identify the essence of the crisis, the true costs involved (both short- and long-term) and what it will take to fix the problem at hand. Sure, they may have legal implications that could cost significant money over the short term, and the lawyers have their job to do in limiting that liability. But this short-term focus can lead to winning the battle but losing the war.

-Posted by Tony Lentini 11/9/09

Learning to Speak Twitterese

The Twitter Dictionary aka Twittonary provides explanations of various Twitter related words. Here are a few examples, to find more visit www. twittonary.com

Teletwitter: experimental open source client. –Teletwitter

TikiTwit: match your iChat status to your last tweet using your mac.

TinyTwitter: works with any Java enabled device (includes the BlackBerry) and any Windows Mobile Pocket PC or Smartphone. –TinyTwitter

TrashTweeter: someone who tweets trash or talking trash on twitter

TreoTwit: easily check and update your Twitter right from your Treo.

Twitophant/twitophantic: one who repeatedly tweets the Top 100 in an attempt to gain more followers.

Twabe/Twabes: Twitter Slang. A young woman. Or informal. Sweetheart; dear. Used as a term of endearment.

Twabulous: fabulous tweet or fabulous information or fabulous take...

Twad: wad, bunch; viral twitter outrage over something thats misunderstood

Twadget: Simple gadget that lets you view and submit tweets right from Vista’s Sidebar

Twaffic: Twitter traffic.

Twaigslist: to sell something via Twitter (also Twebay).

Twantrum: a tantrum thrown by excessively tweeting!

Tweet You Later!

-Posted by Ron Cutsinger 11/5/09

What happened to the Corporate Logo?

The really interesting classes I took in college were the ones that dealt with corporate identity. I remember that IBM, “big blue," was the benchmark that every company was measured against. It was a time when memorable marks were created to withstand the changing times. Once upon a time, the logo/mark represented the heart and soul of what the company stood for. I wonder if that is the case today?

Today, identity is often called branding, but I think in reality this term has muddied up the whole point of why you create a symbol that represents the company in the first place. A symbol or mark use to be the visual that represented the company beyond the commercials and clever sayings that changed with the seasons, economic ups and downs, and advertising fads of the time. The mark was the one symbol that represented core company values and integrity no matter what the conditions. It was what you stood for and who you were.

Now, it seems a lot of today’s marks are created for the industry they represent. Developing and cultivating a unique identity seems to be a lost art. Maybe I am being hard on these new “techie” logos, but I wonder how much staying power they will have when their symbol stands more for their industry than for their unique offerings. It seems many corporations today would rather the industry identify their personality rather than taking control and investing in developing a mark that becomes unquestionably theirs.

An example of a great mark is, Apple. They have lead the way in revolutionizing the computer world without forsaking their image or mark for the sake of their industry. Their symbol, a piece of fruit, is a simple mark that has come to represent a highly complex company, in a high tech industry. I don’t think anyone would question the integrity of their products, even if they started selling toasters. There was a time the same was said of IBM.

Time will tell, but when you look at some of the older marks for corporations, they have withstood the test of time and their identity has been firmly established. Of course, ingenious marketing played a role in developing and defining these timeless brands, but I wonder if these new marks represent a phase or if they too will hold up over time. I guess I will have to write another blog in 25 years to let you know the answer!

-Posted by John Weaver 11/2/09