KeepVault -- Impressive and Low-Cost Online Backup Service

I've long advocated the use of online backup systems for personal and business purposes.  Your location may burn to the ground or be rendered inaccessible by disaster, but you'll still be able to retrieve your files.  Such systems have become increasingly low-cost and user-friendly, and the best one we've found so far -- one we're using myself ourselves -- is KeepVault.  You no longer need to be a big organization to afford this one, and it seamlessly backs up in real time, not just at set intervals.

Whether you use its personal backup solution or its business backup solution, this is a no-brainer way to assure business continuity and preservation of critical data. At $48 a year for 40GB in a personal account (only $99 for 100GB!), you can't use cost as an excuse anymore.  Even the business solution, with some impressive additional perks (see comparison chart), only ranges from $193-364 for the same amounts of storage, with much larger storage options available.

KeepVault does offer a 30-day trial, so give 'em a shot.  We think you'll be pleasantly surprised how easy it is.

BCM Blogging Team
www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com

Tiger's Drive

When handling a crisis, it is always in your best interest to control your own story. If one declines to do this, then it's guaranteed that someone else will do it for you. The torrent of rumors and speculation surrounding Tiger Wood's recent car accident is a perfect example of this, as a recent AP article points out:

He was the ultimate control freak, whether with a 7-iron in his hand or a microphone. But, as Woods is so painfully learning now, even he can't control everything.

At some point he'll have to talk with the troopers. More importantly, at some point he'll have to talk to his fans.

If not, the Internet rumor mill will keep churning. If not, the rampant speculation will be passed off as fact.

Both him and his team, including spokesman, staying silent goes again the grain of good crisis management. The longer he allows the rumblings to continue, the more he undermines his credibility and the harder it will be to rebuild his reputation once the full story comes out.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Technology Making it Harder for Wrongdoers to Hide

The best tools are always created out of necessity, and the technology era has done nothing but speed up that process. A new mesh of technologies called Ushahidi, which means witness in Swahili, is bettering lives by allowing users to map evidence of human rights abuses, violent happenings, spread of disease and much more. A Global Post Article explains the free service in more detail:

Ushahidi is a simple, free and open-source web-based platform that allows “witnesses” to map evidence of human rights abuses. Observers can provide information by posting reports of events directly onto the website or by emailing them. Witnesses can also map events via text message thanks to FrontlineSMS, a text messaging platform built into Ushahidi. People with smart phones can also download a range of free Ushahidi apps to map alerts.

This is another example of how technology is making it harder and harder for wrongdoers to hide their activities, and for activists to engage in better crisis management.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Benefits of Blogging

Acting as a low cost marketing, public relations and crisis management tool, blogs, both your own and others, can be a powerful utility for any organization. A post from PublicRelationsBlogger.com explains further:

Whether you create and manage one yourself or read and follow others, blogs provide the chance to really create a sense of community with your current and potential customers. They also allow for you, the company, to provide content that is valuable to your customers rather than simply advertising to them. The Internet makes it possible for customers to find you, even searching for your company by the services you provide or the content you provide online.

Here at Bernstein Crisis Management it’s become commonplace for us to launch one, or even multiple, blogs for clients as part of PR campaigns, and of course we maintain this blog regularly as a SEO tool and communications channel for our own business. In addition to the communications benefits, blogs may also be utilized to boost your main website’s visibility when people search for you on the Web. This way you can not only be the first to present your message, but can encourage customers to bring complaints to you first, rather than the media.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Mobile Workforce

A new survey is indicating that many employers may be in trouble in the coming year, as a full sixty percent of the members of the workforce polled indicated that they intended to leave their current job to pursue new opportunities as the economy improves through 2010. A quote from a press release by Right Management:

“The study provides a barometer of employee engagement in the workplace, with results that might alarm and surprise many employers,” said Douglas J. Matthews, President and Chief Operating Officer at Right Management. “Employees are clearly expressing their pent up frustration with how they have been treated through the downturn. While employers may have taken the necessary steps to streamline operations to remain viable, it appears many employees may have felt neglected in the process. The result is a disengaged and disgruntled workforce.”

Major operational decisions, particularly negative ones, must be accompanied by compassionate communication that helps employees get through tough times.  Low morale means low productivity and higher "best minds" defections, so it makes sense financially, not just ideologically, to make considerate communication part of your crisis management plan for dealing with tough times.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Lacking Leadership

If you ask employees of any organization, most would say they look to their managers for leadership, inspiration and direction. Despite that, a recent global study has indicated that less that half of all managers feel that displaying these traits is a part of their job. In a post on his Harvard Business blog, John Baldoni discussed both the study and what he feels a manager's job is:

The study does not measure what I believe most managers think their jobs are: getting things done. But execution without adequate leadership is short-sighted. It will carry a company through a quarter or a year, but it will not provide a foundation for what organizations really need to do, and that is to grow. Leadership requires foresight as well as the ability to execute. Foresight points you in the right direction so that your execution can serve customer needs now and lay the foundation for continued service.

Management sets the tone for the entire company, and are key players when it comes to successful crisis management. If they do not lead, your organization will falter.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Kodak's Camera Crisis

Brandy's Kodak digital camera comes with several pre-set modes, one of which is "beach." However, when her camera stopped working after a trip to the beach, she reports that Kodak's mystifying response to her service request was that just because a digital camera has a setting for taking photos at the beach, that doesn't mean that you should actually take it to the beach.

This quote from a recent feature by The Consumerist is a shining example of why it pays to include everyone who interacts with either your customers or the media in your organization's crisis management training. Had Kodak taken the time to provide their reps a more "politically correct" way of informing people that they should use protective sleeves and covers when taking a camera out in the elements, they could have easily prevented this damage to their reputation.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Own Your Identity

One of the biggest steps an individual or organization can take toward securing their identity is to lay claim to their own name on the Internet. Now, a new product from reputation management experts ReputationDefender, called NameGrab, is making that a lot easier.  As they explain it:

Now, you can dominate your search results by using our newest product, NameGrab. NameGrab scours hundreds of Websites and social networks and tells you which are available for your chosen username. Then, it automates the process of claiming the ‘real you’ on the sites of your choice. By controlling your personal and professional brands online, you ensure that your online identity isn’t stolen and that no one cybersquats your name.

Crisis management pros know, if you don't manage your own reputation, especially online, someone else will manage it for you!

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Crisis Manager...in Color!

We've just sent out the latest issue of our Crisis Manager newsletter, which is now being distributed (for the first time!) in full-color HTML format, and I'd like to say a special thank you to all of my subscribers who toughed it out while we made the switch. For this edition, Jon Harmon, ex-VP of Communication and Reputation for Ford Motors, was kind enough to allow us to reprint an excerpt from his book, "Feeding Frenzy," which features a number of critical crisis management lessons learned during the Ford-Firestone tire crisis.

You can always view the archived issues of Crisis Manager at the BCM website, but only subscribers are privy to exclusive information, offers and contests. Signing up's never been easier, just click here!

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Hackers Help Develop Crisis Management Tools

With coders from the likes of Google, Microsoft, NASA and Yahoo!, the hackers at the first ever Random Hacks of Kindness event are far from the stereotype most would imagine. These elite of the programming world gathered together at this contest to not only create tools for disaster relief, but hopefully inspire others to do the same. A CNet.com article elaborates on the projects:

Developers worked on a dozen or so tools that could help disaster and emergency workers in times of crisis. Several tools took advantage of social media sites, like Twitter, and SMS for information sharing. One project envisioned using laptops, routers, mobile devices, USB keys and Wi-Fi to create a mesh network for times when normal networks are down.

Several projects explored the use of maps, including one group that built a widget that allows a user to click on a point in a map to have the coordinates automatically inserted into a message that can then be posted to multiple social networks at once via the HelloTXT service.

With the first attempt at such a competition producing not only one, but several projects that could greatly facilitate crisis management during future disasters, hopefully others will follow this example.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Handling Workplace Violence

Violence striking the workplace is a nightmare scenario for any organization. Unfortunately, the ugly reality is that these things can and do happen, as has once again been made apparent by several recent workplace shootings, all occurring within one week of each other.

A recent article from BusinessInsurance.com featured an interview discussing some of the primary reasons for these incidents:

Tom Tripp, professor of management and operations at Washington State University in Vancouver and co-author of “Getting Even: The Truth About Workplace Revenge—and How to Stop It,” said that while the odds of a violent act taking place in the workplace are low, factors such as the economy, personal financial stresses, and job stability all play a role in increasing the threat of an outburst. In addition, he said, the shortage of case studies on such incidents makes it difficult to predict who will turn violent. 

Do any of these sound like factors that may currently be affecting the vast majority of the workforce? Especially in hard times, crisis management should not be written out of budgets. Training and preparation for these incidents can not only save lives, but also your reputation.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Misbehaving on Allegiant Air

Anyone who has children knows they can be a handful, especially among the chaos of boarding an airplane, which causes stress to many adults. Apparently though, the folks at Allegiant Air are not too sympathetic. After an Arizona mom's young children, with whom she was traveling alone, became restless and began crying during boarding, they were removed from the plane. Once again the watchdogs at The Consumerist have the details:

The airline removed the family from the plane and told them they could take another flight but neglected to mention at the time that this flight would cost $900 more. The airline says they will FedEx her luggage back from Montana (it was apparently behaving itself in the cargo hold,) and offered her a credit towards a future flight. She wants a refund.

Not only is it completely silly for the airline to refuse a refund, but leaving the luggage of a removed passenger on a flight is a major security breach. From the looks of it, Allegiant's crisis management plans could use a major overhaul.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Maclaren Recall Crisis

Safe to say the management team at Maclaren is having a terrible week. On Monday its U.S. subsidiary issued a press release announcing a recall of every baby stroller it has sold in the United States in the past decade — which means about one million units. The purpose is to install a cover for the stroller's hinge mechanism, which is sharp enough to cut through a baby's fingers should they happen to be in the wrong spot as the stroller is opened. In fact, this has happened on at least twelve occasions.

This quote, taken from the Harvard Business Review Editors' Blog, sums up one of the largest product recalls ever, which, unfortunately for Maclaren, comes right before Black Friday and the holiday season. The luxury children's manufacturer has been quick to take crisis management measures, including fast-tracking the recall through the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, but with a crisis of this scale there are a multitude of other issues, both internal and external, that remain.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Plug the Gaps

Often, when a crisis is thrust into the public eye, it causes others to take notice and think about their own crisis management plans. A recent article from the Cookeville Times website investigated the ways various organizations prepare for crises, as well as sharing this advice:

In a speech to an assembled group of business people last week, Fred Baker, Attorney with Wimberly Lawson, spoke to the crowd about the necessity of crisis planning for all organizations.  "There are many things to consider," said Baker, "like how will you get people paid if you can't get in your building?  How will they know when to come to work or where to get information?"

This process of contingency planning through internal brainstorming is crucial.  We formalize the process here at BCM through something called a vulnerability audit.


The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Taking an Advantage

Social media continues to create waves as more and more organizations and influential individuals climb on board. The advantages these platforms provide for crisis management are clear, as a recent blog post by social media consultant Richard Stacy explained:

Social media allows you to communicate directly with the people you need to influence, without having to rely on the filter of the media.  This can make it easier to get information out much quicker, to dampen concerns and emotions and to limit the extent to which a crisis can develop or spread.

With the public expecting ever-faster responses to crises, the tricky thing will be knowing what new social media tools will prove popular, and useful.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Big Mistake

Most hospitals strive to maintain a reputation of compassion and care, so when a purported billing department error at the UC Davis Medical Center caused a terse letter to be sent to the parents of a tragically deceased student, it hatched a crisis management nightmare. Another startling article from The Consumerist has all the details:

Not only did the UC Davis Medical Center send a $29,186.50 bill to the parents of college student who was beaten to death by his roommate, they also sent a letter letting them know that their son was considered indigent and was no longer welcome at the hospital if he needed further treatment. He doesn't, of course, because he is deceased.

While this may well have been a simple miscommunication, it's oversights like these that do irreparable damage to reputations and cost companies millions

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Crossing the Line

While retail stores certainly have the right to detain suspected shoplifters, there is a line that can be crossed. According to a story posted on The Consumerist, a Michigan WalMart has been accused of not just crossing that line, but taking a flying leap over it. The details:

In the case of a couple accused of shoplifting some Bic lighters in Niles, Michigan this past August, Walmart detained them, the police came and cuffed one of them, their two kids were taken to a security room, and—after a review of security footage proved the couple's innocence—they were banned for life from all Walmarts. To top it off, Walmart's legal team has sent the couple a letter asking to be reimbursed for 10 times the value of the lighters, even though the police determined no shoplifting had taken place.

With the allegations still coming, including those from the pair of Chicago attorneys about supposed anti-gay and threatening statements made to them and their developmentally disabled children by WalMart employees, whoever's in charge of crisis management at the retail behemoth is going to be busy.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Online Communications

Some of the most common crises that organizations find themselves facing involve reputation damage, and these days the origin of this damage is more than likely the Internet.

In an interview for the Wildfire Marketing Group's Thought Leader Thursday blog, reputation management consultant Andy Beal gave his take on why it's so important to have listen to their customers before issues escalate to crisis level.

The biggest mistake is simply not having official channels in place to allow your customers to complain. Most disgruntled customers post to blogs and Twitter because they feel like they are not being heard by your company. They get frustrated with your lack of customer service and they think to themselves, “I’ll show them, I’ll post a negative review on Yelp/Twitter/Blog.” If companies would simply look at how they’re listening to their customers, and how they escalate and resolve customer service complaints, many of the reputation problems you see would never make it to the web.

The ultimate goal of crisis management is to prevent crises from ever occurring.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Important Crisis Manager Announcement

Crisis Manager Editor Jonathan Bernstein just sent this important notice to subscribers.

Dear Crisis Manager Subscriber:

I am moving my newsletter to a new email distribution service but along with that I have to ask you, on a one-time basis, to re-subscribe to the ezine. I apologize for the inconvenience and want to let you know that anyone who makes it on to the new list will, to compensate you for your trouble, receive a DEEP (40 percent) discount off of the vastly improved and expanded edition of "Keeping the Wolves at Bay" as soon as it's published early next year.

The reason for this hoopla is that my old service apparently was pretty darn poor at keeping bad addresses off the list, even with the double opt-in system. Spammers were able to get addresses on the list which, in fact, make the list subject to getting blacklisted -- i.e., you wouldn't receive my mailings. After much discussion with my new list provider, we agreed that the best way to ensure a "clean" list was to send you this mailing.

So...would you kindly go to:

www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com

Click on the JOIN button in the lower right corner of the page

That will take you to a form where you fill in your email address.

and THAT will take you to just one more page where you indicate your "interests" -- the choice being "General Interest" or "Crisis Manager Subscribers." You only need to check the latter. You can ALSO then indicate whether you want to receive the ezine in HTML (new!) or plain text form (the only choice until now).

The new service -- Constant Contact -- will then send you a confirmation email to which you need to reply. That's it, I promise!

I will send this same email out one more time within the week to cover anyone who might have missed it the first time. If you've already double opted in, you can ignore the second email.

Questions? Concerns? Vents? Write to me.

Best to all, with my thanks for your patience!

JB

Jonathan Bernstein
Editor, "Crisis Manager"
President, Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc.

Crisis Communication

Trouble can, will and does spring up at the most inopportune times. In a post on his blog, crisis and political pro Mike Love described one of the most important tasks in crisis communications:

One of the core contributions that a Communications function can make to a business is to ensure that a crisis (incident or issues) plan is in place and that it has senior decision-maker buy-in. The plan should clearly define roles and responsibilities and allow for contingencies from that out-of-town executive being un-contactable, the office building being inaccessible to the computer server going down preventing access to the crisis plan which was stored in only one place.

Because crisis management does not follow a traditional schedule, or really any schedule at all, risk assessment and early prevention planning are absolutely invaluable.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Make the Connection

It is now commonplace, even expected, that businesses have corporate blogs, LinkedIn and FaceBook pages and Twitter accounts. The thing that can lead to crises is the fact that many of these businesses do not take care to ensure that the sought-after connection is being made between them and the consumer, rather than the individuals in charge of their social media accounts. An article from SearchEngineWatch.com elaborates on how this can land you in trouble:   

Social media offers a lot in the way of "personal branding." Sometimes it happens accidentally. Your audience becomes attached to one of your employees, the employee leaves your company, and those audience members follow.

Employees accidentally create their own personal brand when the audience attaches to them as a person, rather than as the representative of a company. They view the employee telling the audience about the valuable content as the authority, rather than the company that invested in putting out the valuable content.

If you do not take precautions and include possibilities like this in your crisis management planning, something as simple as replacing whoever handles your Twitter responses could cost you much of your audience, or worse, redirect them to your competition!

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/