Month: January 2014

This is one award you DON’T want to win!

We used to be able to make fools of ourselves privately, but social media has made it painfully easy to self-destruct publicly. That’s why we created the Weiner Awards – to educate through entertaining, and hope others learn from the examples set by the Weiner winners.

Now, after culling nominees from a field of many and passing them along to our expert panel of judges for final scoring and selection, the winners of the first-ever Weiner Awards have been decided.

Here’s a little preview:

3rd PLACE – A tie between Greg Gopman, head of AngelHack in San Francisco, and Taylor Palmisano, who was finance director for Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI).

Gopman evinced a well-upturned nose when he bashed every indigent resident of San Francisco and the city itself on his Facebook page, wailing, “The difference is in other cosmopolitan cities, the lower part of society keep to themselves.” Unfortunately, he couldn’t fire himself.

“He doesn’t understand the basic responsibility of a CEO. Others will look to your behavior as an example, good or bad,” said Merrie Spaeth of Spaeth Communications.

Palmisano’s broad-spectrum racist comments were enshrined by Twitter, resulting in her dismissal.

CK Syme’s honcho Chris Syme warned, “People show their true colors thinking that they’re only communicating with their friends, forgetting that some snarky friends might share it elsewhere.”

You’ll have to check out the official press release to see who took 2nd and 3rd, and don’t forget to head on over to the Weiner Awards Facebook page afterwards to let us know what you think of our judge’s decision!

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc., an international crisis management consultancy, author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

Social media is more powerful than you imagine

Social media is a big, big deal. If you don’t believe it, then you’re hamstringing your own crisis management ability.

Still have doubts? You won’t after you check out this Frugal Dad infographic detailing four high-profile cases where powerful organizations were forced into change by the actions of social media users:

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc., an international crisis management consultancy, author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

Fantastic use of technology to protect both humans and sharks from unwanted interaction

How great would it be if dangerous animals could give everyone a heads up before they headed into an area shared by humans to do their thing?

That’s the question the Surf Life Saving Western Australia program aims to answer with its new social media warning system, which is combining technology and some brilliant thinking to help people share the ocean with sharks while keeping both parties safe.

NPR’s Alan Yu reports:

Government researchers have tagged 338 sharks with acoustic transmitters that monitor where the animals are. When a tagged shark is about half a mile away from a beach, it triggers a computer alert, which tweets out a message on the Surf Life Saving Western Australia Twitter feed. The tweet notes the shark’s size, breed and approximate location.

Talk about crisis management in action! Sharks certainly have a right to their natural habitat (not to mention the fact that it’s virtually impossible to stop them from being there anyways), and people aren’t going to stop surfing anywhere good waves break, so why not use a little tech to help prevent the two from running across each other and having an interaction both parties would rather avoid?

Now all we need to do is for someone to come up with a way to let us tag that coworker who’s always trapping everyone in conversations about their cats…

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc., an international crisis management consultancy.]

Late deliveries meant angry customers for the two major package carries

The days surrounding Christmas see, hands down, the most package deliveries of the year, most of which are delivered by the two major carriers – FedEx and UPS. This year, both took a major battering in the reputation department when an overloaded system resulted in some packages “guaranteed” to arrive by Christmas Eve failing to make their destination in time.

Both companies issued ho-hum apologies, with UPS stating:

“We’re terribly sorry, the volume of air packages in our system exceeded the capacity of our network immediately preceding Christmas so some shipments were delayed. We know how hard it is for everyone to receive their holiday packages (Ed: shouldn’t this read “receive their holiday packages late? We don’t think anyone was hating the ones that arrived on time…), and we’re working around the clock to resolve this issue.”

FedEx’s apology was much of the same, also calling the sheer volume of packages being pushed through shipping systems an “extraordinary event.”

While UPS is offering refunds to some customers who were impacted, experts say this crisis may have been beyond their control. Forbes’ Robert Bowman interviewed former shipping industry exec Jerry Hempstead, who laid much of the blame on a severe snowstorm that left UPS’ Lousville hub deadlocked, as well as unrealistic delivery promises from online retailers like Amazon:

“When you have hubs that are affected by weather, trucks can’t get in and out, but the shippers don’t stop shipping,” said Hempstead. “They just keep loading up the network.”

UPS added 55,000 temporary employees to handle the holiday peak, while FedEx took on an additional 25,000 workers. UPS also reportedly chartered 23 more planes and acquired extra trucks to manage the surge.

Consumers blasted the carriers for failing to live up to service commitments, but both suspend their service guarantees between December 17 and 26, Hempstead said. Bad weather also cancels any guarantees that are specified in their tariffs. It was e-tailers such as Amazon.com that unconditionally promised delivery by Christmas, in some cases for orders placed as late as 11 p.m. on December 23.

In fact, that same article reports online sales in the weekend before Christmas being up nearly 40% over 2012, a number that surprised even those tracking the skyrocketing popularity of e-shopping.

What should they have done?

What crisis management steps could UPS and FedEx have taken to reduce the impact of this situation?

First off, simply letting people know what was going on ahead of time would have made a difference. We’re not talking the automated shipping status updates anyone can see when they track a package, but a blog post, YouTube video, open letter, etc. that informed stakeholders regarding the issue, showed compassion, and explained in plain terms what the companies were doing to rectify the mistakes that had been made.

Speaking of plain terms, sentences like, “the volume of air packages in our system exceeded the capacity of our network” are bound to turn people off. Avoid anything that remotely reeks of jargon, especially when it comes to an apology.

Finally, how about showing some competence? From an objective standpoint, the folks at UPS and FedEx do appear to know their business, but their crisis communications failed to show it. Letting stakeholders know that they added 25,000+ workers the moment they spotted a problem would have been smart, and likely reduced the impression of incompetence many were left with. The fact that this figure is mentioned in almost no communications or reporting regarding the story is a major crisis communications fail in and of itself.

In the end, there aren’t a whole lot of other options out there besides UPS and FedEx, meaning they have a loooong way to fall before they’re in any serious trouble. At the same time, there’s no sense in allowing mistakes to result in a paper-thin reputation “shield”, something that every organization should be careful to preserve in case of an incredibly damaging incident.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll absolutely continue to say it in 2014, make sure your crisis communications express the Three C’s – Confidence, Competence and Compassion – if you want to see success.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc., an international crisis management consultancy, author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

The park’s PR team is sure to be blubbering after it’s revealed someone tried to tip the scales on an Orlando Business Journal poll

The Orlando Business Journal has busted SeaWorld making a whale of a crisis management mistake – stacking an online poll that asks whether the “Blackfish” documentary has changed reader’s perception of the park!

Reporter Richard Bilbao was surprised when 99% of voters said the film, which already created loads of PR headaches for SeaWorld, has had no impact on their perceptions, and decided to investigate. Here, he shares the results of a simple IP trace:

…imagine our surprise when we noticed that one single Internet Protocol Address (IP Address) accounted for more than 54 percent of the votes, or about 180 of the total 328 votes. IP Addresses are typically unique Internet identifiers given to a computer or series of devices — say a multi-computer network in your office.

And who’s the owner of the domain name and company that address belong to? SeaWorld.com and SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment.

C’mon SeaWorld, ballot-stuffing? Is that the best you can do? Using underhanded methods only furthers the negative angle pushed by the creators of “Blackfish” – namely that SeaWorld is an uncaring, irresponsible organization.

This story is still developing, and SeaWorld execs have promised Bilbao a response by the end of the day, most likely after a frenzied internal investigation. Of course this could have been done by an overly zealous employee as opposed to anyone actually being ordered by the company, but to say SeaWorld’s got some ‘splainin to do is an understatement.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc., an international crisis management consultancy, author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]