Month: February 2018

So Alexa decided to laugh randomly while I was in the kitchen. Freaked @SnootyJuicer and I out. I thought a kid was laughing behind me. pic.twitter.com/6dblzkiQHp

— CaptHandlebar (@CaptHandlebar) February 23, 2018

The latest story to catch the attention of the internet is one of creepy and unexpected laughter coming from Alexa-enabled devices. Videos like the one above popped up on Twitter and Reddit, among others, and sparked thousands of shares and a drawing an awful lot of attention. While this isn’t exactly a crisis, some of the discussion did to veer into the potential risks of “always listening” devices – a topic Amazon and manufacturers of said devices would probably rather avoid!

Rumor and innuendo can quickly create major issues for you, which is why it’s smart to stop even the seemingly-innocuous ones in their tracks. Amazon knows this, and quickly released a statement clarifying what was happening, telling reporters that, “In rare circumstances, Alexa can mistakenly hear the phrase “Alexa, laugh.” We are changing that phrase to be “Alexa, can you laugh?” which is less likely to have false positives, and we are disabling the short utterance “Alexa, laugh.” We are also changing Alexa’s response from simply laughter to “Sure, I can laugh” followed by laughter.”

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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 vice president for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

We love to connect with readers on LinkedIn! Connect with Jonathan | Connect with Erik

 

Fake tweets. They’re easy to create, look 100% real, and are one of the easiest ways to stir up trouble for just about any target you can think of. Take this story, from a Politifact article:

As the Dow Jones plunged Feb. 5, not long after President Donald Trump boasted about the stock market gains, a fake Trump tweet surfaced in which he vowed that such a drop in the “Dow Joans” should result in the president being shot out of a cannon into the sun.

Though it was a hoax, that didn’t stop the Twitterverse from going nuts over it.

At 4:38 p.m. Feb. 15, Shaun Usher, who lives in Manchester, England and author of the Letters of Note website, wrote on Twitter:

“There’s *always* a tweet,” and then linked to a supposed Trump tweet from Feb. 15, 2015:

“If the Dow Joans ever falls more than 1000 ‘points’ in a Single Day the sitting president should be ‘loaded’ into a very big cannon and Shot into the sun at TREMENDOUS SPEED! No excuses!”

The current political climate has drawn a number of fake social media messages which gained traction, but this problem is hardly limited to politics. Take a second to consider what type of fake social media posts someone might spread from what appears to be your company accounts. Or, how about your own personal accounts? Compound this with the fact that these fake messages are easy to create and share anonymously and you start to see what a scary situation they can cause.

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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 vice president for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

We love to connect with readers on LinkedIn! Connect with Jonathan | Connect with Erik

 

What do you do when market research presents you with an unfortunate reality? Perhaps the reality that customers who used to flock to your tables don’t like what you’ve become? If you’re Carraba’s you make lemons into lemonade, and put out a message letting people know they’ve been heard. Any time you fall on the wrong side of stakeholder’s expectations they want to know three things – what happened, that understand why they’re unhappy, and what exactly you’re going to do to set things right. Answer those three and generally you’ll have a solid message that can often serve as the base for a great direct marketing piece as well.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
——————————-

[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 vice president for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

We love to connect with readers on LinkedIn! Connect with Jonathan | Connect with Erik