Author: Jonathan & Erik Bernstein

Three crisis pros bring their expertise right to you

The Crisis Show is coming to you live every Wednesday at 7 EST/4 PST! Combining the talents of three top crisis management professionals, Jonathan Bernstein, Melissa Agnes, and Rich Klein, the show aims to cover the hottest topics in the field each week. One bonus of running the show live is that it gives us a great opportunity to connect with you, our readers, and viewers. If you want to be a part of The Crisis Show, hop on Twitter (like you’re not already logged in!) during the broadcast and tag your tweets with #TheCrisisShow, we’ll be watching, and taking periodic breaks to respond right there on the show. Of course, you’re welcome to submit questions or comments at any time, just visit our “Ask the Experts” page.

In case you missed it, here’s the footage from our second episode. (Mea culpa here, please forgive the technical interruption that resulted in the show being a two-parter. It shouldn’t be an issue next time, but as they say…crisis happens!)

Part one:

Part two:

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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, and co-host of The Crisis Show. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

Thoughtless design leads to crisis for Adidas

When it comes to business, it’s essential to have the ability to step back and look at decisions or products from an outsider’s point of view. If you don’t, being part of the internal process could blind your entire organization when it comes to potential negative reactions to, or results from, its actions.

Adidas found this out first hand last week, when it released an image of an upcoming shoe on Facebook, the JS Roundhouse Mid, that features a bright orange plastic chain and shackle dangling from the heel. Immediately, the Adidas Facebook was swamped by comments blasting the company for being racist and promoting slavery with its shoe design.

How’d Adidas handle the situation? Here’s their initial response, and the follow up that put a halt to the issue, from a PRDaily article by Michael Sebastian:

First, Adidas weighed in with this comment (to Fox News):

“The JS Roundhouse Mid is part of the Fall/Winter 2012 design collaboration between Adidas Originals and Jeremy Scott. The design of the JS Roundhouse Mid is nothing more than the designer Jeremy Scott’s outrageous and unique take on fashion and has nothing to do with slavery.

“Jeremy Scott is renowned as a designer whose style is quirky and lighthearted and his previous shoe designs for Adidas Originals have, for example, included panda heads and Mickey Mouse. Any suggestion that this is linked to slavery is untruthful.”

Notice the company stopped short of apologizing; it didn’t even issue one of those “we’re sorry if someone was offended” non-apologies.

 

Shortly after issuing that statement, Adidas chimed in again, saying it won’t release the controversial sneakers in August and, in fact, issuing the “we’re sorry if you’re offended” apology. To wit (via New York Daily News ):

“Since the shoe debuted on our Facebook page ahead of its market release in August, Adidas has received both favorable and critical feedback. We apologize if people are offended by the design and we are withdrawing our plans to make them available in the marketplace.”

Although Adidas did miss what should have been a fairly obvious fact, that placing shackles on a shoe marketed strongly to an African-American demographic would create loads of ill will, the athletic shoe giant did a solid job of stopping the crisis before it got out of control. The initial response shared facts and explained very clearly that the shoe absolutely was not meant in any way to be associated with slavery. When public opinion continued to spiral downhill, Adidas decided to apologize and pull the plug on the shoe altogether. Although it undoubtedly lost them money in the short term to do so, the reputation saved will be worth infinitely more in the long run.

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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, and co-host of The Crisis Show. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

It’s about being prepared

When a crisis is hot, stakeholders want information. It doesn’t matter if your main office is sitting under 10 feet of water, people are going to expect responses both on the phone and through Twitter, and they will count on an explanation being posted to your blog and Facebook wall in a matter of hours at most, with a full resolution coming not long after. Check out this quote, from a SoCal Professional article by Cindy Rakowitz:

What happens when there is a natural disaster? There are injuries, there are hundreds missing and the city is in shambles.

As a business leader, you have to disseminate information immediately. The messages must be succinct and cohesive for multiple constituents to understand and respond quickly. This is why individuals and organizations should make crisis planning a priority. Emergencies are not only limited to physical disasters. Rapid response is also required for crises such as civil disorders, labor unrest, criminal charges, death, illness, system failure, scandals, indictments, convictions, lawsuits, hostile takeovers and bankruptcy.

As the quote explains, there are a myriad of factors which can throw your organization into crisis, and all of them will require high-speed communication from you. If you’re not prepared and ready to respond immediately when a crisis breaks, you’re taking unnecessary reputation damage, largely due to the fact that items can now enter the news cycle almost instantly, or skip the traditional route altogether and snowball into a monster situation on Twitter or other social media platforms in a matter of minutes.

Plan for what you can expect, and do your best to prepare for what you can’t. Add to this crisis simulations and media training sessions meant to locate and plug any gaps in your planning, and when it comes time for crisis response, your reputation, and your bottom line, will thank you.

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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, and co-host of The Crisis Show. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

Don’t let confidential information slip out!

As a spokesperson, the last thing you want to do is drop confidential information in a public forum, especially if you happen to be speaking on behalf of the U.S. military regarding something like, ohhh…international spying practices. When the commander of United States Special Operations in South Korea, Brigadier General Neil H. Tolley, had a tongue slip of epic proportions while being interviewed at a defense conference, it set off a serious crisis. Here’s what went down, from a NY Times article by Choe Sang-Hun:

Last week, The Diplomat, a Japan-based foreign affairs magazine, quoted General Tolley as telling a defense industry conference in Tampa, Fla., on May 22 that American and South Korean soldiers had been dropped behind North Korean lines to spy on the country’s vast network of underground military facilities.

 

“The entire tunnel infrastructure is hidden from our satellites,” he was quoted as saying. “So we send [Republic of Korea] soldiers and U.S. soldiers to the North to do special reconnaissance.” The United States Defense Department and the American military in South Korea denied the report. In a statement, they said it had “taken great liberal license with his comments and taken him completely out of context.”

While the knee-jerk reaction of the military was to deny the entire report, more statements were yet to come:

“Quotes have been made up and attributed to him,” their statement said. In a later “clarification statement,” however, General Tolley said, “After further review of the reporting, I feel I was accurately quoted.”

 

“I should have been clearer,” he said, adding that he had been trying to “provide some context for potential technical solutions.”

Despite the attempted explanation, you can bet that North Korean forces were on high alert for any possible activity near their borders, and the already-substantial tensions between the involved countries were dangerously elevated. In addition, the move probably sunk Tolley’s career. He was replaced just days after the incident, reportedly as “a normal part of the general officer assignment process.”

Editor’s Supplement from Jonathan Bernstein: “Back in the day” when I was in US Army Military Intelligence (yeah, oxymoron, get over it), I was trained in how to infiltrate/exfiltrate enemy lines and to train others (i.e. spies) to do it for me as their case officer (the Army name for the position is Area Intelligence Specialist). I was painfully aware of gaffes like this (and worse) that got some very fine men and women killed. General Tolley deserves more severe sanctions than a reassignment, in my opinion.

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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, and co-host of The Crisis Show. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

Learn crisis management from the pros

Tonight marks the premiere of The Crisis Show, a broadcast featuring the talents of Bernstein Crisis Management president Jonathan Bernstein, crisis/litigation expert Rich Klein and social media pro Melissa Agnes. Together, they will take a look at the major crisis management cases of the day, provide an overview of tactics and practices for organizations around the world, and answer viewer-submitted questions.

We’ll be streaming The Crisis Show via Google Hangouts to our YouTube channel every Wednesday at 7 p.m. EST (4 PST) starting today, June 13, so join in! If you can’t make it live, all past episodes will be archived right there on YouTube for your convenience.

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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, and 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]

Editor’s Note: If you don’t want to see an un-PC and offensive-to-women image that we didn’t create, don’t read further.

Who left that guy in charge?

It only makes sense, if you’re launching a new product at a major industry expo, you want a nice shot of it on Twitter. This is commonplace, and indeed a highly recommended practice. Not only that, but it seems pretty tough to screw up, right? Not if you’re computer hardware specialist ASUS. Here’s the post that kicked off the organization’s crisis management troubles, from Computex 2012 in Taiwan:

Did someone let the local college frat run the ASUS feed for the event? This is just so mind-blowingly unprofessional that it’s almost unimaginable that someone actually posted this to a corporate Twitter feed. Of course, if you read this blog with any regularity you may not be as shocked. It does seem that organizations pull off the impossibly dumb on a regular basis.

The post immediately spawned a torrent of negative sentiment across the Web (summarized nicely in this Storify by Mashable) that led many customers to announce that they had scratched ASUS products off their list of potential next-buys.

ASUS caught the issue fairly quickly, deleted the offending post, and sent the following Tweet:

We apologise for the inappropriate comment on Twitter earlier. We will take steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

Tim Smalley, digital marketing manager at ASUS’ Global Corporate Marketing Division, also sent this statement directly to Mashable:

First of all, please accept our sincere apologies for causing offence to many of Twitter’s users – it was never ASUS’ intention to offend anyone, let alone be sexist.

We have spent some time investigating this since it came to our attention and, due to the hectic schedule around Computex and the fact a number of third parties had access to our social media accounts during this period, we realize that someone has made a deeply regrettable mistake. We have taken steps to ensure that this does not happen again.

The problem with this statement is that it leaves one asking, “what steps??” It’s easy to make a generic statement, but this is going to come back and bite the organization right in the ASUS if anything from the company Twitter draws the ire of stakeholders in the future. To really make this a strong statement, ASUS should have explained what steps it has put into place to prevent offensive posts and avoid kicking off another crisis management situation.

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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, and 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]

Practice makes perfect

Police forces the world over are embracing the importance of communication for crisis management, reputation management, and community building. Here’s one example, out of far-off Trinidad & Tobago, from a Guardian Media article:

Senior officials of the Police Service embarked on an intensive three-day training workshop yesterday on how to communicate better during a crisis and improve media relations as they seek to enhance the image of the organisation. This was revealed yesterday by ASP Joanne Archie and public information officer of the Police Service, Sgt Wayne Mystar, during yesterday’s daily media briefing at the Police Training Academy, St James.

Not only are they training (and gaining reputation points in the community for announcing the fact, no less), but they’re also being smart about it, ensuring trained leadership brings the lessons they’ve learned back to the rest of the troops. Check out this quote from Archie:

Archie said the workshop was in keeping with the 21st-century policing initiative “to make the Police Service a more competent, caring, professional and committed organisation.” She said the training would go a long way to prepare senior officials on how to better communicate with the media, as well as ensure the timely delivery of accurate information. Archie said succession planning would be used to ensure other junior-ranked officers also were trained on how to communicate with the media, once that initial workshop was completed.

All in all a pretty solid effort. One important step that’s missing is communication directly with the public. In case you didn’t know enough about Trinidad & Tobago to realize just how Internet-connected its residents are, SocialBakers.com lists 37% of the total population as using social media, with a whopping 94% of web users engaging in social media use. Social media accounts have been used to great effect to increase community participation and reduce crime in cities large and small, and the stage is certainly set here. Put that in place, with the proper support, of course, and you’ve got a strong program that will help the police force better serve their public.

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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, and 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]

A positive reputation is a powerful crisis management tool

The best reputation repair plan starts before a crisis occurs (but keep reading even if that ship has already sailed!). Be where your customers are, with an established presence that give people a reason to trust you. This might mean regular updates to a blog, Facebook, Twitter and more. If you spend the time to acquire advocates there, when a crisis occurs you will likely already have those people in your corner. Likewise, any negative press will be easier to monitor and respond to when it takes place on those channels than on those on which you have no presence. Jumping on to these platforms in response to a crisis is better than ignoring it, but if you have a history there, your words will carry a lot more weight.

This quote, from a Scalable Social Media blog post by Alisa Meredith, is a beautifully precise explanation of exactly why you’ve got to be active on social media in order to protect your organization’s reputation.

While establishing a web presence and keeping it maintained can seem like a daunting task, it’s not as difficult as you may think. One of the biggest hurdles facing many organizations is the question of how to keep their accounts active. Here’s the deal – even for the most talented of writers, the juice just isn’t flowing every day. The key here, especially for execs and others with packed schedules, is to create a list of posts when you’re feeling creative, and schedule them in advance to keep things running through times you don’t.

With time, care and effort, you can position your own organization as a prime news source within your industry, a powerful position that will greatly enhance your crisis management and allow for more effective reputation repair in the chance that it is sullied.

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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, and 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]

Just because a crisis isn’t in the news, doesn’t mean it’s gone for good

Don’t shelve that bird flu crisis plan just yet. In case anyone had assumed this threat was completely gone simply because it vanished from mainstream media coverage,the disease has actually killed two people this year in China, and another large outbreak was just discovered.

Here’s the report, direct from disaster and emergency monitoring group RSOE EDIS:

Agricultural authorities in northwest China have culled about 95,000 chickens after an outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus, state press reported on Wednesday. The outbreak in Touying township of the Ningxia region was discovered on Friday last week after over 23,000 chickens began showing symptoms, reported the Ministry of Agriculture. The ministry said the “epidemic is now under control”, the report said, while work teams have been sent to the area to step up prevention measures. China is considered one of the nations most at risk of bird flu epidemics because it has the world’s biggest poultry population and many chickens in rural areas are kept close to humans. In January, a man in southwest China’s Guizhou province died after contracting the bird flu virus, the second such fatality reported in China this year, health authorities said.

What’s the lesson here? Threats do not simply “go away” unless you find and fix the underlying cause. In the case of H1N1, organizations have no power to eliminate it. When that’s the hand you’re dealt, you’ve simply got to keep your ears open using services like RSOE EDIS, and remain prepared for action. You do have a plan for responding to an actual or threatened epidemic, right?

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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, and 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]

What does your Siri history say about you?

How would you feel if we told you that the phone a great deal of your employees are carting around has transmitted data listing every new place they’ve visited in the past several months? Oh, and it’s also copied every entry in their contact list and every web search they attempted. Breach of confidentiality, anyone? Those are exactly the type of fears organizations have to consider now, as information surfaces about just how Apple’s Siri voice-assistant software functions. Here are more details, from a CNN article by Wired’s Robert McMillan:

IBM CIO Jeanette Horan told MIT’s Technology Review this week that her company has banned Siri outright because, according to the magazine, “The company worries that the spoken queries might be stored somewhere.”

 

It turns out that Horan is right to worry. In fact, Apple’s iPhone Software License Agreement spells this out: “When you use Siri or Dictation, the things you say will be recorded and sent to Apple in order to convert what you say into text,” Apple says. Siri collects a bunch of other information — names of people from your address book and other unspecified user data, all to help Siri do a better job.

How long does Apple store all of this stuff, and who gets a look at it? Well, the company doesn’t actually say. Again, from the user agreement: “By using Siri or Dictation, you agree and consent to Apple’s and its subsidiaries’ and agents’ transmission, collection, maintenance, processing, and use of this information, including your voice input and User Data, to provide and improve Siri, Dictation, and other Apple products and services.”

Apple’s brand loyalty is so strong that there is pretty much zero chance its fans are going to cast their iPhones aside. Apple would probably be wise however, to develop a way to disable the storing of Siri inquiries, at least on enterprise networks, before the threat of private information being exposed pushes corporate buyers toward competing products.. Policies like the one IBM adopted seem well-tuned to meeting the needs of both business and employee, at least for the time being, allowing individuals to keep their phone of choice while restricting access to the point of vulnerability.

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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, and 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]