Archive for the ‘Crises’ Category
My Year in Review Comes Down to One
Into the fog by raindog
This time of year is ripe for reflection about the year past and prognostication about the year to come. Best-of lists, predictions for the new year, goals – many good & inspiring thoughts and ideas, but they’re so numerous it can become hard to digest even one more.
But I hope you will take just a little time to digest this one.
As I thought about the year past, all of the power of social media came down to one thing.
It wasn’t new in 2008, but it was new to me.
The most truly powerful communication and social media tool I used last year was CaringBridge. It’s a free, non-profit service for individuals or families during times of illness or treatment. It allows you to create a personalized website (either public or private) with a journal/blog-like feature, a section for photographs, a welcome or background page, and a guestbook for people to sign and leave messages.
It’s a service I hope most of you will never need, but it’s important, and it’s important to know it exists should you, or anyone you know, find yourself in need.
I was referred to this service during a time of intense family crisis last spring. During family crises, just like business crises, it can become difficult and burdensome to communicate. Have we communicated with everyone we need to? Have we forgotten anyone? Does everyone have the same information or the information they need? These questions are pretty universal, during any crisis. But all the updates, all the repetition – it can be crushing during a personal crisis.
CaringBridge was a lifeline for my family. The founder of CaringBridge describes it as a kind of “compassion technology,” combining “the human elements of care and concern with the Internet’s ability to connect people.” The private site we created gave us one central place to keep far-flung family and friends informed, and we drew strength from the messages of support from around the world.
Often with social media, we focus on what the tool or service is, versus what it does.
This is a powerful example of the doing. And something I will try to take with me into the new year.
That Was The Week That Was
What a week for crises!
Forget about the financial melt-down, the transition to the new president, or any of the really old news.
Last week was one for the record books.
The curtain rose Monday, December 8, on the usual tired old economic meltdown crises, particularly the prospect of an auto bailout (that still hasn’t happened).
Then things got curiouser and curiouser…
Not Available on E-Bay
Tuesday Illinois governor Rod R. Blagojevich was arrested for trying to sell his appointment of President Elect Barack Obama’s vacant senate seat to a high bidder. He’s still governor (as of 3:30 PM Monday, December 15).
Update: Humility, Humiliation, and Self-Inflicted Harm: Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich
‘Nuff said….
Fred
When a Tweet From Mumbai Reaches Around the World
Mumbai by karmadude, under a Creative Commons license
Like many people in the U.S., I was out of town for Thanksgiving when I heard about the Mumbai attacks last week. After a Wednesday afternoon spent grocery shopping in Denver, CO, my family and I returned to my relatives’ house, turned on the news, and saw our first reports about the horrific attacks on CNN. Trying to learn more, I pulled up Twitter on a laptop, and searched for reports about what was happening. A flood of information started coming in.
Apparently, I wasn’t alone in using Twitter to follow the crisis. Twitter is a social networking tool that allows users (“Twitterers”) to post 140-character updates (or “tweets”) to their followers (or the public – over 80% of the 6 million users have public pages), either online, via text message or through other tools. This New York Times article notes that, “At the peak of the violence, more than one message per second with the word ‘Mumbai’ in it was being posted to Twitter.” Approximately 80 tweets were sent via SMS (text message) every five seconds (CNN).
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A Call For Global Leadership
When the U.S. economy sneezes, the rest of the world catches cold.
When the U.S. economy catches cold, the rest of the world faces an outbreak.
The credit crisis that started in the U.S. and traveled around the world had already made French, German and British economies suffer massive bailouts, forced the government of Iceland to seize its three largest banks, deepened economic deterioration in Hungary, Poland, Ukraine and questioned economic stability of emerging markets in China, Brazil, Russia and South Korea. (more…)
Managing Fear
No, this is not a post on the financial markets or political campaigns
A month ago, I paused to digest the report out of Pakistan that a truck bomb had destroyed the Islamabad Marriott, killing 55 people and wounding more than 250.
The news unnerved me. I had stayed at the Islamabad Marriott for five nights in February 2007 while on an ILO mission to evaluate the Soccer Ball Project. I remember the modern, glitzy lobby, the Thai restaurant, and the “foreigners only” club in the hotel basement that played cosmopolitan Hindustani dance mixes and served alcohol outlawed for most Pakistanis. (more…)
Crisis Management: Thinking Clearly
The Global Financial Market Melt-Down
I’ve been at a loss about whether or what to blog about the financial crisis, for several reasons.
- First, our firm’s largest sector is finance/investments/insurance, and we’ve been up to our eyeballs, on things we can’t talk about.
- Second, the policy prescriptions for solving the problem have become embroiled in the presidential election campaign. We try very hard not to be overtly political in our work, and opining on the policy prescriptions risked getting into the presidential election scrum.
But today there’s a teachable moment, so I’ll pounce.
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Emotions are Stubborn Things, Part 1
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
– John Adams, ‘Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials,’ December 1770
By now, as we face the final run-up to the November election, most of us have heard more than enough about the presidential horserace. Lately, though, I can’t get a certain politically embedded mantra out of my head. So, with that as my mental soundtrack, I’ll share a few thoughts on politics and communication.
“Facts are stubborn things.” Have you heard this one?
It’s one “sticky” phrase. At least three presidents, including John Adams (see above), and one former presidential candidate (who will remain nameless) have warned us about the redeeming intransigence of facts, and legions of pundits and citizen bloggers have chimed in for the chorus during the current election cycle. Google “facts are stubborn things,” and you’ll get 71,800+ results, most of which landed in cyberspace in the last two years.
So, here’s my question: Are facts the only stubborn things?
Humility Update: John Edwards
Here We Go Again
This blog has noted that without a dollop of humility, leaders are at risk of humiliation.
Also that most crises are self-inflicted, and that the timeliness and quality of the response are more predictive of reputational harm than the severity of the underlying event.
We see all three of these principles at play in the John Edwards scandal. (more…)
Rumor Control: Keeping Momentum in a Presidential Campaign
Senator Barack Obama yesterday announced an effort to deal with rumors in a timely way, to prevent them from taking hold and throwing his campaign off balance.
He’s right to be so concerned. Rumors can throw a presidential campaign off its game, and provide adversaries, critics, and opponents with a first-mover advantage that’s hard to beat. The last 20 years teach a great deal about the importance of effective rumor control.
The Secret of Quick Response