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I want to thank Doug Walton who forwarded me this story from Gerald Baron who writes Crisisblogger. Baron’s blog for many years has provided some great insight into crisis communications. The blog should definitely be on your favorites list.
The post reviews the virtual communications response to the recent IRS Austin plane crash.
I wrote a few days ago about the tragic manhole accident in my own town, Smithtown, NY, that took the life of a seventeen year old boy. The incident was toned out at 9:11pm this past Sunday night.
The media response to the incident left me wondering if the press is looking to us to do the heavy lifting for them.
When I speak to the media at an incident scene I have learned to push home my key points by being overly repetitive to a reporter’s questions. I learned this technique several years ago at Connections Day, a conference run every year by the Fair Media Council on Long Island, from a utility company public affairs executive I was having lunch with.
As a PIO I always look for opportunity to educate the public as the result of a specific incident that my department responds to. When we have the first chimney fire of the year in the fall I usually float out to the media a story on chimney safety. Similar lessons to be learned are sent to the media after CO incidents, MVA’s, electrical fires etc. It’s a great way to let the public know about an incident and ultimately how it can be avoided.
Awhile back I came across a dozen tips for Google searches. The information has made my life easier as a PIO. Features I never knew existed such as Exclude Words, Specific Document Types and This OR That has helped me save valuable time when I need to refer to Google for a search.
One of the rudimentary things we first learn in the volunteer fire service is to start your size up the moment your pager tones you out. Draw a mental image of where the call is, what type of building and its construction, what equipment will be needed etc. Another early lesson is to do size up virtually all the time, when you are driving through your neighborhood, when you enter a business, when you visit you kid’s school. This could prepare you for future alarms to these areas.
Late Friday, the U.S. Department of Defense released its official policy covering new media and social media. With some three million employees, the DoD is one of the largest organizations in the world, so this is major news.
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