by Gerald Baron: Crisis and emergency communication strategies
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Below are links to a Skype discussion I had recently with Neil Chapman, former BP communication lead. I'm bringing this to your attention for two reasons.
1) I believe that Skype or online interviews using web meeting software will become increasingly common in the future. Recently I blogged about a friend of mine, Rory O'Connor, who got his 15 minutes of fame because he rescued a dog in his kayak. Rory was interviewed by several national news outlets including CNN who caught him at the airport in Miami and conducted an interview via skype. Really, those satellite trucks are expensive, as are the people and equipment needed to get on-scene interviews. Why spend the money when you are cash-strapped and you can talk to the people you need to via skype or Go-to-Meeting or ichat or Google Hangout or any number of ways to communicate via video. The key is recording and third party programs make that easy on skype. Recording capability is built into many of the new systems including Hangout.
2) The second and bigger reason is Neil Chapman himself. Neil is one of the truly great gentlemen I have met on this journey in crisis and emergency communication. I got to know him when I was selling PIER in the early days and Neil became one of our first major clients. He worked for a little oil company called BP and as one of their communication leaders with a clear interest in emerging trends, he was assigned to help the company find a solution for the changing world of communications. In the nine years since then, Neil found himself on the front lines of numerous major events including refinery explosions, drilling platform near-sinkings, pipeline corrosion issues with global implications and, of course, a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Retired from BP, Neil is very active in advising corporate communication leaders and senior executives on the realities of crisis communication today. In short, he knows whereof he speaks.
We'll talk more about skype media interviews later because, as you will see, there is much to learn about set up, about lighting, about where you look, about how you record it, and so on. I'd love to hear from anyone who has already done a skype media interview so I can incorporate your lessons learned. Contact me at gerald.baron@agincourt.us.
There are two versions of the Neil Chapman interview. A 14 minute edited version and the full 50 minute unedited. I've provided links on vimeo which allows you to easily download these if you want to view offline or use in your training programs. (Also, if you want to be alerted to new interviews with experts like Neil, be sure to sign up at www.agincourt.us.)
14 minute Skype interview with Neil Chapman on vimeo (for download)
14 minute Skype interview with Neil Chapman on YouTube
50 minute full Skype interview with Neil Chapman
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This excellent and useful summary from Poynter of the initial false reports about Joe Paterno's death tell us so much about today's instant news world. (Since this story is almost a week old and since only what happens today seems to matter you may wonder why I would comment on it now. A week on Maui with family completely disconnected from the real world is my only excuse.)
The initial false report shows up first on a Penn State student website, Onward State. From there it spreads quickly to radio, to the social media world, to major news outlets including CBS and Huffington Post. Most are all spread the story without attribution--at least until the family denies that it is true.
I can't emphasize enough how important looking at an event like this for crisis and emergency communication professionals. This is not an aberration. This is how it works today in most news stories. Here are some quick summary points to keep in mind:
1) Initial reports are often false. It's a standard understanding of crisis events, but still communicators are often not properly prepared to deal with the initial false reports. Beginning the communication process almost immediately with correct information is essential, essential, if you are going to be seen as credible and if you are going to counter the false reports.
2) The spreadability depends on believability. In other words, if the false report fits the public and media's understanding of what is likely to happen or what is expected to happen, the false reports will speed so much faster. In this case, most knew of Paterno's illness. Reports of his death, while big news, were not unexpected (as it turned out the rumor was only a little premature). As an example, early reports during the BP spill about BP's culpability and carelessness were sped by reporting on previous events which gave it credibility. This means if your organization is already characterized or understood to be inept, unscrupulous, untrustworthy, any reports that corroborate that will be more believable and distributed more quickly than if the rumor runs counter to what current understanding is.
3) Mainstream and social media alike will report without verification. @breakingnews on Twitter spread the story as well as other major news outlets. The rule of thumb in today's media world is this: you can get hurt if you are wrong, but you will get killed if you are late. So, run with it. We need to understand that dynamic if we are going to participate in this instant news world. The crowd provides its own editing process--media outlets do not (in general). To be fair and to its credit, the Associated Press did not run with the story and took some well-deserved pride in its caution in this event as it did with the Gifford's shooting story.
4) The "crowd" edits. In this case, much to the credit of the New York Times, it was apparently Mark Viera of NYT who tweeted that based on info from the family the rumors were rumors. But, it could have easily (or easier) been the family, someone close to the family, someone who knew the family, someone who access to the truth and who countered the rumor. The point is that if the rumor is wrong, it is often remarkable how fast it gets corrected.
5) It's not easy to stop a horse once it gets out of the barn and is on the run. Sorry for my rural allusions. Although the correct information first appeared at 8:57, it took until 9:29 for Onward State to correct its report. The 45 minutes from its first incorrect report to its retraction is a lifetime in the instant news world. And while many of the outlets initially reporting the rumor started correcting it earlier, while Poynter doesn't investigate this element of the story, it is quite likely that the rumor continued to circulate for some time while the correct information gradually took hold.
The lessons for crisis and emergency communicators seem overly obvious and have all been made before: communicate quickly, monitor, be the correct source of information, respond quickly and aggressively to rumors, provide continual updates, engage and on and on. But all that is much easier said than done. As Cheryl Bledsoe reports on her experience in monitoring during the #SMEMWater drill, it doesn't take long to get overwhelmed: 11 minutes in her example.
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I commented earlier on the culpability the leaders of the cruise line, Carnival Cruises, that hired and/or promoted the Captain of the Costa Concordia had for the Captain's unacceptable behavior. My point was to raise the issue now among those people responsible for hiring emergency managers or Incident Commanders so that serious character and leadership flaws as the Captain demonstrated could be identified before an event occurred where people or things got hurt unnecessarily.
I always (well, almost always) enjoy hearing from readers of this blog, and particularly if the comments are from people I know and respect. Neil Clement is a long time emergency management professional and former broadcaster who headed up emergency management for the county during the event that propelled me into this business. He graciously raised the issue of whether it is truly possible to identify problems of character and leadership in advance in an email to me, which he has allowed me to share with you:
Neil:
"I’m not so sure, however, that I believe the character flaw the Captain exhibited was entirely predictable. We are used to being around staff who are challenged with emergencies every day. In that context it’s easy to see if an individual has the “right stuff.” Working in EOC environments, however, we often had personnel who were rarely, if ever, exposed to high stress emergency environments. When tossed into the fray, it’s much easier to see who can withstand the stress and who is a liability.
During the first six hours of the Whatcom Creek Incident I had to have two people escorted from the EOC because they did not have personalities suited to the environment they found themselves in. One was on the verge of hysterics that could have become infectious. Prior to being introduced to the type of stress we found ourselves in during the Incident, I’m not sure that I could have accurately predicted who would fail the test.
Despite the contempt that I have for the Captain of the Costa Concordia I’m not sure that his character flaws would have been evident before he was subjected to the kinds of stress he found himself in after he struck the rocks. His entire career may have been characterized by relatively non-emergent decision making that would not have exposed him to significant life and death types of stress. His incredible actions after the incident makes it almost seem that he fell into an immediate state of denial.
I don’t know enough about this particular individual, so I’m probably wrong, but I do know that I’ve been surprised by the changes that occur to some individuals when they are subjected to high levels of stress for the first or only times of their lives."
An excellent point, Neil, and you are probably right. I'm not sure that even we know for sure ourselves how we will react in high stress situations. I am a huge fan of military history, particularly WWII, and never having been in combat situations myself I have often wondered how I would react. Now, this will seem silly to anyone who hasn't played real paintball before, but a few years ago I loved playing that very intense game in part because it was probably the closest I could come to experiencing on a very, very limited basis, the adrenalin rush, the dread, the pain of defeat and the thrill of victory. It gave me just a little insight into not only my behavior in stressful situations (yes, there is some real stress in paintball, those little plastic balls can really hurt) but also into the behavior of others. No, let me say it again lest I offend every soldier and veteran out there, paintball is not the same. But putting yourself in simulated situations where the stress level is raised based on some form of simulated reality, is perhaps the best we can do. And that is why I believe in the power and value of realistic drills and exercises, with serious issues at stake. I really don't think it is very helpful after a drill or exercise to only focus on the things that were well done or went according to plan. If some people, after a drill or exercise, are not disinvited from the team or are not moved to positions where their weaknesses will not harm the response, then I suspect the exercise was not well planned or the seriousness of it not properly addressed.
Thanks Neil for the comments and discussion.
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Chief Bill Boyd does a great job of asking the important questions about the Captain of the Costa Concordia, the massive luxury cruise liner than ran aground off the Italian coast. The central question he raises is about the character of the Captain.
Leadership it seems always comes down to questions of character and Boyd rightly contrasts the self-centered and self-serving Captain with the likes of Sully who not only skillfully landed the plane on the Hudson, but in the tradition of the Captain of the Titanic, was the last to leave the plane.
This event, and questions raised about character such as Bill outlines, should cause some soul searching among emergency management professionals. First, among those who have found themselves by accident or design to be the ones to take command. They should ask themselves if they really know what they would do if everything was on the line. And, if they find themselves lacking in the critical areas of actually serving the people they are assigned to serve and protect, they should step aside.
But the key question that this event raises for me is, wasn't Captain Francesco Schettino's character better known by those who placed him in this position of responsibility? I have to believe, and it will likely come out in the criminal prosecution certain to come, that the Captain's superiors had plenty of warning. I just find it very hard to see how some one, with the seriousness of deficiency in leadership and judgment that this Captain demonstrated didn't display these failings much earlier. I would guess it will come out that the failings were obvious, but he was elevated to his level of extreme incompetence by other factors--like friendships, politics, money or favoritism.
Pure speculation, of course, but the issue is important. If those in the position to appoint or authorize emergency response leaders do not take the real leadership qualities and the character of their designees in consideration, it may be that the world and perhaps the courts, will hold them liable.
This event provides an excellent reminder that character matters, and if it is quite clearly lacking in those who have risen to the role of response leader, now is the time to get serious about making changes.
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Are you one of the 82.5% of Americans, who according to ComScore, watched a video online? This compilation of facts about the role of video on the internet is fascinating and worthy of much deeper comment.
But it reminded me of two videos I saw recently that demonstrated very clearly the human side of disaster. This first one is from Japan and it carries a simple message: Arigato. Thank you. But what is so striking and compelling to me is that there are real people saying that. Yes, that sounds stupid. And in major disasters like the Japanese earthquake, tsunami and radiation leak, the news media do try to bring the disaster down to the human level. Everyone reaches for that "visceral emotion" that I blogged about the other day which is the driver of almost everything that goes viral. That can be a good thing and a bad thing but for those in emergency management it is terribly important to remember that ultimately what we are doing is helping people. When the terrible impact of natural disasters and human caused disasters is made painfully clear in the eyes, tears and heartfelt "thank yous" as seen in the video, it motivates us to do all we can possibly do to first prevent, then build resilience to help us get back to normal as quickly as possible. It also serves as a powerful reminder of the blessings of every day life--every day where a disaster does not strike is a good day.
The second video or videos can be seen in the NY Daily News article about the Costa Concordia disaster. This is a reminder once again that few events of consequence will not be documented by the electronic news gathering equipment that we carry in our pockets and purses. Cell video and still cameras are documenting our lives as nothing else and the virtually instant sharing of those videos through YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr and other channels is dramatically changing our world. I believe it is changing who we are to some degree. Are citizens of the global village the same as citizens of the rural village?
It is one thing for victims to show up on TV shows trying to tell of their fright, uncertainty in facing death, and anger at the stupidity that caused an accident like this. It is quite another to be there with them. Do you have a sense of what it would be like to be trapped underground deep in the earth in Chile? Probably more of a sense than you did before thanks to the cameras dropped into the shaft while the men awaited rescue. What would our experience of this have been if the story did not end with such a happy conclusion? What impact has watching video for weeks on end of a well head spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico had on the willingness of citizens to continue such drilling--despite the ugly alternatives to our craving for oil?
The Costa Concordia disaster will affect the cruise industry for years. Burned in the minds of all cruise passengers will be the image of a fabulous luxury liner laying on its side. Also burned in the minds of those watching the videos of passengers is the now easy to imagine panic when the cruise turns from luxury into horror. Already, the blame game in the media is being played out and the calls for more regulation. This article in Forbes is so completely predictable in identifying "greed" as the underlying cause and calling for more regulation. What's a little surprising is that this knee jerk reaction (excuse me, what does a captain wanting to stupidly greet a friend onshore and driving a cruise ship on the rocks have to do with greed?) is coming from a publication like Forbes. The very title of the article, "Read this before your next cruise," is clearly intended to heighten the fear and sends a shot across the bow of everyone in the cruise business.
I'm wandering from the topic of video and its impact on sharing the human toll of disasters. I'll be blogging more on video in the coming months because I am convinced that crisis communicators and emergency management professionals need to become very conversant in this now ubiquitous form of communication. You are the broadcaster, and that means, you are also the video producer. If you're coming up on budget time, I suggest some good camera gear, some editing software and a YouTube channel.
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In this era of public participation in events, official communicators need to work with the non-official communicators. The National Hurricane Center seems to get this idea of participation and its reflected in their effort to seek input on better ways to communicate with the public specifically about storm surges. To that end they have published a webpage from ideascale, that makes it easy for you or anyone to submit ideas. More than just a suggestion box, it is an interactive tool that allows comments and voting on the ideas submitted showing which ideas are rising to the top based on the votes. So far at this writing 12 ideas have been posted wit 49 participants.
I suggest you have a look. You probably have some good ideas to share, but even if you don't it is very instructive for communicators to look at the ideas that are being submitted. I'm noticing the importance being placed on graphic presentation of storm surge information. Ah yes, visuals. Not just words.
Thanks Harris County (TX) JIC for bringing this to my attention.
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Chief Bill Boyd is getting to be an increasingly recognized name in emergency management circles, largely because of his strong advocacy of using social media. Nothing new about that, but what is different is Bill is not a "just" a communicator, he is a fire chief of a mid-size city. He has 28 years of experience in fire service and Incident Command, so when he speaks about emergency management it's not just another pie-in-the-sky PIO speaking.
There are a couple of new opportunities to learn from the Chief's experience in using social media in numerous real events. One of those is a FEMA webinar that is coming up on January 18. Bill will join 2 or 3 other speakers to talk about social media in emergency response put together by Emergency Management Institute of FEMA. This seminar does not require registration but is limited to the first 300 callers so you may want to consider getting a group together in a room.
I've had the opportunity to hear Bill speak about these issues, and since we are friends, also had the pleasure of chatting about these issues on several occasions. That's why I arm twisted him into letting me put a little 6 minute video together that has him addressing chiefs, emergency managers and elected officials directly. The core message is simple--today with social media spreading info and mis-info at the speed of light "you can't be fast enough" in getting correct information out. Excuse the production quality--I'm still learning--but I think this is a valuable contribution to the on-going discussion and education effort on this topic that is very important. I hope that every communicator who sees this passes it on to every fire chief, police chief, emergency management executive, Incident Commander and elected official they know. And if you are a chief or in emergency management, send this around to your team to help everyone get on the same page.
Some of you may wish to have a copy of the video to download so you can run it from your system rather than on the internet. I'd be happy to accommodate that. You can request it at training@agincourt.us or give me a call at 360-303-9123.
Also, Bill and I are working on some additional training videos and manuals so if you want to be alerted to the availability of these, you can register for updates at www.agincourt.us.
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We all know that the internet has dramatically changed how we get news. But, it has also changed to a considerably degree what is news. For example, 86 million people so far have watched this video of a man teasing his talking dog about feeding food to the cat. 86 million! This dog tease has become part of our culture--it is a shared experience. Most cable channels would be really happy with 2, 3, 4 million viewers to an episode on which they have spent probably hundreds of thousands of dollars to create. And a guy who knows how to edit video of his dog gets 86 million?
But, what makes news today? What captures people's attention and gets them to tune in--whether to YouTube or cnn.com or any news outlet? This article in Wired Science gives some good ideas: The answer, according to a new study by Jonah Berger, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, has to do with the visceral emotions it arouses in viewers.
Visceral emotions, yes. That explains alot. It explains for one thing how a fishing friend of my son went viral in the last few days. I've fished with Rory a couple of times myself out in the San Juan Islands and he is a fishing nut. He goes all over with his kayak and catches fish like no one else I know. Being a tech guy, he rigged his kayak up with a video camera so he can record his exciting moments. But I doubt he ever thought that one of his videos would go viral with 630,000 views (as of today), land him on CNN and many other major news outlets. So what did he catch that was so intriguing? If you want the full impact of the story, stop reading and watch his YouTube video now, then follow the link at the end to see the rest of the story.
Here's the rest of the story. While fishing in his kayak off Sarasota, Florida, the video camera captures a dog swimming up behind him. He notices the dog, looks around confusedly because he is a half mile off shore. The dog swims straight toward him, and Rory picks the dog up out of the water, apologizing to him for not doing it more gently. Then, still looking around for where this dog might have come from, he wipes it dry with a shamwow. He then paddles toward shore stopping to yell at people in a nearby boat if they have lost a dog. He comments on the video that the dog appears scared to death, is bleeding and hurt. He gently takes the dog ashore after paddling back and then heads to the vet, the mystery of the swimming dog unsolved.
But the postscript on his YouTube gives a hint to the rest of this very sad, and visceral emotion-laden story. The local news outlet had reported that a 53 year old woman was out walking her dog along a street in Sarasota when she was struck and killed by a drunk driver. The story said the dog ran off. Then, after the dots were connected, a postscript to the story told that the dog had been found and linked to the YouTube video of Rory rescuing the poor dog. The dog was reunited with the woman's grieving family.
In the meantime, the social media world had grabbed onto the story. The Twitter comments were telling. The video link was shared over and over, some making the connection to the DUI victim and some just showing a heart-warming story of a kind, gentle fisherman pulling a mysterious and hurt dog out of the water.
With the social media interest, the human interest, the animal interest, the visceral emotion of this story, mainstream media needed into the act as well. He was busy with interviews with NBC, CNN and others. The CNN story was done with a skype interview from the airport in Florida as he was headed back to Bellingham. Jeanne Moos did the story.
I've discussed with a few what the implications of this story are for crisis and emergency communications. One of them relates to the complaints we (and I in particular) often make about news reporting today. It emphasizes visceral emotion. When dealing with an oil spill, an industrial accident, a natural disaster, or a crisis of financial collapse good reporters and producers want to show the human side, the emotional side, the gut wrenching side. It is frustrating as heck some time to see the impact of this kind of coverage when you are doing your darndest to build public trust and not heighten fears or emotions. But they will do it because they have to. It is how they compete with the incredible competition from around the world where interesting stories with visceral emotion are shared 24/7. It is a tough environment. If it bleeds, it leads, yes, but in a heightened way that we could not have imagined a few years ago.
I link this with the frequently communicated message that you, as the source of the news, are not merely the provider of it to the news outlets, you ARE the news outlet. You ARE the broadcaster. That means that you cannot ignore this emotional dimension of communication either. Dr. Covello was so right in emphasizing the human element of those involved in a disaster. Conveying emotion from those responding as well as not shying away from the human impact and experience of the event you are involved in is now part of your job. I'm not suggesting that you work on creating videos for YouTube of teasing or rescuing dogs, but that you recognize the content of news has changed, that when you are in the middle of a news story you need to recognize and participate in the visceral emotion that is an essential part of the story.
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This article from Disaster Recovery Journal is worthwhile reading for those interested in the issues of emergency management and what kind of leadership is required. The article documents the lessons learned by the NPLI:
National Preparedness Leadership Initiative (NPLI), a joint program of the Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, the meta-leadership framework and practice method has been developed by observing leaders in high-stakes, high-pressure situations including large-scale natural and man-made disasters. One recent example: NPLI faculty and staff observed the slowly unfolding Deepwater Horizon disaster at the behest of Rear Admiral (RDML) Peter Neffenger of the US Coast Guard, Deputy National Incident Commander to Admiral (ADM) Thad Allen, commandant of the US Coast Guard, and presidential-appointed national incident commander.
While I have an instinctive phobia about almost any term using "meta," there is much worthy of consideration here. Here is one nugget, as an example: Incident leadership is distinct from, yet complementary to, incident management.
Understanding that difference is what this article is all about. The authors correctly point out that a major event like DWH is not one event, but many. It was:
1) an environmental impact event;
2) a large global corporate event;
3) a small business event;
4) a legal event;
5) a political event;
6) an engineering event;
7) a media event;
8) a public relations event;
9) a federal event;
10) a state event;
11) a local or “parish” event;
12) a policy event.
I think this is a very important insight. One reason that Adm. Allen was so effective in his role as the National Incident Commander is he understood most if not all of these various events, and worked to deliver a common approach and common message across all of them. I think that many emergency management leaders, particularly those trained and experienced as Incident Commanders, may tend to see an event from the operational and planning perspective while forgetting the multiple dimensions of a major event. As the authors point out: In the end, people will determine the success or failure of any crisis response.
In that regard, the authors were least complimentary of the leadership and management of the "media event" that was DWH:
Finally, and perhaps least well executed, was leading across to the media which shaped the situational awareness of many stakeholders including political figures and the public. The oil flow issue is illustrative. When the media became aware of underwater video of the disgorging oil, demands quickly emerged that it be made public and that the exact rate of flow be calculated. BP, owner of the video, initially resisted. Government responders were not concerned as their response plan and actions were based on the estimated worst case flow, not actual flow. Initial official estimates proved to be far too low though actual flow was still less than the worst case scenario governing the response. Leaders’ actions reflected poor situational awareness of the non-technical aspects of situation: they were perceived as hiding information and gave credence to charges of incompetence. Their credibility was significantly damaged.
In fairness to Adm Allen, it should be pointed out that the real problems of credibility relating to underestimating the volume was prior to his being appointed to that position. But also, in all fairness to the BP leadership, they repeatedly said that the volume didn't matter because from a response standpoint they were treating it as if was unlimited--in other words, throwing everything possible at it. That message was conveyed to the media but did not get conveyed by the media. It seemed much more in the media's interest to communicate the estimates that were the best information they had at the time and then hold them accountable for their mistake when the estimates turned out to be way too low.
It is very interesting however, that the primary point of the article is about situation awareness and the example provided about a failure of situation awareness has to do with the response leadership's poor situation awareness of the non-technical (ie. communications and political) aspects of the response. Lesson learned for response management should be crystal clear here.
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A fellow blogger pointed out to me that the Department of Homeland Security had posted a list of sites that it uses for situation analysis monitoring. Way back in February 2010 Eric Holdeman and I both commented on the announcement that DHS made that it was monitoring social media sites as part of meeting its obligation to provide situation awareness to response agencies. The announcement of the sites that DHS monitors is interesting. A pdf of the complete list is available using this link to DHS website.
I find this quite interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it provides an interesting look at what DHS considers important from a monitoring standpoint. There are a wide variety of sites, many of which are obvious as to why they would want to use them. For example, this list quite a number of Twitter search sites, as well as map sites such as globalincidentmap.com. So if you are looking for a good list of sites to use for your own situation awareness monitoring, this list isn't a bad place to start.
I also found it interesting to see my other blog site, crisisblogger on this list. Being on the same list with wikileaks gives me a bit of an eery feeling. But then emergencymgmt.com made the list as well. Not sure what help I could possibly offer DHS in providing situation awareness but I think I'll choose to take this as a compliment.
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