Those of us in the United States are blindingly aware of what is being billed as the largest power blackout in US history. This blackout struck the Northeast US and a big hunk of Canada just before rush hour.

I first heard about it about 10 minutes after it started when I received an email titled "Check out CNN". CNN came on (actually CNBC) and I proceeded to watch and learn a major set of lessons that apply to PR.

Here are some of the lessons that I learned from yesterday's situation:

1. Every organization needs a crisis management
NYC obviously had one, and it appears that they executed it fairly well. Since I'm not in NY, I don't know what the word is on the street, but from here, it looks like NYC will once again enjoy praise for how well they handled the situation. How it could have been prevented? Well, that's another story, isn't it!

As much as we may not want to admit it, crises happen, to us!
We never know what's going to hit us, but we can guess, and we can prepare in advance for the most likely situations. Consider this list of just a few of the potential crises that can affect an organization:

Major power outage
Government investigation
Controversial law suit
Accusation of discrimination based on race, sexual preference or gender
Product recall
Serious injury to someone within or outside of the organization
Protest
Strike
Physical violence between co-workers
Insider trading scandal
Theft by an outsider (ideas or physical assets)
Embezzlement
Hostile takeover
Outbreak of food poisoning caused by your company (maybe even at your company picnic
this just happened this week in our area and the Country Club where it occurred is getting hurt in the media)
Death of top executive
CEO gets arrested for drunk driving
Natural disaster
Company plane crash
Books were cooked
Congressional hearings make something that was legal illegal, and your company is used as an example
Plummeting stock price
Major interruptions in service
Computer system crash, causing you to lose all data
One of your employees is accused of a high profile crime
Harassment case
Fire
Explosion
Rape on your premises
Dramatic downsizing causing significant job loss in a geographic region
Chemical spill
Radiation leak
A major competitor has a huge crisis, throwing attention on your company
Caught in a lie
False advertising accusation
Celebrity spokesperson embroiled in personal scandal
Oil spill
Closing of a facility
Production sourcing internationally or at a non-union facility
Union grievance

I was personally very relieved to see that one of my company's crisis managements worked perfectly yesterday.

As an Internet company, our company's crisis management identifies one operational necessity as having a web server with instant battery backups, continuous air conditioning (computers don't work when they get hot) and backup diesel power generators sufficient to keep our sites and our shopping cart system (which lives on a totally separate server system in a different state for security purposes) online for at least 72 hours in the case of a power outage.

I say fortunately, because one of our 4 servers is located in Connecticut and our shopping cart system is in another blackout-affected area, and the power was down in both facilities. But the backup systems kicked in so our sites stayed up, serving pages and taking orders in spite of the darkness in the rooms around them. I'm a happy camper!

Others, however, didn't fare as well, and a number of sites went down, including one who should have known better, a certain conservative talk show host whose last name starts with the letters L-I-M-B-A-U-G-H.

Fortunately, many of the things that are covered in a given crisis management scenario also work for other scenarios, so preparation and implementation is not quite of a daunting task as it may seem.

In spite of that, the vast majority of companies have no plan in place, thinking that it won't happen to them, and if it does, that they'll do fine flying by the seat of their pants.
And you can see it, every time a crisis happens. Those are the companies who spend years trying to recover from the crisis, instead of days preparing for it.

2. Every organization needs a crisis communications plan.

This is separate from the actual crisis management! The crisis management deals with who gets called first, where the supplies are to resolve the situation, backup systems to ensure continuous operation, succession plans, etc.

The crisis communications plan deals with how you will communicate with the media and the public about the crisis.

Since most of us are involved in PR, I will be focusing on this aspect for the rest of this article.

3. When the crisis happens, focus your public communications first on its impact on people, second on everything else.

Mayor Bloomberg did a great job during his press conference of focusing as much attention as possible on the effects of the crisis on the people, rather than other aspects. He stated concerns with people fainting from the heat as they walked home, of being safe if they stayed in town, of not dying from heat in their homes, of drinking lots of water, of freeing people trapped in subways and elevators, of the police and firefighter's safety, of community pride to prevent people going out looting, etc.

How different the reaction may have been if his focus would have been on how much it was going to cost, how taxes may have to raise, etc.

This people focus creates a feeling of being kinder and gentler. You still communicate to the media that these other issues are real, but "our first focus is making sure that everyone is safe" rings loud and clear in the midst of a crisis.

4. You can actually use a crisis to help you look good.

I found it very interesting to hear CNBC announce about 2 hours in that "Citigroup has just implemented its business continuation plan."

Interesting - I bet that every major financial institution in NY had implemented its version of its business continuation plan - making sure that people were there staffing key activities, moving key functions to other cities, backing up computers, rerouting lines, etc. but Citigroup made the announcement to the press.

"Oh," thought I, "Citigroup is a pretty sharp company." Then those companies that saw Citigroup's announcement then made their own announcement looked like copycats and probably didn't get coverage. Be wise in what you do, but "firs test was bentest" in this situation.

You can also use it to draw attention to your specific situation by creating tie-in articles. This isn't a PR article, but it's a good example of how it could be done:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/952838.asp?vts=081520031315

So, if you run a company selling fridges and freezers, you should have an article out today on preserving food during power outages.

If you make rollerblades, you should have called your customers in NYC and found out how many incremental pairs they sold to people who decided to skate home rather than walk across the bridge.

If you're a health-related facility, pitch your local media on Monday with an article on how to prevent heat problems if you live in a house with no air conditioning. "New Yorkers experienced this in last week's power outage, but thousands of people in our community who have no air conditioning experience it every day - what to do when the heat makes your house unsafe."

That's called tying into national stories, and you can get more information about it here: Special
Report #35: How to be the Local Angle to National Stories

And this report is about Tying Your Pitches into Weather Stories

5. Make sure that you're clear and emphatic when you're right.

During the initial minutes of the blackout, blame was placed on one of the NYC power stations, believing that there was a major fire there that caused the blackout. Proponents cited as evidence the huge plumes of black smoke that came out from the power plant’s smokestacks right after the power had gone out.

Mayor Bloomberg made short shift with that argument, explaining that there had been no fire. When challenged, he simply stated that when they turn the system off, black smoke is a common side effect and that's exactly what happened here.

His convincing, Bloomberg’s style immediately killed that rumor.

There's much to be said for your crisis media person doing the same when something clearly false is being reported.

6. Use others to help remove blame if you're innocent.

Once the fire rumor went away, blame was focused on the Niagara Mohawk system as the cause and this was reported widely. I found it very interesting to see how they handled it.

First, they came out with an announcement about 3 hours in that said that "there was no evidence that" they were at fault.

Unfortunately, the news media continued to report that they were the cause.

The parent company, National Grid Transco LLC, had a rough stock market time staring them in the face if they didn't change the market's belief about their guilt in this situation.

So they went to Merrill Lynch, showed them the evidence, and had Merrill Lynch issue a report verifying their perception of innocence.

Nothing like support from outside. Their stock closed today just 1.35% down, a major relief to their management.

7. Use the web to help communicate your point of view.

Yes, National Grid Transco did a good job of enlisting the help of Merrill Lynch, but they blew it big time on their website. Here, they're in the middle of a potential disaster for their company, and their website, http://www.ngtgroup.com/scripts/homepage.asp, shows their last news report as 21 Jul 2003. You mean nothing important has happened to the company in, say, the last 2 weeks?

They clearly don't recognize the power of the web to influence the public and to communicate with the press. If my company was involved, I know that this disaster would have taken over most of the home page.

Some people just don't get it...

8. Make sure that a copy of your crisis communications plan is in hard copy in at least two easily accessible locations.

Imagine how embarrassing it would have been to have had a crisis communications plan all ready to go... on your computer that's down because the power's out. 'Nuff said!

Let's shift now from key learning’s to question time.

We estimate that at least 95% of all companies have no established crisis management in place and that an even larger percentage has no established crisis communications plan in place.

Does yours?

If you don't have one written and updated frequently, you need one, quickly.

That's why we have spent the last several weeks (really, we didn't write it last night, this just happened at a convenient time...) writing a new report: Crisis Communication Planning: Organizing and Completing A Plan That Works. This report takes you step by step through the process of developing a plan for your company.

We wrote it because we're convinced that every company, no matter how small, needs one, just in case.

Because just in case seems to happen all too frequently these days.

There are probably 10,000 different companies represented on our subscriber list. Only 5-10% of them will be smart enough to pick up a copy of this report, then to implement it within their organization.

Will you be one of those who act? Or are you willing to gamble your job, your company and your reputation on the possibility that a crisis won't happen to you? I hope not!

Think of it as really inexpensive insurance.

Source: Angie link