Public Health Affairs

Author: Jim

  • Catching Up

    One of the things I really disliked about my other blog was that I would fall behind and great articles that I wanted to comment on would just sit in my Reader until there were ten of them and no way for me to catch up. And this was in public health preparedness–which is a niche subject if I’ve ever seen one!

    Well, it’s happened again. I used to have Delicious give a daily link update, but I haven’t been able to make that work here yet, so you get this list instead.

    • Musings in PIOs, the IMS and ESF-15 – I enjoyed this post because it really is “musings.” Mr Cloutier asks lots of questions (many that I have that have never really been answered to my satisfaction) about the state of NIMS where a Unified Command structure, with an associated Joint Information Center (JIC), is given ESF-15 responsibilities. Unified Command is supposed to utilize the JIC as their primary communication organization, but ESF-15 places the JIC deep in the bureaucracy. The stated goals of each can clash, and have.
    • Controlling Crisis Communications – Now this is an interesting post giving yet another reason to include social media as part of your crisis communications plan. For all of the attention given to the wild west structure of social media, pushing information out via social media channels is actually very well controlled–especially when compared to the meanderings that a press conference or interview can encounter.
    • Image and Crisis Management – Another one from Bernstein. I particularly liked this one, even though it’s written to a private sector audience, because of it’s applicability to the public sector. Governments are not generally held in high regard by much of their constituents. If your agency is seen as out-of-touch or aloof, doesn’t it make sense that that image would dominate the questions about your response? This is, luckily, the kind of thing your agency can start avoiding right now.
    • Are You Ready for a Real-Time Marketing and PR Crisis? – Everyone interested in this field should have already heard about the United Breaks Guitars saga, so there’s nothing new there. The real meaty part of this post, though, is Taylor Guitars. Something they do, fix guitars, was in the media. They weren’t affected, but still took the initiative to develop a spot that highlighted their work in a relevant situation. For those of us in the emergency management or public health world, we should be ready to use situations (read: disasters) as teachable moments for our own populations. Hawk our products (infection control practices, preparedness techniques, etc.), as it were.
    • Communication Teams and the Public – Simply put, does your communication team consider their job to be media relations (read: mass and traditional media), or public information by any way possible (read: bloggers and non-traditional media)?

  • Clear People not Content

    I can see cleared people (not content) having particular importance in times of emergency response (perhaps as a system of nodes distributed across an area) and in addressing myths (perhaps as a team of individuals each with training on specific platforms and audiences).

    I’m not arguing that we abandon clearing content. Obviously we have to ensure proper messaging from the top down. But to build the underlying foundation through which these messages get communicated, we should focus on clearing people, not content.

    via readg.wordpress.com

    Read Holman is one of the smartest folks in this business that I know. While he’s much more on the geeky side of things (data management and such), he’s also a crafty online communicator. So when he posts something about crisis communications that I’ve been seeing more and more, I take notice.

    I’ll be exploring more about this idea of person clearance vs., in addition to, in tandem with, as a complement of, message clearance because it’s such an interesting topic that will only become more relevant as a way to combat the race to be first in communications, but Read’s post is a great way to start thinking about things.

  • On Lebron James’ Crisis Response

    I have a new favorite commercial, which is not at all unusual. That it has to do with professional basketball–specifically Lebron James–is unusual. (For the record, I don’t particularly like pro ball, and I think that Lebron is a big part of the reason why.) What I like about this commercial is it’s honest dealing with a subject that amounts to a crisis for the protagonist.

    For those who don’t follow professional sports, Lebron’s contract with the only team he had played for, the Cleveland Cavaliers, ended after last season. Given that Lebron is considered by many to be the best professional basketball player today, there was an amazing scramble by teams to looking to add Lebron to their own rosters during the off-season. Lebron toured the NBA, meeting with a variety of teams. His decision-making tour culminated with an hour-long special on ESPN wherein he was to announce which team he would sign with. He ultimately signed with the Miami Heat (along with two other elite-level players). Fans in Cleveland felt abused by the games and drawing out of the process, while fans across the NBA chalked up the spectacle to hubris.

    Here’s the full version of the commercial:

    What’s front and center in this ad? The problem. The opening scene of the commercial is a replication of what the hour-long press conference looked like, down to the TelePrompTer and checked button-down shirt. He raises the issue of having jumped, in the past, to another team in search of a championship. He asks if he is a villain. He asks (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) if he is even a role model. He asks if you see him as just another man scrambling for more money.

    Each of these is a legitimate criticism leveled directly at Lebron this past summer. These are real–they exist–and Lebron James, multi-millionaire superstar basketball player, acknowledges the possibility of each of them. The commercial closes with a dimly lit Lebron laying a basketball into the hoop, a reminder that that is what he does, who he is.

    Nike addressed all of the reputational crises of their star spokesperson, and turned the conversation back to the topic at hand, basketball. They redefined Lebron back into a superstar, a spokesperson, a basketball player, that guy that your team will be gunning for when the Miami Heat come to town.

    Now this won’t work for everyone. (Tiger Woods? I think not.) But if your crisis is such that it is merely distracting from the core message you’re trying to get out there (and you haven’t been implicated in something nefarious), why not try to address the public’s concerns directly? Bridge to the real issue while simultaneously validating people’s concerns. Granted, you don’t have Nike’s marketing muscle (nor Lebron’s real muscles), but I’m willing to bet that you’re not as universally reviled as Lebron was.

    Refocus the discussion. Address the problem and move on.