Two words – crisis and reputation – must surely strike a chord with Australian public relations and communications professionals in the corporate world as they gear up for the 2011 year.
While what’s happened in the past is not necessarily a predictor of what may happen in the future, if I were an in-house corporate PR or communications professional going into this New Year I would feel inclined to do a quiet bit of ‘brushing up’ on the latest thinking on managing crises and reputations.
If you think that’s a good idea here are three articles that have come out in late 2010/early 2011 which I believe are a useful starting point.
PR Lessons from 2010–The Year of the Mega Crisis offers some sage advice -
o It is more important to solve a problem than chase tweets.
o Knowing how to solve a problem is not enough.
o The person in charge is not always the best spokesperson.
o Look for the positive in moments of crisis.
o Recognise chaos and complexity in crisis planning and management.
The 11 Unwritten Laws of Reputation, by Any Beal in ‘Forbes’ include gems such as “Every reputation has an Achilles heal” and “Your reputation will come under attack” and “Being stubborn is more expensive than saying you’re sorry”. Plus 8 more that are worth a read.
WikiLeaks and the new Corporate Disclosure Crisis, also from ‘Forbes’, claims to be the most thorough article available on the issues of security of corporate documents and crisis management in the event of leaks. It’s must reading for all corporate PR and marketing professionals.
Finally, if you have a little extra time on your hands you might also find it interesting – and a tad entertaining – to read Rise of the Image men – PR Man has conquered the world. He still isn’t satisfied. It’s a ‘warts and all’ look at PR from the ‘Economist’ (published in mid-December) but its underlying theme is around the role PR plays in reputation management.
PS: If Crisis Management and Reputation Management interests you I have written several previous articles on these topics in PR Influences.
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