The Contagion experience- Crisis Comm reflection 4

I have the worst memory when it comes to movies. Seriously, I should have taken notes during Contagion. What I do know, is that I have washed my hands more since I have seen that movie than any other time my life. Yikes, germs have never been so terrifying.

From a crisis management perspective, this film was beyond interesting... it was overwhelming. The impact of an epidemic like one in the film was unimaginable. And as the plot went on and more people became infected, the crisis snow balled- making any crisis communication professional stutter in disbelief.

However, in the very initial phases, immediately following the death of Gweneth Paltrow’s character it seemed there were overt and thoughtful crisis management meetings. These brought to light complications based on the interests of the multiple agencies involved, but the largest complication was the unknown.

Early on, there was no knowledge of where the epidemic began, how exactly it was bring spread, and what could stop it. Instead, there were a few deaths that were loosely linked and no understanding of what could be the root of the disease. At this point, there was a lot to consider for the players at the table. They had choices to make- and each of these involved some amount of risk and a different group of stakeholders.

If the news were to go live that there was a possible epidemic looming then panic and frenzy could ensue. This could potentially be more dangerous than the germ. The professionals at the CDC devised a plan to try to separate infected persons from the healthy. A few schools were closed, offices, etc. People were encouraged to stay home if they were not feeling well.

Unfortunately, this was not enough. As time went on panic did set in. There were paracrises beginning as food the supply dwindled. Looting and violent crime increased as people’s desperation to survive increased.

What I found most interesting about the film was the downplay of the mass media involvement. Aside from a few seconds of footage, there was very little mention of the affect the mass media would have. There was one rogue blogger whose coverage of the outbreak and the cure became central to the plot, but CNN, CBS, Fox News, etc were all seemingly uninvolved. If this were a real event, I contend that the panic would have set in much sooner.

Seeing the frenzy over the limited supply of vaccines and forsythia brings back memories of recent gas shortages in Charlotte. Lines at the pump went on for blocks. People filled up their vehicles and spare tanks as well. Where did the sense of panic come from? The mass media.

I really enjoyed this film. It petrified me, but gave me a different perspective on handling crisis communication. Weighing overwhelming options and doing the best thing is not always easy. Likewise, it is not easy to prepare for a crisis of this nature. While contagious epidemics in general are worthy of plans, the unexpected characteristics of one type of epidemic can change the crisis management plan completely.

CMT Preparation- Crisis Comm reflection 3

While reading Coombs Ch. 5, I was reminded of my former job on the property management team at the Bank of America Corp Center. As the management company for the world headquarters of the bank, we had to be poised to handle any number of crises.

Yearly we had an external agency come in and offer our team emergency preparedness training for natural and man made disasters that could impact the building- and more importantly, the tenants. We took this very seriously. It was a week's worth of crisis management training, in which we created plans in case any of these scenarios were ever to happen. Luckily, the plans have not been used to date. From bomb scares to tornadoes, we had to create communication and evacuation plans to manage the crisis.

We did a lot of role playing as a way to practice. Through these drills, we learned who relied more on instinct versus some of our team who were much more analytical and felt that following set instructions was best. It was quite interesting to see- even in these types of practice drills who works better under pressure and who seemed overwhelmed. These drills offered us the chance to work as a team to execute our crisis plan-something that isn't always easy to do.

Interestingly, my current role allows me to see the works of crisis preparation in a different light. While working for the property management company gave me the insight into planning for one type of crisis, working in corp. comm has given me an insiders view into handling organizational misdeeds and challenges.

This form of crisis also requires team work. Our media relations reps work together to craft messages that align with the company voice. There have been times when untrained persons have given the media information. This resulted in more chaos and a bigger mess to clean up.

Having a CMP is critical, but you also have to be prepared for those who don't follow it. There can always be a rogue team member- or someone outside of the team who can add impact by not understanding the plan or the nature of the crisis. it's quite scary to think of the limits of what we can really prepare for. We may have the first steps in place, but until the actual crisis unfolds, the team may not know what they are up against.

I have learned in my experience the importance of remaining in contact as a team during the crisis. Having a designated hub where the team can post themselves, or making mandatory time for meetings (virtually if necessary) will be a very critical practice in dealing with crisis. Remaining on the same page as a team isn't necessarily easy, but it is essential to making your CMP work.

To Panic or Not to Panic? - Crisis Comm Reflection 2

There are more crisis than I can wrap my head around. It seems that pretty much every piece of news these days is some type of crisis. But is it? Have we as a society gotten trained to await bad news and be prepared to live in fear that we manifest crisis situations? Or, do we just not respond to any news that isn’t bad news?

Everything is about shock value. What Howard Stern once used as his platform to fame has become every news medium’s standard for getting viewers and readership. News of everyday happenings, like for instance a story of an environmental clean-up of a highway is spun to tell of the story of the “crisis” behind the clean up. Imagine the news report… “The stream next to the highway is so polluted that the ecosystem is at risk. Fish are dying. The water flows into our sewer system and is creating a hazard for our drinking water.”

Even just the report of the weather gets morphed into a potentially high risk event. Floods, blizzards, and droughts are constantly being used as propaganda to switch us as recipients of the news into crisis mode.

How does this affect our society’s ability to perceive a crisis? Are we able to filter genuine risk from inflated hype?

A few weeks ago a local news channel reported a story about the company that I work for. It was a partially true story, however, it was spun to generate fear, anxiety, and a sense of threat within the community. The story could have majorly impacted the public perception of the company. Our communications team needed to take action- in both a public response as well as with the channel that ran this report. It required using a crisis management plan, however, there was no real crisis.

I feel that the modern day media has created a problem for crisis management. While the threat may be quite real in some cases, we need to be able to differentiate between a legitimate crisis and a news manifested crisis. I found this article to offer insight into who the media is serving and why. It's an interesting perspective when thinking about crisis comm. and how the public is bieng informed.

Crisis communication- reflection one

When I think crisis, I think September 11, 2001. It was the largest (man made) crisis I have lived to see thus far; and one that’s impacts are still reverberating through our society. As a country, we will never be the same. It changed our national identity, and for many, it changed their individual identities as well.

In our early readings and class discussions, there has been a heavy emphasis on the nature of crises as being perceptual. I will first say that 9/11 forever changed my perception of what a crisis is and is not. Seeing planes fly into buildings, the desperation in people flinging themselves from 100 stories in the air and massive towers tumbling to ground was totally beyond my comprehension until to that day. The scale of both the loss as well as the evil it would take to construct such a plan is still mind boggling.

I had the fortunate experience of spending last weekend in NYC during the 10th anniversary of 9/11. In walking the streets of NYC, and watching the almost constant coverage that was aired on Sunday, I relived the sense of crisis that started that morning ten years earlier and lasted well into years later.

We have been in a post-crisis country since Sept 12th 2001. In the days and weeks that followed that day, up until now, the 10 year anniversary politicians and subject matter experts have explored the atrocities from many angles. We have heard the stories of the heroes of that day, from those who lived, and accounts of what happened to those who were lost.We have heard theories on conspiracy and charges of a negligent government. We saw leadership from a mayor raise up out of the ashes; and the leader of our nation take a more backseat approach. Did he perceive the crisis the same way we did?

The American people could not expect or prepare for that kind of situation. We can only hope that the governing body we rely on would have some sort of plan. Did they? Not really. On a local level, the cities of New York, D.C., andShanksville all managed to construct an immediate response to the crisis. They did well. From triage units to rebuilding a reputation, Rudy Giuliani succeeded in bringing New York back from a devastation unlike any other.

On a national level Americans saw very little in terms of a crisis management plan. Sure, we got ourselves a homeland security team and tightened security measures at airports. And, we even waged a war on terrorism and have watched soldiers fight that war for nine years. However, was the faith of the stakeholders ever restored? Not so much. Were Americans made to feel any safer? I don't think so. Instead we were barraged with media reports on threats of anthrax and other unimaginable scares. Where was the attempt to communicate a sense of safety?

What we have learned from post 9/11 America is that the government could and should have been prepared, to some extent. There are a variety of theories on how much was known by our president and his cabinet, but regardless of those claims, however erroneous they may seem to some, there needed to be a national crisis communication plan that restored our (the stakeholders) faith in our own country. America had been attacked before. We have seen terrorist threats and plots acted out. There should have been a long-term crisis management plan to assist the country in a time of such confusion and fear.

I would argue that we have been in a state of fear since then. Our ideas of security have been redefined and our faith in leadership has been continually tested. A crisis management plan could have unified the country, for longer than a month. It could have reinvented our country as "the home of the free and the land of the brave", a reputation once earned and respected.

Fail Spectacularly- Reflection Five

Our class visitors (Peter and Tom) last Thursday discussed failure and how failure is viewed in such a negative light, but yet we learn so much and grow so much from the act of failing. In fact, we learn MORE from failing than we do succeeding in most cases. I can’t say that this is the first time I have thought about failing in positive terms, but I will say that I needed a reminder that we are rhetorically trained to believe that not getting the expectations that we set ourselves up for isn’t a win in another way.

As cliché as it sounds, I have always been a big believer in things happening for reasons. My faith guides me to believe that way, as does my general outlook on life. And from what I have experienced, there is merit in that statement. From relationships to professional changes, to where I went to college, I can look back and easily see times when in the moment I felt disappointed by the hand life had dealt me. In hindsight, these setbacks were not setbacks at all. In each situation, I learned and I grew.

I am not a huge country music fan, but having lived in the south for long enough it seems kind of unavoidable. I have learned to appreciate certain artists and certain songs. One song that comes to mind is a song by Garth Brooks (an artist I don’t really care for) called Unanswered Prayers. It has all the classic requirements of a sappy country song…twang, a broken heart, God, maybe even a pickup truck in there somewhere. Anyhow, it supports the more religious take on this idea. Unanswered prayers aren’t really unanswered- God is answering us but really giving us what we need, it just might not be what we expect. I don’t love the song, but I love the message.

Randy Pausch, author of “The Last Lecture” and well-loved professor at Carnegie Mellon University left a legacy of messages to his children and the world when he shared his final lecture, capturing the best lessons he learned in life. Many relate to risk and failure- and the importance of taking chances in order to make your life fuller. One quote that I really like is “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted”. Randy encouraged risk-taking, especially with his students. In fact, he even offered a reward to the team of students within his robotics class that took the biggest risk and failed. It was titled “The First Penguin Award” because the first penguin who jumps in the water risks the water being too cold, predators, etc. He gave stuffed penguins to the team who jumped off and failed first because as Randy says “It is better to fail spectacularly than do something mediocre”.

Ironically, a certain failure has been the concentration of much of my life right now. I don’t necessarily view it that way, but my boyfriend does. Currently, we are trying to sell our house and unfortunately, it isn’t selling. It’s not in a good area of town and the mortgage is a major drain on us. The house is in his name, so perhaps our differing ideas of failure are because of the impact is different for both of us. Steve gets infuriated with himself for having made this investment five years ago, when the economy was different. The thought of walking away from it and tanking his credit is an unimaginable failure, that someone who is meticulous about their expenses cannot fathom. For me, it’s a temporary setback, but not a failure. I have tried to help Steve see it as something aside from a personal failure, but he is having a hard time letting go of his lifelong view of being fiscally responsible. I don’t expect that he will ever see a short sale or a foreclosure as a good thing, but I also wish he didn’t view that outcome as a failure either.

I think it takes someone with a really positive outlook on life to face problems and see them as opportunities. Furthermore, our individual experiences (our social construction of reality) speaks to what we as individuals view as major failures. While money management and success have been values that Steve was taught to uphold, I was taught to value the importance of family and personal relationships. Additionally, my faith- or general belief that things have a way or working out reminds me that falling isn’t always failing

All I Really Need to Know in Life I learned in Kindergarten- Reflection Four

Sharing, a simple idea learned in preschool- and before in our very homes with our siblings, neighborhood friends, and closest kin. From crayons to time with mom, we learn that sharing is a necessary part of life. And if you can't share, you go to time out; and there you will sit left thinking about your own selfishness and how to be a better friend, sister, or neighbor. It's a lesson we are all familiar with and can witness in every setting that hosts multiple small children. Adults are always pressing the issue..."you need to learn to share".

Are we as adults setting a good example for the small children who receive our message of being kind and using resources wisely? At what point are you old enough to not have to share? Does making your own money mean you don't have to share? Why is it that when our resources are most plentiful, we seem less apt to share?

Sadly, I think our fears- fears of not having enough, fears of having our hard-earned resources taken away, fears of the empowering the unworthy with our resources, our food, our homes scare us. Sharing should and could be a powerful answer to unnecessary consumerism and the divide between the haves and the have-nots.

Slowly, a sharing movement is upon us. The ZipCar, tool lending libraries, and office hoteling are some examples of how we as greedy adults are beginning to learn to share our resources. There are more possibilities of sharing on the rise- even with strangers under ones own roof.

I'm refreshed to communities rallying around the aforementioned efforts. Our identities should not be tied to "stuff". In recent years, we have given into identities based on the brands of clothes we wear, kinds of cars we drive, and the neighborhoods we live in. Fears have been manifested into extreme consumption that has all but eclipsed our identities as individuals who think, act, and feel on our own, but work together and support our communities.

It's far time we simplify our lives, do away with the pressures to "keep up with the Jones"- or the Kardashians for that matter, and to take care of each other's basic needs. We owe it to ourselves to get back to sharing our crayons and being kind to our neighbors.

Where is the Fun? Creativity and Innovation- Reflection Three

After the class trip to Area Fifteen last Tuesday and the readings by Foster on getting ideas, I began to realize the void of a creative outlet that I have in my life. While reading through Foster's list of office activities that he has employed to create a sense of fun (things like chili cook offs, darts in the break room, and craft fairs) I found myself envious of working in an office- or an industry that allows for fun.

Everyday I go to work in black dress pants or a skirt, wearing a button-down blouse or a cardigan. Sometimes I get crazy and wear metallic heels. However, my professional life is complete fun-less. We have a holiday potluck lunch once a year, but that is the extent of the fun that is acceptable in my workplace.

Needless to say, the people I work with don't seem happy. In fact, everyone seems annoyed, stressed, and burnt out. Sadly, banking does thrive off of creative juices like advertising and marketing do, but still we should invite in some fun. Granted, for some of my colleagues, the thrill of deadlines and the corporate culture excites them. As for me, not so much.

I am left trying to decide if I can infuse some fun time and expressive creative opportunities into my personal life, which could satisfy my creative deficiency. Or, is there something more wrong here. Am I in the right career? Probably not. As Tom Peters says "The number one premise in business is that it need not be boring or dull. It ought to be fun. If it's not, you're wasting your life.

Unfortunately, I think I am wasting my life. I just don't know what else to do. Perhaps if I give myself some time and some tools to tap into how to live my passion, the answers will come. Until then, I'll be wearing my metallic heels M-F to add some life to my otherwise dull work routine.