Shel Holtz’s Crisis Communications Presentation at New Communications Forum 2009

imageContent summary: Shel Holtz delivered the closing keynote of the opening day at the Society for New Communications Research New Communications Forum on Monday, April 27, 2009.

The presentation, “Social Media and Crisis Communications (Revisited)” updated the breakout session Shel presented at the first NewComm Forum in 2005.

Both audio and PowerPoint are available here.

Special thanks to Michael Procopio, who recorded the session, and Kenny Yeung, who shot the photo.

FIR on Friendfeed
Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future shows, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, subscribe to the full RSS feed.

This FIR Speakers & Speeches podcast is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Posted by shel on 05/01 at 04:43 PM

  1. Shel,
    This was a great talk. I have heard some of the material from others but your talk was concise, had excellent examples and actionable recommendations.

    My fear is most people will not take your advise until after there first crisis.

    Thanks!

    Posted by Michael Procopio  on  05/02  at  02:27 PM

  2. @Michael Procopio - Thanks, Michael, and it was great meeting you at NCF. Sadly, you’re right. Most leaders believe they are too busy to worry about something that might never happen, then react badly when that inevitable crisis actually hits. And, as I noted in the talk, even those companies that do have plans rarely drill them, if ever.

    I saw a terrific talk on crisis communication at the Council for Communication Management conference, all focused on the basics, not the online dimension. The speaker made the point that the greatest harm inflicted on an organization in a crisis is SELF-inflicted.

    An important stat I got from this talk came from the Oxford Executive Research Briefings. Looking at companies that had experienced crisis, they found a 22% gap in end-of-year stock prices between companies that responded badly and those that responded well—and responding well meant communicating candidly and forthrightly rather than offering no-comments, delaying, and obfuscating.

    Posted by Shel Holtz  on  05/02  at  02:50 PM

  3. Shel,
    This is very a timely discussion—lots of good information here. Thank you for posting. You are right when you said that the financial services industry as a whole claims it does not want to engage in social media because it is “highly regulated.” I say it is about time they come to the party. If the financial crisis has taught us anything, it is that more open and transparent engagement with the public by financial institutions will be integral in turning this whole mess around.

    MD

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  05/04  at  12:48 PM

Name:

Email:

Location:

URL:

Smileys

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

Submit the word you see below:


<< Back to main