Blog 11: Crisis Communication

In chapter 12, we talked about and the text book stated that many organizations are unprepared for a crisis. It's suprising to know that a little over half of companies surveyed had a plan and even less practiced it.

To understand crisis communication, one must know the meaning of a crisis in the business world. According to http://www3.niu.edu/newsplace/crisis.html, "A crisis is any situation that threatens the integrity or reputation of your company, usually brought on by adverse or negative media attention. These situations can be any kind of legal dispute, theft, accident, fire, flood or manmade disaster that could be attributed to your company. It can also be a situation where in the eyes of the media or general public your company did not react to one of the above situations in the appropriate manner." I thought this was a pretty good definition because it covers everything.

Lets face it... not one organization is perfect and everyone is bound to get some sort of negative attention. To not have a plan, even if you don't ever use it, is poor PR. Not having a plan can just lead to more dissaters that could potentially ruin the company's integrety. I think it's common sense to have a plan. Haven't these people learned anything from Exxon?