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 Corporate
Reputation
Welcome to another issue of Command Post Communications
Notes; our observations on the latest news media and public policy issues
as they relate to industry. CP Notes provides O'Brien'sRM clients with
the benefits of our insights and observations based on our years of
experience and expertise as to how the news media-rich environment we
operate in these days can affect your business and influence business
decisions. We also provide links at the bottom of this e-newsletter to
additional recent articles of interest, which you may find valuable. As
you review this week's CP Notes, ask yourself how would your business
handle these issues, all of which touch on that most ephemeral of
corporate assets; reputation.
We'd like to hear from you if you have your own thoughts on these issues
and are willing to comment. In addition, if you think we could help your
business address similar issues, please let us know. I can be reached by
e-mail at toleary@obriensrm.com
or by calling +1 (281) 379-7173.
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O'Brien'sRM Signs Letter Of
Intent To Acquire PIER Systems Inc.
You may have seen our September 10, 2009 press release announcing that
O'Brien'sRM has signed a letter of intent to acquire PIER Systems, Inc.
PIER (Public Information and Emergency Response) provides the most
advanced and comprehensive communication management technology and
related services to government agencies, industry, education, healthcare
and other sectors. PIER is in wide use already by the US Coast
Guard, other government agencies and a wide variety of industries. It has
become the sine qua non of emergency response communications and will be
a great fit with O'Brien'sRM.
As we have learned through recent notable spills, a successful response
is not only defined by the strategy and tactics, but by the public
perception. By combining the crisis communications capability of
PIER and O'Brien'sRM will be in the best position to affect a favorable
response on behalf of our clients.
PIER as a technology platform will continue to be fully supported
including moving forward with significant enhancements, becoming part of
the suite of technology products offered by O'Brien'sRM including
CommandPro® and ePlanPro™.
The strategic consulting, project management and technical support
services offered by PIER will significantly boost the newly announced
public relations services offered by O'Brien'sRM. I'll be writing more
about this exciting development in future CP Notes.
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Strategic Communications
In recent years, the US Department of Defense (DoD) has
struggled with a concept and a group of activities that has collectively
come to be known as "Strategic Communications." The term is
usually used in the context of military and political officials
trying to deal with communications efforts supporting the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan. For many people however, it seems that the term has come
to represent whatever attributes the user wishes to assign to it.
There's been a lot of discussion in recent years within DoD about the
nature of strategic communications and just how useful, competent and
relevant the Pentagon's burgeoning information warfare bureaucracy has
become. The pernicious meme of "Strategic Communications" has
also spread to industry with many self-described "gurus,"
"adepts" and "strategic communicators" now roaming
the consulting and corporate communications fields inflicting this term
on their clients and various businesses.
The term "strategic communications" has passed from jargon used
amongst the Pentagon's communications cognoscenti to a much wider usage
outside of military and diplomatic circles. Everyone seems to be talking
about strategic communications these days, but until now, there's been no
acceptable (and I think, common sense) definition.
Recently, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen,
ended the whole controversy about what strategic communications is or
isn't (at least within DoD). In a recent column he penned for Joint
Forces Quarterly, Admiral Mullen said:
"Strategic communication should be an enabling function that guides
and informs our decisions and not an organization unto itself. Rather
than trying to capture all communication activity underneath it, we
should use it to describe the process by which we integrate and
coordinate. To put it simply, we need to worry a lot less about how to
communicate our actions and much more about what our actions
communicate."
He also covered the "say-do" gap. If your business has a
"say-do" gap then you have a credibility problem, and that's
not good for any business or function within a business.
The entire article is provided here for your
review, and I believe this proverbial shot across the bow by Admiral
Mullen will be seen as an important milestone not only in DoD circles but
also for the communications business at large. Compared to the usual
jargon-laden writing one usually runs across on this subject, Admiral
Mullen's article is a blast of arctic air into a hot and stuffy room. The
fact that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has opined on this
issue will no doubt start to be translated into policy within DoD.
A corollary to Admiral Mullen's maxim above may also be: "Don't tell
me what you're going to do for me, tell me what you've done for me."
When the public is affected by industry operations we are often asked by
our stakeholders "what are you doing for me now?" Like the
Admiral says-talk about results, not intentions.
Please drop us a note if you have a comment on Admiral Mullen's article.
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"Station
Fire"-related information efforts are hit by LA County Supervisor
Many of you have seen the news out of Los Angeles
regarding the "Station Fire" in
the Angeles National Forest a few miles north of Los Angeles. Having already
killed two firefighters, the fire is one of the largest in recent
history, burning over 150,000 acres and destroying dozens of structures.
This has certainly been a very newsworthy event, garnering wide coverage
in the United States.
The Los Angeles County public information office was recently criticized by a
county supervisor for reportedly taking five days to post information on
the county's website regarding the Station Fire. Assuming that the
supervisor's criticism was indeed accurate, this indicates some serious
disconnect within county government.
When you are dealing with people's lives and property it is imperative
that government gets it right the first time out of the gate; especially
when it comes to wildfires in Southern California.
Not knowing too much more about this particular issue other than what the
news article provides however, I'll make some broad observations on the
value of preparation.
Certainly LA County officials get a lot of practice in real world events
(floods/earthquakes/fires/civil disturbances) and certainly something
happened in LA County recently where the wheels fell off the information
wagon that otherwise is a national model for best practices. Whatever the
reasons, this news story underscores the continuing need for facilities and
organizations to:
1) Write plans
2) Train staff on the content of the plans
3) Exercise staff on the plans
In an actual event, all of this preparation should translate into the
preparation and effective dissemination of incident critical information.
According to at least one Los Angeles County Supervisor, this didn't
happen.
Many facilities and government agencies can find it a struggle just keep
up with the minimum effort it takes to stay in compliance. If
you're in that situation and would like to take your level of
preparedness to the next level, please give us a call. We can write your
plans, train your staff and then exercise the staff as they carry out the
procedures in the plan. We'd like to hear from you and start a
conversation on how we can help.
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Swine Flu
As we head into the northern hemisphere's fall season, the
number of reported cases of swine flu continues to increase. Swine flu is
now at the pandemic stage and the prudent operator should heed advice
offered by health ministries, the World Health Organization and companies
like O'Brien'sRM.
We have full-time staff members with advanced degrees in epidemiology and
ample experience developing pandemic influenza plans and flu advice for industry
clients. If interested, you can contact us by calling +1 (281) 320-9796
or by emailing Clint
Ladd.
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Social Media Application
Profile
Flickr is a networked image
and video sharing application affiliated with Yahoo that makes it easy to
share pictures of the grandkids with friends and family. Flickr is also
utilized by environmental non-government
organizations and all manner of advocates. Is your organization
represented in Flickr? A quick look on the search function may reveal a
profile of your business that you may not have known even existed.
O'Brien's Response Management can assist in monitoring your internet
reputation. Please give us a ring if you'd like to find out more.
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Are you Ready?
Incidents can quickly escalate into a business crisis and
a business crisis will last as long as there is news media interest in
the incident. Is your business ready for global news media scrutiny in
the event of an incident involving one of your facilities? Does your
company have processes in place and the ability to field a team to
respond to an incident and return your business operations to normal as
soon as possible? Have you managed this risk?
Let us assist you with your news media and public relations needs.
Contact us today for a quote or more information at (281) 320-9796 or at mediarelations@obriensrm.com.
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Thank you - Please let us know
if you have any stories or items of information that we should know and
you'd like to pass on to other readers
Tim O'Leary, Vice President, Communications
O'Brien's Response Management
toleary@obriensrm.com
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