Pike River: The Darkest Hour

“To all those who have lost a loved one in the Pike River mine let me say: New Zealand stands shoulder to shoulder with you. Though we can not possibly feel this pain as you do, we have you in our hearts and our thoughts.”

– Prime Minister, Hon John Key’s address following the second explosion, November 24th 2010

I think it’s safe to say, time truly has stood still over the past few weeks as this tragedy unravelled in front of us. I’ve been through Greymouth and one of the things I still remember about it was that it was such a small community. I can only imagine the pain they are feeling right now, and as Mayor Kokshoorn said, it is indeed the town’s darkest hour.

I have and continue to pay close attention to the crisis communications of the Police and the CEO Peter Whittall as they have grappled to find answers to questions they never thought they’d hear. They have a long and difficult road ahead with the recovery process and the Royal Commission of Inquiry, and the rest of New Zealand waits in anticipation.

During the many press conferences held over those first few trying days, many hard questions were asked – and as the days continued, they became even harder. Superintendant, Gary Knowles was asked to compare the World Trade Centre’s terrorist attacks to the mining disaster, right before a journalist posed the question as to why he was organising everything when he was just a ‘local country cop’.

Not all journalists are like this though – hats off to the media for being considerate at the same time as seeking every possible thread of information.

From a crisis communications perspective, Pike River Mine CEO Peter Whittall has been a study in best practice because*:

“1. He was the right person for the job – the top company executive and a competent communicator
2. He stuck to the plan – tell the families first and then the media
3. He engendered trust through his straight, factual answers – all without getting flustered
4. He demonstrated competence and knowledge but also compassion – people believed him
5. His key messages were consistent and frequent – people knew that everything possible was being done” * Source here.

One of the most helpful resources I have been using to keep up to date with the news concerning Pike River is Twitter. I recommend you follow @pikerivernews for future updates and information about the disaster and add a yellow Twibbon to your page here. In addition, The Police have a great timeline turned newsfeed as does Pike River Coal.

To see the tribute U2 gave to all the miners while performing here last week, click here.

Written by Jess Miller.

 

The Qantas Files: Why the Miracle Landing was Perceived as a Disaster

Qantas needn’t have had caused such a fuss earlier this month after one of their aircrafts ran into engine troubles on a flight bound from Singapore to Sydney. If their Communications team had been onto it they could have stopped the online grapevine spiraling out of their control into the hands of social media junkies.

It started with one tweet from a guy on board with an accompanying picture that made it look as though there had or was going to be a crash. Inaccurate reports emerged alongside more tweets painting a very bad picture for the airline. Further to this, people on Batam (an island near Singapore) reported hearing an explosion and seeing smoke, and reports of people picking up debris only confirmed the faux story being sent around online.

What really happened, according to Qantas, was an A380 aircraft operating from Singapore to Sydney experienced an engine issue soon after takeoff and returned to Singapore. The aircraft had 440 passengers and 26 crew on board, and landed safely.

Thankfully, nobody was injured or hurt. Twitter’s role in this case was very interesting because people were essentially correcting the news cycle in real time. Here, Twitter helped set the facts straight and confirm their safety, but it also made it very difficult for families of passengers on board to know if they were alright as Qantas’ reply with an official statement was very delayed.

Add to that their Facebook and Twitter pages said nothing and offered absolutely no help whatsoever, frustrating tweeps and other online users hunting the story worldwide.

Some of the comments to this blog of the incident suggest that we consider the point of view of the airline – with partner Rolls Royce involved there is a major process involved before an official statement can be released. Reports are now saying that Rolls Royce will not meet their profit target for 2010 as a result of the debacle.

Moral of the story here: have appropriate online monitoring in place so that in the event something dramatic happens concerning your brand and the discussion is rife – your attention is alerted to it immediately. This is a prime example that you cannot ignore Twitter as the fastest spreading news outlet in the world – whether or not it is regulated as entirely accurate news is another story – I am simply saying that it is an unwieldy beast that your business needs at least a firm grip on.

An update over the weekend revealed the A380’s had engine modifications made by Rolls-Royce, just months before this disaster happened. Read the pilot’s version of the story, here.

Written by Jess Miller.

 

Crisis Comms: The Hobbit Roundup

After only two days of negotiations, PM John Key announced in a press conference that the Government would indeed be backing the $670 million dollar project The Hobbit to be made in New Zealand. Everyone except the Green Party applauded the decision.

With the deal comes job security for thousands of Kiwi’s, and we’ve secured one of the premier’s of the film to be on home turf - the Government in return providing US$10m for marketing costs and another possible US$7.5m in tax breaks for the two films, subject to their success.

The total bill for New Zealand just under $100m – but due to the fast acting on our part for this crisis to be resolved, I would think it was worth it.

So urgent new legislation changes have been rolled out that will apply to our entire film industry, which…"will ensure film workers hired as contractors will not be able to later argue in court that they were employees.”– New Zealand Herald

But how did all this mess begin in the first place? Pretty much overnight it was announced that producers of the film were preparing to move production off-shore, and all down to what Peter Jackson says is industrial action by NZ Actors’ Equity and Australian Union Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance undermining confidence in NZ as a stable employment environment. The turmoil caused Warner Bros to be very concerned about their $500m investment.

"Seemingly overnight, NZ Actors' Equity shredded the reputation of a burgeoning industry, which has been over forty years in the making”

Following this there was a Facebook page in support of keeping the films here, a cast of thousands rallying across the country in Auckland, Christchurch, Hamilton, Queenstown, and Matamata. A full page ad was also taken out in The Dominion Post in hopes that the team from Warner Bros would see and statements from the PM that they were asking for too much out of our small wallet.

Who knows if they did see it, but a solution was found and everyone seems to be happy. I commend the Government for finding a solution so quickly – there really is nothing worse than a contentious issue being dragged out – in my view it annoys people because of how saturated it gets by the media, more so than the heart of the problem itself.

Written by Jess Miller

C'mon Commonwealth!

So I prepared to write about all the wonderful things the Commonwealth Games had done in reaching audience’s through social media only to discover in that there was actually more to say about what they hadn’t done!

 Social Media NZ Creative Director John Lai (@iamjohnlai) recently wrote about the poor efforts in linking and utilizing the Commonwealth Games Twitter, Youtube and Facebook accounts, and failing to implement any sort of strategy across all fronts.
“..What differentiates a brand from the others, is the hard work and service a brand puts in order to connect with their fans/followers, which the Commonwealth Games Twitter page shows none of that connection whatsoever.”
 He suggests that with all the controversy surrounding the Games, they had better things to worry about than updating the Facebook, Twitter or Youtube pages. Perhaps they did, but here are a few of my ideas as to what else they could have done:

I personally feel that they could have taken a lot of heat off all the controversy by plugging the talent before, during and after the actual games.This could have been done via Flickr for a display of photos and descriptions of the world’s best, or perhaps an official Commonwealth Games iPhone app for even faster dissemination of information.
In terms of crisis communications I just wanted to profile WAYN.com, the largest travel and lifestyle social network with over 15.7 million members globally. They actively tried to lower the negative publicity around the Games by encouraging all Indians to upload pictures and leave messages of support to showcase the ‘positive face’ of the Games.
The UK Guardian reported that when team officials threatened to pull athletes out, the panel of influential’s behind the Games had only a matter of hours to put a plan into action, and there was talk of it already starting to affect the 2014 Games set for Glasgow.
Popular English bloggers One Chocolate Communications described the Games rightfully as a “PR disaster” – no better exemplified than when the head of the organising committee took to the stage at the opening ceremony and received boos.

“There have been allegations of corruption, ongoing concerns about the state of the facilities, outbreaks of Dengue fever and outcries of mismanagement.”
Seems to me that the basic steps of communication were missing from this recipe of disaster, lets hope Glasgow have a fully fledged strategy on board!
Written by Jess Miller