Digiwonder?

Thoughts on Naked Conversations Part II:

In the second half Robert Scoble and Shel Israel’s book, their discussion on blogging in crisis struck a chord with me.

I used to work in PR and would sometimes wonder what I’d do if a crisis hit my organization. My savvy would be tested. Would I pass?

Facing a PR crisis in the age of blogging seems all at once to be just as scary, but also empowering. If a company or organization has no connection with the blogosphere when trouble knocks, look out. But if the group has been patiently tending their blog garden, they should have a better shot at sailing through the storm unscathed– that is if they didn’t do something really wrong.

In a nutshell, the best defense when you hit a crisis is not only a smart response in the storm, but also your preparation before hand. Scoble and Israel offer many tips in their book for making it through a crisis. Here’s my summary of the ones I think are important:

• Start your own blog. Do it right (see Scobles principles for good blogging). Post often, link, converse. In this way you’ll become known in the blogosphere and you’ll get to know bloggers. This will also prepare you to act fast. Blog word-of-mouth travels at lightning speed.

• Make a practice of listening and answering rather than taking lots of time to craft a perfect statement. I think this is good advice both before, during, and after a crisis.

• Keep it open and transparent. Don’t hide negative comments. Respond to them and let your responses be seen. Be honest if you don’t know all the answers. Take your time in figuring out the right way forward– just keep communicating all the while.

• Scoble and Israel also suggest possibly creating a special crisis blog. An organization or company keeps this waiting in the wings for when a crisis hits. I think this would be most successful, if you are already on the blogosphere.

For crisis communicators, blogs should provide some peace of mind that there is a way to communicate directly with the public (at least the web literate public) without being at the mercy of reporters who filter your message to the world.

At the same time, I can see how crisis communicators might get nervous in the face of what seems like a big disorganized cacophony of blog voices who don’t follow one set of journalistic standards. What if a popular “in” blogger has taken to dislike your organization or company?

Hopefully the skilled communicator will patiently keep the dialogue going and enough other bloggers would join the conversation to direct things toward truth.