Hill+Knowlton Strategies

I speak often to companies about the role of digital technology and social media on contemporary crisis communications. It is a fascinating topic — not only for the issues that it introduces, but also because it requires the integration of a number of operational functions within organizations themselves, not simply communications.

That said, one of the key challenges in convincing companies to re-think their crisis response programs to reflect this new digital dynamic, is providing solid evidence that the web has become an increasingly vital conduit to communicating directly with stakeholders in times of crisis. In my view, the usual national penetration numbers don’t cut it.

So I was glad to find out that the Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness (CCEP) has just released the first in a series of annual national survey-based studies, entitled: Preparing for Crises: Findings and Implications from the National Survey on Emergency Preparedness in Canada.

Of the issues explored in the survey, the most interesting, in my mind,related to the information sources that respondents said they would turn to during an emergency. As Randy Hull, Emergency Preparedness Coordinator for the City of Winnipeg, notes in his foreward:

With regards to where public seek their information, I am reassured by the survey findings that TV, radio and Internet, are the most effective channels for reaching the public.The interesting number is that of Internet use, as it continues to increase. It will be of interest to see if this number surpasses the conventional media of radio and TV. Here in Winnipeg we created an extensive web site called EmergWeb, to assist people in their information search. This direction was taken based on 1997 flood data showing that 45% of people called, while the other 55% visited Winnipeg’s web page

Among its recommendations, the study authors noted specifically the following:

CCEP and governments might wish to focus more attention on the Internet, which displaced newspapers as the third most important source of emergency information. The emergence of the Internet calls for careful attention to public awareness of sites and public search practices. Data reported in table 6.2.1 in the Annex reveal that search engines and news sites are the main Internet avenues. The federal website, getprepared.ca, would receive essentially no direct traffic. From these findings, it follows that a priority should be for the federal government to ensure that search engines direct traffic to its site and that communications and advertising alert the public to the site’s presence

You can access the study here.

I love it. And I’m going to steal it. 

Reading the Economist while sitting in a doctor’s office, I came across this quote which in my mind captures perfectly the impact of social media on traditional corporate (and government) bureaucracy — specifically their increasingly impotent and ineffective approaches to communications:

“Truth and technology will triumph over bullsh*t and bureaucracy.”

The quote is attributed to Rene Anselmo, founder of PanAmSat, an interesting individual in his own right. 

Thirty-six days, 72,000 visits, nearly 700,000 page views, and 100+ mentions across various political and media blogs and discussion forums later, and the moment of judgement for the 2008 version of Hill & Knowlton Canada’s Federal Election Predictor is upon us…

As always, there is considerable trepidation when the final voting percentages are added into the system. And as always, it’s for naught. When broken down by party, our calculation (baked in proprietary mathematical goodness) was remarkably close to the end result… In fact, it was off by - wait for it - six seats (6).

Official Results:    CPC – 143 / LIB – 76 / NDP – 37 / BQ – 50 / GREEN – 0 / IND – 2

Predictor Results: CPC – 143 / LIB – 74 / NDP – 38 / BQ – 52 / GREEN – 0 / IND – 1 

Granted, a few discrepancies appear when the data is analyzed at the specific riding level (meaning that a few of the ridings we predicted didn’t match up with the official outcome). Overall, however, the digital team at H&K is pretty chuffed that we were able to play along with the big boys – pollsters, pundits and academics alike – in the seat projection game.

Of course, we’ll let others figure out what this all means, if anything, to the art and/or science of seat projection. From the standpoint of what it means for H&K, however, it’s clearly become a powerful franchise for ensuring the H&K brand remains top-of-mind with target audiences during an election campaign.

As an exercise in social media activation, our respective French and English Facebook pages generated a respectable 700 referrals collectively, while the site itself received positive saturation across the Canadian political blogosphere. Traditional media sites also played an important role with MacLean’s alone driving 1500+ visits (and further amplifying our footprint). And not surprisingly, Wikipedia was a key vehicle for awareness-raising, driving 3500+ visits to the site.

Ultimately, it was interesting to see such a high level of engagement on the site itself – with an average of 5 minutes spent per visit – as well as by bloggers and digital pundits via their own sites. Likewise, it was great to see (where the stats allowed) strong representation by those audiences who matter most to H&K’s public affairs teams – government bureaucrats at all levels, elected officials, academic institutions, competitors, and corporations both large and small.

Oh yeah, and the Conservatives secured another minority government.

I was not around in 1960 when these words were first spoken. But as we head to the polls once again, they remain as relevant and synonymous to Canada (and our society) now as Molson’s more recent, lighthearted (and perhaps more famous) take on Canadian culture – video embedded below. 

I am a Canadian,
free to speak without fear,
free to worship in my own way,
free to stand for what I think right,
free to oppose what I believe wrong,
or free to choose those
who shall govern my country.
This heritage of freedom
I pledge to uphold
for myself and all mankind.”

Kate seemed pretty excited when she landed on this. I share her excitement.

The virtual / conference mash-up idea is indeed brilliant (and kudos to the team who thought up the idea). Through applications such as slideshare and Youtube, an increasing plethora of content is being made available from a slew of experts across a variety of fields – including presentations such as this (which I hadn’t seen in years).

I can see a number of different applications for smart enterprises, including those looking to:

• Educate internal audiences without the associated travel and lost productivity costs. I can see how this idea might allow organizations to package and deliver content in ways that provide a significantly more complete context to the subject matter – be it marketing, social media, crisis communications, sales, engineering, whatever… from a stage-setter, to break-outs on more focused areas, and eye-candy in between.
• Inform external stakeholders on critical issues by aggregating and presenting multiple points of view from experts around the web combined with content created by your own organization and/or your supporters. Again, if appropriately packaged, the presentation will also provide a much broader picture and context that might ever have been possible previously. In doing so, I would also see a much more engaged discussion as experts and others see their content being mashed-up with ideas they may not support or which might contradict their own.

Wouldn’t you like to own one of these?

Nice to see the public sector willing to try something a little different.

Note: the Pomegranate Phone campaign was created by our east coast partner.