Though I have been caught up with the football, I am still in touch with the rest of the world. This is more than I can say for Tony Hayward, who thought it would be a good idea to go boating in an elite yachting event while barrels and barrels of oil gush into the ocean. It says a lot about not just Tony Hayward but about executives in general. There are many senior executives who somewhere along the way have completely lost touch with the "small people".
Their daily lives are somehow spent in a bubble where they fraternise among themselves and share the same belief systems, honed after years of living in said bubble. So when it comes down to dealing with life situations outside of that bubble - be it internally with employee issues or externally as in the BP case, they believe what they know to be right. It's when these issues manifest themselves in the public domain, that we recognise the growing chasm between those "up there" and the little people.
They spend much of their day at internal meetings, getting information from their managers. They get advice from their boards, who tend to be older men and a few women who are even further detached from the web. Board members have even less of a clue. So most CEOs are probably having the wrong conversations about the wrong things with the wrong people. - Business Week
Maybe if more leaders went "undercover" as in the CBS reality show Undercover Boss, or more realistically, spent more time interfacing with people other than their elite peers - employees, customers for example, they would better understand the way the real world works and how real people are affected by events that somehow don't seem to matter much to them.
"The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume." - Tony Hayward, May 14.
And it is these out of touch with reality statements and actions from BP and its executive which continue to exacerbate what is already an insurmountable scenario. It makes even the term "public relations" a misnomer because if he in fact had any type of real, honest to goodness relations outside of his myopic inner circle, then he would probably not be so regularly angering the public.
The immediacy and community of social media benefitted many of the millions of stranded travellers across Europe and the world. Sitting around in an airport is never fun. I have had my share of long layovers and having access to other people rather than running amok in a terminal was really a Godsend. I was never as unfortunate (knock on wood) as the "victims" of the Icelandic ash vs flightplans, but I can well imagine how having a channel to the outside world, to tips and help would lend to maintaining one's sanity in the face of uncertainty, especially after several days.
The Survival Guide page was one such page created on Facebook, where already over 1600 persons have been offering tips, advice and using the space for frustrated discussion.
Not only was it an opportunity for travellers to connect with each other and share their experiences and gripes, but it also afforded many of them the opportunity to find accomodation and support from others. On Twitter, hashtags like #getmehome, #putmeup and #stranded have provided tweeters with dozens of links to available hotel rooms, guest rooms, people willing to put up the stranded in a spare room of their private homes, etc.
The uncertainty lately with flightplans, with strikes and acts of God have made it even more important for social media to play bigger roles in the tourism and hospitality industry. Their crisis management plans not only kicked into high gear but also took to the cyberverse in a big way. Communication in this instance needed to be immediate and ongoing, with so many people being affected and taken completely by surprise. Not knowing when you're going to be seeing your home, your dog, your 2.5 kids because you're stuck in a foreign country can only exacerbate an already tenuous scenario. Twitter sites from airlines and hotels lit up like flash bulbs when news of the ash cloud stopping flights first dropped. Tweets and DMs have been going back and forth between airline representatives and passengers, as one can imagine. Despite not being stranded anywhere myself, I still took time to tweet @British_Airways yesterday on something related to the ash and their tweeters are on the ball, though it must be an extremely tough time for them all at the moment - passengers and airlines alike.
This Facebook group is just one of many which was formed within hours of the closure of European airspace to offer solace to passengers stranded miles from home in New Zealand.
There have also been a number of people who have used the opportunity to blog about their experience, from sitting in an airport terminal, to looking for more comfortable accomodation, trying to reach family in other cities, and the long, convuluted journeys home. Nadia El-Awady chronicled her Icelandic ash "adventures" in her blog, Inner Workings of my Mind. There are many more and which would be excellent reading, I am sure.
The silver lining in this ash cloud is that we are reminded that community still exists and though we use social media everyday for idle chatter or for business/marketing, we only fully appreciate how powerful social media communities really are in times of crisis. The help which many of the stranded have been able to get simply by logging on to Facebook or Twitter or Roadsharing via their laptops or their mobile phones, is testament to how important social media has become in our daily lives and how it can connect us to people we never imagined we would need to be connected to. Had this happened back in the 90's or maybe even 3-5 years ago, when social networking had not yet gripped our senses, I can only guess that the chaos experienced by those left behind would have been multiplied by 10,000. Here's hoping everyone gets back home safely in coming days and weeks.
Here is a really cool story about a webcam wedding which happened as a result of the bride and groom being stranded. Congrats to them. Ahh...technology. Isn't it great?
I just have a few observations on this whole Toyota debacle.
1. It is sometimes the crime of management which leaves the PR team with egg on their faces. As we were reminded in a seminar this week, PR people are not the decision makers in an organisation and often are left out of the decisions and major developments at the senior management or board levels. The question then is, how aware were Toyota's PR people about the shortcomings of the car giant's vehicles, if at all, and how soon were they then roped in to do damage control? It's often as though PR people are like window dressing and not taken seriously until the proverbial crap hits the fan. Eight million recalled cars later, news of not only faulty accelerators but also crappy brakes and the revelation that these flaws were well known by the manufacturer, and suddenly it's all about the PR team - leaping into action to rescue a global brand from near destined collapse; trying to save the company from management's sins, all the while taking the beating on the frontline.
2. Where is the trust? The company admitted that they were aware of the faulty accelerators, but their issue was not one of safety but rather of a "smooth" ride. Seriously? This is where the concept that PR is all smoke and mirrors comes from - statements like that. So okay, let's say I was dropped on my head as a child and I believed that, then Toyota is still admitting that they put a less than perfect product out on the market for the carpooling mummies, busy, always-on-the-go professionals and teenagers borrowing the car for Saturday nights out with their friends.
3. Walking the talk - Toyota president wants the millions of Toyota owners around the world to believe him when he says his cars are safe and then flips them all the bird when he leaves the press conference via an AUDI! Does this dude have a PR advisor, or on a more basic, common sense level - does this guy have a clue? I mean, even if you really don't drive your own cars, taking one home that day would not have killed you. Oh wait...faulty brakes and accelerators? Okay...maybe it would have.
4. It seems like Toyota is all over the place with the communications strategy - literally and figuratively. The PR teams worldwide are coming out of the woodwork with statements, which vary in delivery and content. From Mr Toyoda aka "I believe in Audi, not my own cars", to Mr Jon "I drive a Toyota. My family and friends drive Toyotas, and I would not allow my loved ones to drive our cars if I did not believe they were safe" Williams, the commercial director in the UK. It's a virtual pelau of messages coming out of Camp Save Toyota, from PR people, non-PR people, Audi lovers, and it does nothing to build confidence among their customers and stakeholders. It's as though everyone is being given a chance to see if they can do better than the first guy to make amends.
I would hope if Nissan ever screws up, they would be a bit more honest in their communication, more proactive and ultimately less reactive, genuinely remorseful and not boldly put their execs in a BMW after the press conference.
I decided to put all my doodlings on one site and have people share their own thoughts on same. Sometimes I will post PR shop stuff, and other times, I won't.
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