Behind The Spin

IBM: Big Blue blogging

Jodie Cooper finds how IBM, one of the world’s biggest companies, has turned blogging into something its employees do naturally – both internally, and on sites for the world to see.

Making a podcast out of a crisis

Chatrooms, podcasts, blogs, webcasting, RSS, digital interactive TV, 3G mobile telly-phones, vidcasts, blackberry, broadband, wi-fi – the list goes on. The range of gadgets and electronic communication media that have exploded on to the scene in the past five years is having a significant impact on today’s PR practitioner, particularly in times of crisis, writes Susan Black

According to a survey of 20 UK Public Relations practitioners:

• Over 80 percent of respondents have researched and prioritised their key stakeholders
• 94 percent of respondents were involved in crisis PR and all respondents, to varying degrees, found new media technology effective in a crisis
• A well-rehearsed crisis management team was cited as the top priority, followed in joint second place by two-way dialogue with stakeholders and that staff should learn about the crisis from management
• 100 percent said they manually monitored the electronic environment, but the “holy grail” of an effective, thorough and cost-efficient e-monitoring system was still somewhat elusive
• Only 6 percent of respondents actively engaged and interacted with blogs on behalf of their organisation or agency clients PR practitioners increasingly use electronic newswires to filter messages via the traditional Press release or statement out to the media in times of crisis
• Practitioners recognised the importance of the corporate website as a tool to host regular factual updates in times of crisis

Get up to speed - or miss the bus...

New media – even in the form of today’s rudimentary internet – is opening up a new way of communicating that we just cannot ignore. Gitanjali Diwan reports.