New Challenges, New Opportunities: the role of new media in crisis communications

In my role as Events Officer for the CIPR Education and Skills Sector Group, I have been organising a conference on the role that new media plays in crisis communications. I am very excited about this conference because we have such a great line up:

- Peter Reader, University of Portsmouth (and all-round crisis comms guru for the HE sector!)
- Michael Dame, Virginia Tech (yes, we’re flying him all the way from the States to talk about their horrendous experience in April 2007)
- Tom Abbott, University of Warwick (new media guru and my personal sounding board!)
- Emma Leech, Manchester Metropolitan University (Chair of CIPR Education and Skills Sector Group and boss of a very very new media savvy team!)
- Alison Arnott, Glasgow Caledonian University (the first BAA media officer on the ground at Glasgow Airport when the flaming jeep crashed into the building)

This is going to be a really exciting event, with a good long session for groups of delegates to plan how to deal with crisis situations that we’ll be throwing at them – with an added element of surprise!

Further details are available online here.

If anyone would like a booking form, they can email me to request one: tracy@picklejarcommunications.com

A Right Royal Mess

I had a wry smile to myself today as I read Tariq Tahir’s article in the THES, ‘The Queen for a Day’.

Reading others’ experiences of hosting a royal visit took me back a few years to a former role at the University of Warwick. It’s not quite to the scale of Joan Concannon’s experience at the University of Dundee, but I’ll share my experience anyway …

Event management was a fairly significant part of my job back then when the Communications Office started receiving calls from the West Midlands High Sheriff’s office telling us that the Duke of York would be visiting the University in a few weeks time. Initial reaction seemed to be that this was a hoax. Several calls later everyone began to accept that this was for real and that His Highness would be dropping by for a visit to the University’s Science Park. I was quickly drafted onto the organising committee for what was perhaps the most surreal event that I had been involved in organising. Firstly there was the security and deciding where on earth his helicopter should land. Then there was the route, working out which doors to take and timing the visit down to every last second. Then there was the brash academic who needed to be involved in the programme but steadfastly refused to alter his schedule to suit the visit (firm words from the powers-that-be put paid to that). Then, of course, crucially there was the catering (he was stopping in for lunch): a specific brand of bottled water with the caps unopened, and nothing smelly in the sandwiches – strictly no onions or garlic.

Peter, the University’s press manager, rightly assumed that the visit wouldn’t really attract any press attention but went ahead and invited members of the press anyway as instructed. A few photographers and, if memory serves, Sky News turned up. However, the Duke arrived in the foulest of foul moods, stomped straight past the press and straight into the building. No good coverage that day then!

I spent the initial stages of the visit (while the Duke was being escorted around and presented to by anyone that we had ‘guessed’ would be of interest to him) dashing around making sure everything was set for lunch and trying to keep the men with the curly wires behind their ears happy! Lunch was hosted in a building with some well-meaning, but over-excited women eager to catch a glimpse of the Prince. The lunch itself felt a little like a wake: very sombre and controlled, with everyone politely munching on quartered sandwiches and sipping tea. By careful manoeuvring I managed to be one of the few people in the room to avoid having to exchange pleasantries with the Prince by pretending to be just too busy making sure everything was running smoothly. That, and hiding behind columns. The thought of having to remember the rules of address, and worse still having to actually do that curtsy for real that I had practised so many times (and that I had had to instruct so many others on) filled me with horror. The suddenly, he was gone. All over. Event disbanded. Not even a celebratory glass of wine and pat on the back as we were acustomed to do at Warwick after a successful event. As I say, it was a surreal day but I understand no where near as surreal as the Presidential visit that Warwick hosted back in 2000. My former colleagues have anecdotes galore from that event – but that’s their story to tell (although my personal favorite is the colleague who responded to someone lightly tapping on their shoulder only to turn around face-to-face with Sir Trevor McDonald politely saying that he had lost his ticket and would it still be okay for him to go into the main hall – bless!).

PS Okay, so my title of this blog post is a little unfair – it wasn’t really a ‘mess’ – but I wanted something snappy and it seemed like fun!

Fast Forward to the End

Tomorrow we’re holding the final of the Fast Forward series for Ideas for Life TV. Not only have I been production manager for this project, but I have also had to be event manager too pulling together all the various strands to make it work. I have to say, I’m feeling quite sad that it all wraps up tomorrow (with the exception of one further piece that we need to film with another company). On the plus side, I will be able to stop working silly hours for a short while, my house actually might get cleaned this weekend, and I will really get to see just how far our teams have come along. It’s been an interesting experiment in science communication and I’ll reflect more on that soon, but for now I need to get back into those last minute preparations for the final. The prizes for the kids have started to arrive at my door now and I think there’s another delivery man knocking at the door right now …

PR for Medical Research

Last week I attended a discussion event hosted by the CIPR’s Health sector group. The event focused mostly on the impact of media (print media in the main) on patients and patient groups. However, a speaker from the Parkinson’s Society through up an interesting point. Discussing their reactions to stories about medical developments or “breakthroughs” she mentioned that one of the first things she would also consider in those stories is at what stage the research is at – is it still in petri dishes or is it in clinical trial.

Having worked on many medical research news stories over the past few years this got me pondering … at what point should universities and research organisations press release medical research stories? On the one hand there is a danger of releasing something early. The research might still be in the lab, or even a theory, and might not work at all in clinical trial. Announcing it to the world at this stage could raise false hopes and create all kinds of problems for GPs and health workers with patients demanding treatments that don’t yet even exist. On the other hand, however, releasing stories at this early stage just might help researchers to raise the profile of the research enough to encourage funding to enable further development and clinical trials. It’s a fine balancing act between the impact on patients and health professionals, and the need to raise the profile of research in order to further it. Tricky one. I think there’s a whole other event just in this subject alone.