PR from the Beach

Mount Ruapehu Timelapse

Brilliant timelapse photography from Jared Brandon. No comment to make on it - just absolutely worth sharing and watching. Stunning.

Mt Ruapehu Timelapse from Jared Brandon Productions on Vimeo.

 

Kia Kaha Christchurch

February has been bracketed by disaster. I started the month writing about Tropical Cyclone Yasi and I'm ending it with a post about the devastating earthquake that has shaken the beautiful city of Christchurch to its knees.

But amid the sorrow and tragic loss of life, the human spirit has shone through, not just in the bravery of those entering the crumbled buildings to rescue others, or the thousands of volunteers who have flocked to help, but in the day-to-day of things - a word of comfort, an act of concern, a smile amid the wreckage, a stranger opening a door to those displaced. New Zealand has shown itself to be a national family and the first line of our national anthem has been underlined by the actions of its citizens:

"God of nations at thy feet, in the bonds of love we meet'

Aroha - love - is much in evidence, demonstrated by the actions of many. Collective worry for the thousands affected continues to deepen as we try to work forward to improve their desperate situation. 

Up here in Auckland we have running water, flushing toilets, uncracked walls and roofs intact - but even so, the disaster has touched everyone. New Zealand is a small country and without exception, we all have a friend or a family member who is involved in some way.  We have all leapt into action, doing whatever we can to help ease the plight of those whose lives have been shattered by natural disaster for the second time in six months. Whatever we do doesn't seem to be enough - so we'll do more. And we'll keep doing more until it's fixed.

Tomorrow there will be two minutes of silence at 12.51pm.  There will be a sea of red and black as people wear the colours of Canterbury. There will be tears, resolve and determination. There are still the missing to find and, as has been said time and again, everything is being done to bring them home to their loved ones.

It was a savage and brutal earthquake. It ripped apart an already injured city, trying as it was to heal after the September 4 2010 earthquake.  There will be weeks ahead to look, explore and plan what comes next, how to rebuild and how, simply, to stay while the deep scars heal. But, for the moment, it is enough to say stay strong. It will get better, the arms of the nation are open to all - and everyone will do their best. Kia Kaha Christchurch

 

 

Top communications as Queensland braces for #TCYasi

As I write, Northern Queensland is braced to bear the worst tropical cyclone Australia has ever experienced. In 1974, Cyclone Tracy caused utter devastation in Darwin but was smaller than the system that is steaming into Townsville and environs at the moment.

What the outcome will be we have no idea and, at present, can only hope and pray that there is no loss of life and minimal injuries for the thousands taking shelter from what looks to be a truly catastrophic storm.

Throughout the preparations, @QPMedia, the Queensland Police media team have used every channel available to them to warn, cajole, encourage, advise and inform the people of North Queensland ahead of this disaster. Facebook pages, Twitter streams, live streaming, audio - everything has been pulled together to give maximum warning and information to those affected. And all this just weeks after floods ravaged the Sunshine State. The picture below, circulating on Twitter today, shows Tracy on the left and Yasi on the right.

Communicating in any disaster is a huge undertaking - to have to deal with two disasters in quick succession is beyond pretty much everyone's experience. I take my hat off to the Queensland Police communications team and also to Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, who has also been superb in her clear, calm and uncompromising communications with the public.

Tropical Cyclone Yasi is due to hit land at around 10pm EST - about 1am NZT - and, like many others, I'll be praying that those in the shelters, still at home or trying to get out of the path of the storm are safe. I also hope that we will all be able to do something to sort out the inevitable aftermath that will have to be dealt with. 

In the meantime, safe passage to all involved and I would publicly pay my respects to those who have tried so hard to communicate the scope of the situation in such difficult circumstances.

BP Crisis Plan Fail - would yours be any better?

I wasn't surprised to read the Associated Press story that seemed to imply that the BP Crisis Plan - all 582 pages of it, with 52 of them site-specific to Deepwater Horizon - had been gathering dust in a draw somewhere.  One of the go-to experts named in the plan died in 2005, links to resources were null and void and all in all, the plans approved by the Federal Government as recently as last year were, to say the very least, wanting.

I have heard no mention of the Transocean plan, the company that owns the Deepwater Horizon rig, who are continually conspicuous by their absence or indeed, America's Halliburton company, also missing in action and which was working down there prior to the explosion that killed 11 people. It seems that BP, however ill-prepared, is happy to take the blame for this one, even though they are not the only players involved.

The trouble with 582 page reports is that nobody ever really reads them properly. Nor would it seem in this case, do they check the detail, for if they did, surely someone would have picked up that at least one of their experts would not be available in a crisis? Or that the risks had been seriously underestimated? Or how hard it would be to 'fix' problems so far underwater? Or the impact on the environment? The list here really is endless.

As this environmental, social and economic disaster has unfolded, it has been obvious to everyone that someone, somewhere, who should have been responsible for crisis planning has failed in their duty, from the response to repair and re-engineering, to communication and culpability.  Equally, some blame must lie with the departments that passed the plans as acceptable - or perhaps the size of the report put them off a thorough read.

Any practitioner worth their salt knows that you must run a crisis plan regularly, that you audit-check contacts and details with a pedantic frequency and, at the risk assessment level, ongoing evaluation should inform your plan and the varying degrees of risk faced by your organisation, the community and your stakeholders.  How a company like BP, involved in one of the most risk-laden and dangerous businesses on earth could have a plan with apparently so many errors included defies belief.

AP quote BP's spokesman Daren Beaudo as saying: "...the response plans will be reviewed "so that we can determine what worked well and what needs improvement."

"Thus far we have implemented the largest spill response in history and many, many elements of it have worked well. However, we are greatly disappointed that oil has made landfall and impacted shorelines and marshes. The situation we are dealing with is clearly complex, unprecedented and will offer us much to learn from."

I would suggest that they will be learning for years. I also wonder if anywhere else in the BP universe other crisis plans are being checked and overhauled. If I was there today, I would be getting people on to that double-quick-smart. Sadly though, I fear that they are probably oblivious to the need to do this.

I also hope that any practitioner out there  who has not created and run their crisis plan gets on to it today and, if there is an ancient plan festering in a draw somewhere, get it out, review it, check it, run it and practice it like a fire drill so you can test if it works, hunt down where the flaws lie and what you need to do as an organisation to make it work.  Accidents happen but incompetency is avoidable.  Good issues management reduces risk, but sometimes things go wrong, which is why a crisis plan is essential.  A good crisis plan should reduce or eliminate the danger to and affect of any incident on the public, the environment and the organisation and lead to swift recovery for all involved. It should be accessible, understood by everyone and practiced often. BP did not have a good crisis plan. I hope you do.

CEO Fail: Hayward 'wants life back' yet could have fixed BP in 2006

Like many, I have watched in horror at the unfolding BP disaster. The loss of life, the environmental damage, the illnesses reported among the clean-up workers - it really is unbelievable. From a professional perspective, I am staggered at the way the crisis has been handled by the company, epitomised by Tony Hayward's latest throw away comment 'I want my life back', documented in the video above.

A couple of years ago, as he was rising to the challenge of leading BP, Hayward commented at a town hall meeting in Houston, in the wake of a Texas refinery blast that killed 15 and injured 170 people: "We have a leadership style that is too directive and doesn't listen sufficiently well".

Indeed. And although at that time he was heir-apparent to the BP CEO's throne it would seem that after a couple of years at the helm, very little has changed. And this to me is his biggest failure in this crisis. He recognised the shortcomings of the organisation, but failed to fix it. That was his opportunity to avoid the crisis he is in the midst of right now.  Change the organisation. Improve practices. Keep your people and those around them safe. Make sure that the communication processes and the relationships you need to manage a crisis are in place, long before you need them. This is not just about 'making a crisis plan. A real crisis plan involves isolating and identifying what is wrong with your organisation - and fixing it, before it blows a hole in your company and the innocent lives of others. To acknowledge deficiencies and fail to act on them, well that's just negligence.

You can't be aware of, and say this : ""We have a management style that has made a virtue out of doing more for less. The mantra of more-for-less says that we can get 100 percent of the task completed with 90 percent of the resources. Which in some senses is okay and might work, but it needs to be deployed with great judgment and wisdom. When it isn't, you run into trouble."

"The frontline operations teams, I think, have lived too long in the world of making do and patching up this quarter for the next quarter...rather than really thinking about how we are going to maintain a piece of equipment for the next 30 or 40 years."

...and expect everything to be ok with no action required. Yet those are Tony Hayward's words from December 11 2006.

I see they have drafted in Cheney's old press spokesperson, Anne Womack-Koln 'to deal with the media'. All a bit late for that I'd say. In today's world, it is the CEO's responsibility to front up to all stakeholders, not just the media. The actions of the company prior to the disaster are paramount and the actions of BP prior to this event are wanting to say the least.

Tony Hayward is not one of life's natural communicators and whoever is advising him through this crisis would seem to be seriously lacking the abilities needed in this situation. Putting aside his lack of any obvious support, he is supposedly a CEO, which infers the ability to lead, change, act and resolve. Unfortunately, the problems apparently inherent within the company are as widespread as the surface oil slathering its way up the coast. Both require drastic action and the scars from both will remain for years ahead. Somehow, I don't think Hayward will ever get his wish.

Cow pat energy could boost data storage?

The latest research paper from Hewlett Packard puts a whole new slant on digital waste.  Their idea? Use waste from the dairy industry to create 'natural energy plants that could power data storage centres. Apparently 10,000 dairy cows would produce 1GW, enough to supply electricity to the farmer and the assigned data centre.  Interesting thinking - wonder if there is the will anywhere to put it into action? Certainly could boost NZ's economy and make good use of those troublesome dairy emissions! Seems like an opportunity to me.

Scratching at the Surface - Wirtland gets physical

This time last year I blogged about the virtual country, Wirtland, which had been established as a haven for those fed up with their own physical land-locked, quarrelsome or cash-strapped places of residence - although to be fair, Wirtland describes itself as 'an experiment into legitimacy and self-sustainability of a country without its own soil'.

Things have moved on apace in twelve months, as it seems they need their own soil after all.  Cristopher Luengo, PR Attache to the Government of Wirtland's Foreign Office, has issued an email release to advise that Wirtland is shopping for land, with its sights set on the tiny South Pacific Island nation, Nauru. Cristopher says in his release that Wirtland hopes to acquire land by consent from Nauru and, if successful, it would be the first case of a peaceful formation of a new country 'from scratch'.

I was surprised to see the bid for land, as Wirtland's national pride lies in its virtuality (or virtuosity?), although I can quite understand if you are going to set up a new country then a tiny sun-drenched South Pacific paradise is going to please the voters.  However, it would seem that under various international conventions, Wirtland cannot be recognised as a nation state without a bit of land to hang on to. The quality and size of the land doesn't matter apparently - it simply has to exist and nationals have to own a piece. The intention is not to move there - ever.  Just fulfill the requirements of international law when it comes to recognition.  I have no idea what Nauru makes of all this so far and it is going to be really interesting watching Wirtland's progress towards a virtual real-estate  existence. 

I did find myself deliberating (with myself of course) whether, if Nauru was against the plan, I could sell Wirtland residents a few feet of my back garden? Technically it's mine to do with as I wish - but would that constitute selling New Zealand (or four flower beds of it in any case) illegally? Such are the legal conundrums that social media, its virtual and physical manifestations present to us. If you know the answer, tell me - I'd love to know what the legal ramifications would be!

Another Tsunami warning and NZ Civil Defence communication still looks scarily inept

As I write, we are on another tsunami advisory following three more Pacific earthquakes, this time around Vanuatu. Whether the island will suffer the same terrible devastation and loss as Samoa and parts of Tonga we don't yet know - we can only hope that all are safe and that no lives are lost.

Here in New Zealand, I have been watching the Civil Defence communications with keen interest - more so than usual following recent events. I am flabbergasted that they are still relying on static web updates to communicate urgent information. Surely all major organisations must be aware that in today's communications environment if they don't fill the information void themselves, then someone else will - and in a crisis situation this in itself will add to misunderstanding, miscommunication and life-threatening mistakes.

Ironically, next week is Disaster Awareness Week, when we are all supposed to knuckle down and make sure we are prepared for the kind of natural disasters we have seen so frequently in recent months. Part of the Civil Defence advance promotion package includes a 'media kit' for participating organisations designed to help them disseminate 'key messages'. All the advice is centred entirely on old-school traditional mainstream media without the slightest acknowledgment that other forms of communication exist. The advice is also expensive as it suggests local media advertising as a major tactic. Will such a tactic add to a local programme given the extensive advertising campaign already running on national television? I don't think so.

If I was to name one single benefit of the online environment, it would be the ability to harness the power of social media tools in crisis communication. Sadly, the Civil Defence department doesn't seem to have grasped this, even though other emergency services around the world have seen, experienced and utilised the power of digital communication. Come on guys - at least tweet your updates. You have my phone number because as a conscientious citizen I registered to be part of the 'early warning system' (which didn't happen by the way) - send me a text to say 'Stay off the beach' or 'Grab your emergency kit, it's incoming' or even a reassuring 'All's well'.  Simple really - and achievable at a fraction of the cost of the advertising currently recommended.

When infrastructure is wiped out as a result of a disaster - natural or otherwise - then we would have to work with whatever is left - sounding a drum, banging the rocks or tapping out Morse code. But for advanced warning - while we are all still switched on, plugged in and open to send and receive facts - using digital engagement to communicate could save thousands of lives. Simply hoping someone might pass by an old-school web site and pick up infrequent updates will leave us all sinking in a sea of inertia.

The Ice-Melt Cometh

If you haven't caught the ice shelf melt in Antarctica, then check out this report from the BBC. Winter draws on here in the South, but things are definitely warming up where they shouldn't be. For a flyover of the shelf, look here and the 'collapse' report is recorded here. Magnificent indicators of things to come?

All eyes on the skies as the hunt for a 'New Earth' begins

In case you've missed it, the Kepler Mission is scheduled to launch today. And in case that is lost on you as well, Kepler is on the hunt for habitable planets. Much has been made of the possibility that a new 'Earth' will be discovered as this first ever mission capable of unearthing 'Earth' size planets takes off for the great beyond.

I will never cease to marvel that humans have the ability to remove themselves from this planet and head off looking for new ones. As Orion wheels overhead through our long summer here and Betelgeuse blinks its way into the evening, I find myself regularly watching for the space station to pass by - awestruck that someone is up there, possibly having a cup of space tea and a ship's biscuit after a hard day at the control panel.

People can do such great things. Our collective human tragedy is that we can't seem to harness the brilliance and ingenuity we possess to bring peace and prosperity to this Earth, which, for the moment at least, is the only one we've got.