BulletProofBlog the blog on crisis communications

As part of a continuing series of Bulletproof Blog™ video interviews with thought leaders across multiple disciplines and industry sectors, I recently sat down with Paul Equale, President of Equale and Associates, to discuss the most significant impacts of impending financial regulatory reform. With the most expansive changes to the financial regulatory structure in a generation in the offing, Mr. Equale outlined key details about the bill, outlined how discussions at the international level – and ... READ MORE

Is there a food maker, retailer or consumer product manufacturer in the United States that isn’t insured against fire damage? Of course not. Yet a fire insurance claim is extremely rare, occurring perhaps once in the history of most companies. Now what are the odds that a typical manufacturer or retailer will have to recall a product in the next year? Based on the hundreds of recalls announced each month by the Food and Drug Administration, ... READ MORE

In 1998, 16-month-old Danny Keysar was killed after his crib at a Chicago-area day care facility collapsed. When his parents learned that the crib had been recalled five years earlier, they were understandably outraged. The day care provider had no idea the crib had been recalled. Neither did the parent who had donated it. An underlying cause of the problem that led to Danny Keysar’s death is called “recall fatigue.” With tens of millions of products ... READ MORE

The top six social media tips to know before you leave the office. Speed is an essential ingredient of effective digital age crisis management. The Web’s ability to virally spread critical commentary or misleading information around the world in minutes means that companies caught flatfooted put themselves at an extreme disadvantage.  But while the real-time nature of digital communication does present problems for companies in crisis, it also pro vides solutions. When companies actively monitor the ... READ MORE

In 2010, any disaster response communications effort that lacks a digital component isn’t built for a world in which Web resources are the most trusted and widely-read media of the day. As ongoing containment and clean-up efforts in the Gulf continue, that’s a fact clearly not lost on the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command. While www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com appears to have been hastily designed and the navigation leaves something to be desired (understandable shortcomings under the present circumstances), the ... READ MORE

Today, companies have more reasons to engage in the fight against corruption than ever before. In 2010 alone, we’ve seen a record-breaking prison sentence and evidence of massive increases in nearly every measureable enforcement metric related to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). We’ve witnessed the enactment of the UK Bribery Bill 2010, which has been called the “toughest enforcement standard in the world.” We’ve heard global investors voice their desire for greater disclosure ... READ MORE

Late yesterday, reports surfaced that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York is conducting a criminal investigation into whether Goldman Sachs or its employees committed securities fraud while trading in the mortgage market. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) referred the matter to the Justice Department, according to reports. The extent to which this news ratchets up the pressure on Goldman Sachs is hard to overstate. As the Wall Street Journal noted, ... READ MORE

Last week, when it seemed that the environmental impacts of an oil rig explosion off Louisiana’s coast were on their way to being contained, I wrote in this space about the need for British Petroleum (BP) to aggressively communicate the steps it had taken, and would continue to take, to protect the people and wildlife of the Gulf Coast region. Since then, the situation has deteriorated – both in the Gulf and in the media, ... READ MORE

When ash from an erupting Icelandic volcano disrupted air travel across Europe earlier this month, more than five million passengers found themselves in the same boat – booking hotel rooms and buying meals that would make their extended stays just a little more bearable. But when it came time to pay for these basic necessities, some travelers had expenses covered by their airlines, while others were forced to fend for themselves. That’s because laws governing passengers’ ... READ MORE

Do you know where to find the world’s fastest mobile Internet network? It isn’t in Beijing, London, Tokyo, or Paris. Here in the U.S., Sprint (which just this morning posted its first sequential increase in net operating and wireless service revenues in three years) has developed a system that transfers video, voice, and data to mobile devices ten times faster than previous commercial networks – but that isn’t the fastest either. As it turns out, it’s ... READ MORE