{"id":9511,"date":"2023-11-03T17:00:21","date_gmt":"2023-11-03T22:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eganenergy.com\/?p=9511"},"modified":"2024-02-09T09:51:41","modified_gmt":"2024-02-09T15:51:41","slug":"utility-crisis-communications-qa-with-an-expert-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eganenergy.com\/2023\/11\/03\/utility-crisis-communications-qa-with-an-expert-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Utility Crisis Communications: Q&A with an Expert | Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If you missed Part 1 of our interview on utility crisis communications in last month\u2019s blog, you will want to check it out here. This month, we are continuing our conversation with veteran crisis communicator Tom Fladung of Hennes Communications.<\/p>\n
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From wildfires in Hawaii to hurricanes in Florida, and sweltering heat, ice storms, boil-water notices, tornadoes, and extended service outages everywhere in between, 2023 has provided many crises (or near crises) on which utility communicators must communicate. That\u2019s why we sat down with Thomas Fladung <\/strong>(left),<\/em> managing <\/strong>partner at Hennes Communications, <\/strong>a crisis communications firm, to assess the current state of utility crisis communications.<\/p>\n Question:<\/span> You\u2019ve been on both sides of crisis communications: as a newspaper reporter and editor and as a crisis communications practitioner. All told, you\u2019ve got nearly four decades in this game. What\u2019s different, and what\u2019s still true?<\/strong><\/p>\n Answer:<\/span> <\/strong>How we communicate has changed profoundly. We are living through the first era of truly instant communication where literally everyone is potentially a publisher. There\u2019s good and bad to this, of course. Think of the array of news and information sources we now have literally a click away. At the same time, the system of fact checking and editing that was developed over decades by news organizations has now largely gone away. At one of the newspapers where I worked, every front-page story was edited at least six times. Now, most of the stuff carried by social media platforms goes through no fact-checking. Information is flowing freely but assuring that it\u2019s reliable information is now more the responsibility of the news consumer.<\/p>\n Social media has brought its own set of opportunities and challenges. People still don\u2019t seem to understand a couple of fundamental facts. First, if you post something \u00a0on the internet, you should assume it will never go away. Second, the moment you post something on social media, you\u2019ve lost control of it. You don\u2019t control who reads it, how it\u2019s interpreted, or what others do with it.<\/p>\n Time after time, we see crises start because someone in an organization posts something on social media that they shouldn\u2019t have.<\/p>\n All this has put reputations, earned over years, more at risk of being damaged, in hours or even minutes. For us, all this also means it\u2019s more important than ever to tell your own story.<\/p>\n I like to use the example of a nonprofit organization that discovered an employee had stolen a large amount of money. We recommended the group break the news themselves, say what happened, how it was going to impact their fundraising, and what steps it was taking to make sure this didn\u2019t happen again. The group followed our advice, and the story was not this \u201cscandal at this nonprofit.\u201d Rather, it was the nonprofit policing itself and fixing the problem.<\/p>\n We tell our clients that you can\u2019t communicate your way out of a problem. You must work your way out of it. And then you must truthfully and clearly communicate those actions<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n