Belgian politics, Amazon Kindle & Product recalls

What do these have in common you might ask...

Nothing in fact. It is just that these 3 topics are pretty relevant to me for the moment.

Belgian politics:

I have been asked by Dominique Deckmyn, the editor in chief of the Standaard Online - the online edition of one of our national newspapers here in Belgium - to "cover" the elections from a social media point of view.

As from this week I am writing regular blog posts on the use or non use (or even misuse) of social media by our politicians in the context of the campaign. You can find the "Campaign blog" here but it is only available in Dutch (and the Typepad editing/formatting is not working very well...)

I must admit I am happy a real reporter is also on the job...  William Visterin, a seasoned journalist, brings the real insights to these stories and keeps me from stressing out.

So far I covered the Twitter use of several Flemish parties and discussed the social media power of Obama during his campaign.

De Standaard team has put together, with the help of a company called Nocus, a very nice overview dashboard of political social media activity in Flanders called the "Obarometer".

Would be great to have this at every election and for the whole country though...

Amazon Kindle

I just added this blog to the Amazon Kindle Publishing for Blogs service which was recently announced.

This simply means that anyone with a Kindle reader can now subscribe and read these blog posts as well.

But then I read this article on Techcrunch explaining how anyone can claim any feed or blog and publish it to the Amazon service and even earn money for it.

Incredible that they didn't include a verification process. In fact, I just claimed my blog feed but anyone out there could have done so...

Product Recall

The fire extinguishers from Pyromaster could explode...

Now I don't have any of these but imagine; you're trying to put out a fire and the thing explodes in your hand...

I received an email from one of their distributors, in this case Colruyt, alerting me of the danger and explaining me what to do in case I have one of those extinguishers.

In fact Colruyt is just relaying information from the Federal Ministry of Economy who issued the press release with all the info needed.

But if you check the Pyromaster official website you can't find any alert of information on the danger of their products.

Even when you click on the Belgian part of their website you're put through to a Dutch distributor which carries no information whatsoever about the product.

I can't understand that companies take crisis communications so lightly.

Pyromaster could make a difference here by informing their clients directly as well as via the government instances. At the minimum they should have an information page on their site.

Message to Silvia Dominguez, PR Manager of the group; update your website please and if you want to get a refresher on crisis communications and how social media can help - register here. ;-)

Workshop, June 4: Using Social Media for Crisis Management

Ok the registration site if online !

As I mentioned before I have been working on creating a workshop together with Caroline Sapriel on using social media for crisis management and we're finally ready.

It will take place on June 4 and registrations are open !

Caroline brings years of crisis management and risk management to the table and I'll position different social media and their principles within the context of issues management.

This will not be a theoretical workshop... We'll have hands on exercises, practical case studies and more...Check out the agenda here.

The location as well is unique; it is really back to school as we'll have the workshop at the International School of Brussels. A great location, just off the East ring of Brussels with all the comfort and amenities we need.

If you're a member of the EACD, the IABC, the BViC or 3C then you're in for a positive surprise; a 100€ reduction because we're co-members.

We're closing registrations at 20 attendees so if you want to get up to speed with social media and crisis communications don't hesitate too long.

Features of a Crisis Site

Pic. by SymmetryxLast year I gave a workshop on "Crisis Communications & Social Media" to a very nice group of PR professionals in Madrid and we spoke at great length about the use of "crisis sites".

Crisis sites, also called "black sites" are pre-prepared mini websites that are set up before a crisis strikes... In general they are pre-populated with information that would be required if a specific type of incident would take place. They stay offline until they are needed and can be activated within minutes.

Example; a transport company specialised in dangerous goods could prepare a crisis site for when one of their trucks spills a dangerous chemical product they transport on a regular basis.

Of course a company would only prepare specific crisis sites for those incidents which have been identified during the yearly crisis preparedness and crisis management review process.

You can not prepare for everything but you should prepare for those incidents that have the most probability of happening and the most impact on the business.

Today, crisis sites can be created with easy to use blogging platforms. WordPress for example if a fully fledged content management system and could very well be used to create such sites.

Of course there are many useful & different features which can be incorporated in a crisis site and that's why I created this little poll below. Please give us your input.

Some benefits of a crisis site based on a blogging platform;

1. the communications team gains a lot of time by having an online communications platform ready in seconds... This is crucial - as you need to communicate within the hour if you want to stay on top of things during a crisis.
2. the communications team has complete control of the crisis site as simple to use blogging platforms do not require IT personnel or HTML wizards to be there.
3. the onboard RSS feed capability makes it possible for reporters and other to subscribe to immediate updates regarding the crisis.
4. the form and format of a blog lends itself perfectly for a "news driven" communications platform like a crisis site.

I'll be setting up a new & "crisis and social media" workshop soon and it will most probably take place in Brussels. So if you are interested, send me an email and I'll keep you up to date about the details.