How social media can destroy a brand - the Domino effect

We are hearing more stories every day of how companies and authorities are using social media to get their message across to their audience. Even Buckingham Palace this week became the latest to join the Twitter revolution. How do these new communication tools impact when a crisis breaks?

Recent evidence suggests that social networks help spread a negative news story very quickly. Whilst an organisation might use its spokespeople and its website to promote its version of events and intended message, others might be spreading a very different story to thousands within minutes.

How should you respond? As a minimum you need to know what's being said and written about you. Here is a great case study featuring Domino's, and how they responded to a very unsavoury incident in our of their kitchens.ve done better. Read Frederic Lardinois post and see if the picture here is still appealing to you.

Swine flu - is 2 weeks off a sensible precaution, or just damaging to business?

While the situation with swine flu is constantly changing, one area of proposed regulation is particularly worrying some UK businesses. This is the report that the period of absence that is authorised without a medical certificate is likely to be extended from one week to two weeks.

Amid many concerns that the new rules will give employees carte-blanche to throw a 14 day "sickie" on the grounds of possible swine flu, employers are being urged to start planning for extended and widespread absences in the coming months, and to consider how they will keep their operations functioning.

Here is the Personnel Today article.

Have we taken the safety culture too far?

Amid stories of sweets being banned from schools, and staff and children being required to wear safety goggles to put up posters, teachers are complaining that the ever-increasing H&S bureaucracy is stifling creativity and making their work impossible to do.

As highlighted in a recent BBC report, teachers are now becoming reluctant to take on any activity that might be pereived as risky, lest they face the wrath of parents and the law should things go wrong. An attempt to eliminate rather than manage the risk?

Safest seats on a plane?

Following the recent air crashes we came across this story that might be of interest. Dr. Todd Curtis, director of the Airsafe.com Foundation, has studied an archive of air crashes were at least one person survived and has attempted to find out if some seats give a passenger a higher chance of escape.

Read the article from CNN and of some interest is the list of incidents in the side panel where there has been a lone survivor in a major crash. It's good to see though that Dr. Curtis still chooses his seat based on his preference for a window and not on the findings of his study!

docleaf Briefs

A crisis story that is warning to anyone preparing to house their holiday guests on blow-up bedding. (Reuters) A German who tried to fix his leaky air mattress blew up his apartment instead, the fire brigade in the western city of Duesseldorf reported last week. The 45-year-old man used tyre repair solvent to plug a hole in his airbed and left it overnight. But it blew up when he went to inflate it the next day." A spark from the electric air pump ignited it," a fire brigade spokesman said.

The blast pushed his living room wall into the building's stairwell and caused extensive damage to walls, windows and furniture.

Fire fighters evacuated the 12-apartment building and a neighbouring housing block while they checked for structural damage. The man suffered burns on his arms, while a three-year-old girl suffered first degree burns.

And finally... a example of how those in the middle of the crisis can sometimes remain calmest. A Canadian boy celebrating his third birthday was unhurt and apparently unfazed after he floated 12 km down a river riding atop his toy truck, according to local police.

The boy's family was camping at a popular park near Fort St. John, in northeastern British Columbia, on Sunday when the boy wandered off unnoticed and somehow entered the nearby Peace River, Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.

The boy's parents at first thought he was playing with other relatives at the campsite. But police were later alerted and had begun a search when a boater found the boy, and the toy, about 12 km away.

After a nearly two-hour journey down the swift-moving river the boy had no injuries, and was apparently unaware of the danger he had been in. "He was very excited to see the police," said RCMP Constable Jackelynn Passarell.

A local news report said the boy also made sure the boater who found him also retrieved the toy truck.

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