The PR response to Virginia Tech and beyond: this latest tragedy showcases the need for comprehensive crisis communication plans that take technology into account

Communication World, July-August, 2007 by Ned Barnett

Imagine you're the engineer in the cab of a freight train locomotive. Your 8,000-ton train is moving at 50 miles per hour, and with 400,000 tons of momentum behind you, the immutable laws of physics dictate that it will take several minutes and about 7,500 feet to bring that hurtling mass of steel and inertia to a complete stop. Suddenly, you see a loaded school bus pull onto the tracks about a quarter-mile ahead, then stall. As a skilled and trained professional engineer, you know that there are critical steps you can take: You blow the air-horn, you activate the emergency braking system, you grab your radio and warn your dispatcher. But you also know that your train takes 7,500 feet to stop, and that school bus is now less than 1,000 feet in front of you. All of the professionalism and good will in the world will not prevent a tragedy. Still, because you're a professional, you do everything you can--you follow your disaster plan to the letter--knowing full well that there are some things you can do and some things you cannot do.

Now imagine that you were the public relations director at Virginia Polytechnic Institute on that horrible morning in April, when the senseless act of a disturbed individual left 32 students and faculty dead. You could not prevent the attack, but because you're a professional, you could follow your disaster plan to the letter, knowing full well that there are some things you can do and some things you cannot do.

When a disaster strikes in the workplace, you'd better have your crisis plan already in place, because there is no time to make one up. And if you've done your job well, your plan will have been field-tested and will call you and your staff into action, not into a committee meeting.

The violence that occurred at Virginia Tech was, sadly, not an isolated incident. In the immediate wake of horrific events like this, communication is one of the most vital aspects of the response. Although no plan can anticipate everything, a detailed and field-tested crisis communication response has to be ready and waiting. Once the crisis hits, it's already way too late to formulate one.

A viable crisis communication plan--one that includes both outbound media PR communications and internal communications--must:

* Be workable with the resources at hand. If additional resources will be needed, they must be obtained and installed before any disaster hits.

* Be workable in real time. There is no time during a crisis for planning or even for committee meetings to decide what to do first, or next.

* Be able to go on auto-pilot, with responses that can be instituted right away.

* Be communicated in advance to the appropriate local, state and national agencies. When a crisis hits, government officials will become involved, and they will want to know how you plan to handle communications.

* Have low-tech backups. In some crises, high-tech communication systems can fail.

* Be field-tested to identify problems before they occur.

* Be rehearsed so that those who may be caught emotionally off-guard nonetheless respond appropriately.

* Be reviewed internally at least quarterly, and updated no less than annually, to take into account changes in technology and other factors.

* Take into account the need to communicate in real time to affected internal (and affiliate) constituencies, as well as to the external media and other outside parties.

* Include post-disaster components aimed at restoring the organization's image with key internal and external constituents.

Those are some of the broad guidelines for preparing a crisis communication plan. However, the Virginia Tech shooting taught its own very practical, real-world lessons. These lessons can apply in every corner of the world.

1 Crises that involve workplace violence will inevitably involve interest and advocacy groups that are seemingly far removed from the actual site of the tragedy. For these organizations, their involvement is best treated as a crisis of their own. At the same time that the Virginia Tech shootings became a communication crisis for the university, the incident became a communication crisis for organizations ranging from immigrant and mental health advocacy groups to pro- and anti-gun-control organizations, as well as to all other universities.

2 Quick, aggressive communication can save lives. At Virginia Tech, the lack of aggressive, timely communication may have cost lives. University officials spent more than two hours in internal meetings before sending out a tepid first advisory via e-mail that didn't warn students to seek safety but rather asked them to be the eyes and ears of campus security.

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3 While new social media technology can help get the word out, there's still no replacement for traditional "low-tech" solutions. While e-mail was the university's apparent sole choice for communicating during the crisis, it ignored a campuswide public address loudspeaker system that could have reached students inside their dorm rooms or classrooms, as well as those walking on campus--perhaps even some who were headed toward a fatal encounter at Norris Hall.