Elements of a Robust Communication Strategy in the Face of an Energy Crisis

Traditionally during the winter season, business for the energy sector remains as usual; providing round-the-clock electricity and gas services to enable our communities to live comfortably indoors despite the harsh weather outside. However, global gas supply issues are causing energy security concerns and driving up prices across many parts of the world – particularly in Europe.

Various steps are being taken to address this situation

• USA is doubling the level of liquified natural gas (LNG) supplies into the UK over the next year to support UK and European energy security, help stabilise prices and replenish gas supplies impacted as a result of the Ukraine conflict.
• European member states will reduce their peak-hour demand requirements by 10% over the next three months to reduce energy consumption.
• UK has developed a ‘Demand Flexibility Service’, enabling customers to sign up with energy suppliers and be paid not use electricity appliances such as dishwashers, washing machines and tumble driers across peak periods of the day. It will also implement controlled electricity disconnections to reduce demand in the event of an extreme situation.

All energy organizations need to be prepared for any eventuality during the winter season, as they are expected to respond effectively to incidents and restore their customers’ energy supply as quickly as possible. This requires robust crisis communication preparation and management.

CHECKLIST: How prepared are you to face a winter crisis?

Research shows that crisis-prepared companies face fewer emergencies. Here’s a checklist to help you determine how well you measure up.

Ensure incident procedures are up to date and fully brief staff.

Update communication material and make readily available for use with key stakeholders, for example, press releases, key messages, FAQs, operational facts and figures, website and social media posts, company photography and broadcast footage.

Ensure adequate communications staff and contractor resources are in place for continuity of delivery and decision-making throughout an incident. For example, a major electricity or gas outage can last several days and can stretch staff capabilities, if not managed appropriately. This is a story that will attract extensive media interest.

Monitor press and social media channels to assess the accuracy of news and social media coverage and determine if any adjustments are needed to provide greater clarity to your stakeholders.

Schedule a crisis communications refresher session to ensure communication and operations teams, managers and executives are prepared. A refresher will give them tools to confidently communicate with all key stakeholders–not only news reporters. This includes your customers, employees and investors.

Do you have an updated stakeholder communication plan for a winter energy crisis?
Spoken Word Communications can help you prepare for the unexpected.
Contact Dave@spokenwordgroup.com

The post Elements of a Robust Communication Strategy in the Face of an Energy Crisis first appeared on Spoken Word Communications.

The post ITC CEO Makes Case for Media Training first appeared on Spoken Word Communications.

Chuck Todd obviously frustrated he can’t get an answer from Ted Cruz on whether or not he will support Donald Trump.

The post Ted Cruz and Chuck Todd Square Off on Meet the Press first appeared on Spoken Word Communications.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper yesterday addressed the nation in wake of the terrible tragedy that took place in his nation’s capitol. His statement was extremely well written, one of the better in those types of situations I’ve ever heard, but the delivery lacked emotion.

Now, it’s important to consider that Mr. Harper probably didn’t have much time to practice reading the statement, thus committing it to his short term memory and increasing his chances of a successful delivery. However, even with limited time, especially in a situation such as this with so much riding on a good performance, that he know his script by heart. That would have allowed him to not come across so much as he’s reading, instead that he’s talking to his audience.

The post Canadian P.M. Teleprompters His Way Through Very Well Written Statement first appeared on Spoken Word Communications.

I have to admit, I didn’t know much about Jack Ma or his company Alibaba until this week’s 60 minutes report.  However, after watching the story I was very impressed with Mr. Ma and his business prowess.  I also have to say I thought he did a great job with his messaging as well.

Doing an interview in your second (or perhaps third or forth) language is always difficult.  Most world political and business leaders typically “opt out” by using a translator.  Translators are a much safer route, as many times things get lost in translation and translators can assure that doesn’t happen.  But doing an interview for American television in English definitely has its advantages.

Take Mr. Ma for example.  The fact he does the interview in English, even with several grammatical errors, allows the audience to connect with him.  There’s no waiting for the translation or wondering if that is “really what he said”.  It also helps because the vocal part of Mr. Ma’s message can be interpreted by the viewer.  If he would have chosen to use a translator, many of the stresses and accent points would have been lost.

Although sometimes hard to understand, I applaud Mr. Ma for “going it alone” while at the same time enhancing his credibility by connecting with the audience directly, instead of through a third party.

The post Alibaba’s Jack Ma on 60 Minutes first appeared on Spoken Word Communications.

1. The right people
2. Doing the right thing
3. At the right time

It’s that simple! Yet many companies, or in this case the NFL are still too slow to respond to events such as the Rice mess, the whole time knowing what their response is going to be. A lot of those “inside” corporations blame lawyers. Of course, once attorneys get involved, the process does get extremely complicated. But it doesn’t have to. I once had an attorney at a major Oil and Gas services company tell me during a Crisis Communications conversation “They are going to sue us anyway, we might as well get it right”. Those words have stuck with me over the years as to how companies should handle crises. If companies spend all their time worrying about legal ramifications, they lose the element of time, and that can be crucial. I don’t mean to downplay the importance of getting things right on the legal side but preparation and planning can help prevent needing to go to the lawyers after the fact in order to get the needed approvals.

So in closing, the lesson to be learned from Roger Goodell and the NFL is next time, have your ducks in a row before something like this happens so when it comes time to make the right decision, you don’t have to run it by your entire legal team to pull the trigger.

The post 3 Things the Public Looks for in a Crisis first appeared on Spoken Word Communications.

If there’s any industry in the world that is prepared for Crisis Communications, it’s the airline industry.  Unfortunately, they have to be.  There’s no bigger global story than when a passenger filled airliner goes down and sadly Malaysian Air has had to deal with two such horrible tragedies already this year.

With that said, facing the hordes of media that come with such a tragedy is never an easy task.  Malaysian Airlines executive Hueb Gorte last week did an outstanding job of giving the company’s first media briefing at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.

During this 4-minute briefing, Gorte gave excellent, relevant information to reporters.  He did it in a very clear and concise way.  There were very few uh’s and um’s (non-words as we like to call them).  Most importantly, he did an outstanding job of putting a caring and compassionate face on the company.  It was clear after this briefing that the airline’s #1 priority was to take care of the families of those lost.

Kudos to Mr. Gorte for doing such an excellent job, especially considering both the magnitude and extreme pressure of the situation.

The post Excellent Press Briefing by Malaysian Airlines Executive first appeared on Spoken Word Communications.