Monthly Archives: November 2009

KeepVault — Impressive and Low-Cost Online Backup Service

Published on 30th November 2009 by . Leave a Comment

I’ve long advocated the use of online backup systems for personal and business purposes.  Your location may burn to the ground or be rendered inaccessible by disaster, but you’ll still be able to retrieve your files.  Such systems have become increasingly low-cost and user-friendly, and the best one we’ve found so far — one we’re using myself ourselves — is KeepVault.  You no longer need to be a big organization to afford this one, and it seamlessly backs up in real time, not just at set intervals.

Whether you use its personal backup solution or its business backup solution, this is a no-brainer way to assure business continuity and preservation of critical data. At $48 a year for 40GB in a personal account (only $99 for 100GB!), you can’t use cost as an excuse anymore.  Even the business solution, with some impressive additional perks (see comparison chart), only ranges from $193-364 for the same amounts of storage, with much larger storage options available.

KeepVault does offer a 30-day trial, so give ‘em a shot.  We think you’ll be pleasantly surprised how easy it is.

BCM Blogging Team
www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com

Leave a Comment

Tiger’s Drive

Published on 29th November 2009 by . Leave a Comment

When handling a crisis, it is always in your best interest to control your own story. If one declines to do this, then it’s guaranteed that someone else will do it for you. The torrent of rumors and speculation surrounding Tiger Wood’s recent car accident is a perfect example of this, as a recent AP article points out:

He was the ultimate control freak, whether with a 7-iron in his hand or a microphone. But, as Woods is so painfully learning now, even he can’t control everything.

At some point he’ll have to talk with the troopers. More importantly, at some point he’ll have to talk to his fans.

If not, the Internet rumor mill will keep churning. If not, the rampant speculation will be passed off as fact.

Both him and his team, including spokesman, staying silent goes again the grain of good crisis management. The longer he allows the rumblings to continue, the more he undermines his credibility and the harder it will be to rebuild his reputation once the full story comes out.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Leave a Comment

Technology Making it Harder for Wrongdoers to Hide

Published on 29th November 2009 by . Leave a Comment

The best tools are always created out of necessity, and the technology era has done nothing but speed up that process. A new mesh of technologies called Ushahidi, which means witness in Swahili, is bettering lives by allowing users to map evidence of human rights abuses, violent happenings, spread of disease and much more. A Global Post Article explains the free service in more detail:

Ushahidi is a simple, free and open-source web-based platform that allows “witnesses” to map evidence of human rights abuses. Observers can provide information by posting reports of events directly onto the website or by emailing them. Witnesses can also map events via text message thanks to FrontlineSMS, a text messaging platform built into Ushahidi. People with smart phones can also download a range of free Ushahidi apps to map alerts.

This is another example of how technology is making it harder and harder for wrongdoers to hide their activities, and for activists to engage in better crisis management.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Leave a Comment

Benefits of Blogging

Published on 27th November 2009 by . Leave a Comment

Acting as a low cost marketing, public relations and crisis management tool, blogs, both your own and others, can be a powerful utility for any organization. A post from PublicRelationsBlogger.com explains further:

Whether you create and manage one yourself or read and follow others, blogs provide the chance to really create a sense of community with your current and potential customers. They also allow for you, the company, to provide content that is valuable to your customers rather than simply advertising to them. The Internet makes it possible for customers to find you, even searching for your company by the services you provide or the content you provide online.

Here at Bernstein Crisis Management it’s become commonplace for us to launch one, or even multiple, blogs for clients as part of PR campaigns, and of course we maintain this blog regularly as a SEO tool and communications channel for our own business. In addition to the communications benefits, blogs may also be utilized to boost your main website’s visibility when people search for you on the Web. This way you can not only be the first to present your message, but can encourage customers to bring complaints to you first, rather than the media.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Leave a Comment

Mobile Workforce

Published on 26th November 2009 by . Leave a Comment

A new survey is indicating that many employers may be in trouble in the coming year, as a full sixty percent of the members of the workforce polled indicated that they intended to leave their current job to pursue new opportunities as the economy improves through 2010. A quote from a press release by Right Management:

“The study provides a barometer of employee engagement in the workplace, with results that might alarm and surprise many employers,” said Douglas J. Matthews, President and Chief Operating Officer at Right Management. “Employees are clearly expressing their pent up frustration with how they have been treated through the downturn. While employers may have taken the necessary steps to streamline operations to remain viable, it appears many employees may have felt neglected in the process. The result is a disengaged and disgruntled workforce.”

Major operational decisions, particularly negative ones, must be accompanied by compassionate communication that helps employees get through tough times.  Low morale means low productivity and higher “best minds” defections, so it makes sense financially, not just ideologically, to make considerate communication part of your crisis management plan for dealing with tough times.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Leave a Comment