Looking to the future
The field of crisis management is constantly changing. Whether it’s the technologies we use, the tactics we employ, the audiences we communicate with, or who makes use of our services, even the most experienced find themselves looking toward the future and wondering, “What’s next?”.
Awareness of reputation as an asset appeared to be growing in 2015. The direct correlation between what people think of not only your business or product, but also of your ethics, personal behavior, and other behind-the-scenes activities became all but impossible to ignore. Last year also produced a host of crises created by hacks, data breaches, and any other number of cyber intrusions. This year we predict that:
- Social media will have a major impact on litigation-related crisis management.
Controversial pharmaceutical exec Martin Shkreli and early Bitcoin supporter Charlie Shrem are the perfect examples. Both insisted on talking about their cases via social media, with Shrem actually maintaining a Twitter presence from jail with the help of friends and family. This trend is catching on, and in 2016 we expect to see savvy lawyers integrate the need to share their clients feelings with the need to avoid compromising defense strategy or further endangering legal position. - We’ll see more preventable data breaches due to sloppy procedures and practices.
While there’s no doubt skilled hackers can work their way into just about any system and find something useful given sufficient time and motivation, most organizations are making it easy. Whether it’s sloppy practices by individuals such as using “work-only” laptops on personal networks, or straight lazy security as in the UCLA Medical Center hack that saw hackers access massive caches of unencrypted files. - More organizations that already know they’re doing wrong will be outed.
Volkswagen is far from the only org to be piling up bad mojo behind the scenes. Some may be outed by whistleblowers, others by data breaches, and still more by the will of savvy stakeholders. Regardless of the method, we’re certain to see misdeeds exposed and corruption brought to light with all of the fireworks that social media and the Internet can provide.
This is only a small preview of what we may see, and every year brings surprises that nobody expected. Stay sharp out there, protect your reputation, plan for what you can and build the skills that will let you roll with the punches when things go sideways!
The BCM Blogging Team
www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com