Day: November 13, 2007

If you are an "oldie" like me, you probably find yourself using the term "young people" more often every day, but you also probably remember crisis communications being an exception rather than an everyday occurrence.

The advent of the Interweb, along with e-mail, blogs and now social networks, has meant that new previously unseen crises (or maybe we should call them issues) emerge on a more regular basis than ever before. A mis-sent e-mail or a rumour on a blog create a growing number of issues or crises every day.

But this isn’t just a corporate issue.  Oh no.  This is a personal issue also.

Valleywag has an interesting story [via Peter Shankman] on how a bank worker told his boss that he wouldn’t be able to come to work because "something came up at home".  The only problem was that the "something" was a party and he posted photos on his social network page, which of course was accessible to everyone…. including his boss.

It’s an interesting development.

A University lecturer told me earlier this year that students often look for deadline extensions on work because they’ve been "sick" only for their social network pages to tell a different story.

There’s no doubt organisations are facing more "issues" thanks to the Interweb, but the issue of "personal branding" should also be a concern for everyone.  What you publish, others can read, whether that’s a blog, a comment or a social network. What do the search engines say about you?

I think we can expect more of this in the future.

Back in March I kicked off the Online PR social network over at Ning.

We’ve billed it as the "lazy person’s" social network – there’s no peer pressure to get involved etc. It just sits there quietly.

There are now 63 members.  Now, while I agree it’s not exactly Facebook or MyRagan (which now has over 10,000 members??), it’s sufficiently impressive given the promotions budget and the effort that’s been put into promoting it.

Now, in the interest of true social networking, and taking into account my laziness, all group members can become administrators and drive it anyway they wish.

I don’t expect a lot of e-mail 🙂

Greetings from Seattle.

A few hardy souls may remember a post from long ago about the difficulty I usually have travelling through Heathrow due to the fact that my parents didn’t spend a lot of time coming up with an imaginative first name – and the fact that many others share that same name combination.

So it was with some trepidation I ventured through Heathrow on this trip earlier today.

My hope was that UK authorities were up-to-date on recent developments regarding members of the Murphy clan and I’m delighted to report that it appears they are.

For the first time in a long time I encountered no "personal" delays on this trip.

So that’s a good start to the week.