You know that its a really slow news week when the story about a Jet Blue flight attendant abandoning ship and sliding down the emergency chute with a cold beer in hand permeates the headlines of newspapers, not to mention the Internet.
The funniest part is the wave of PR, Corporate Communication and Crisis Management 'experts' (should I say "pundits"?) who are being quoted by 'reporters' for their thoughts/critiques on the [slow] [poor] [creative] [thoughtful] [stupid] [smart] manner by which JetBlue's corporate communications team has responded to the hoopla.
Particularly funny is the one pundit that said "They were stupid for not coming out with a statement within hours, instead of waiting almost 2 days! They're obviously more prepared to handle a plane landing in the Hudson than handling a flight attendant that went postal.."
Puhlease!
In my humble opinion, this incident was hardly a "crisis", and Jet Blue's statement, including their notorious Twitter line, however delayed, was consistent with the somewhat irreverent style they've become known for. Geez...in the scheme of things, and all things being relative, their statement came out a heckuva lot faster than explanations for why flights are delayed!
Speaking of Twitter--some time ago, we opined about the monetary value of Twitter...and its usefulness in creating revenue...Well girls and boys, here's an idea:
Instead of BrandX paying Slick Sam's Public Relations Agency a monthly retainer to provide their wisdom; save some cash from the corporate coffer; any time there is seeming corporate crisis (according to the media), the company in question should run a contest and using Twitter as the mechanism to solicit strategy/statement solutions from the world at large, then having the world at large vote on the best ideas that the company can implement, and the idea with the most votes is the one that gets implemented, and the winner gets paid a bounty by the company.
On the other hand, that idea would add to the unemployment figures--hundreds of slick sam pundits would be out of work...even if more than 70% of their 'crisis management' solutions have typically further inflamed situations as opposed to quell them.
Your thoughts?
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