In 2001, I was director of communications at the Literacy Assistance Center (LAC) in lower Manhattan. Like a million other people, I had passed through the World Trade Center on the way to work that morning. Like a million other people, I felt the planes hit and the towers fall. Like a million other people, I walked out and spent many a long hour getting home.
My story isn’t unique or particularly interesting. The reason I bring it up is what I was able to do the next morning. Bright and early, I updated the LAC’s website with a big notice at the top of the home page, something like this:
LAC staff and our families are all safe, though shaken. The LAC office is closed. Scheduled events are postponed indefinitely. We can’t use our phones, and e-mail is unreliable. We’ll use this space to keep you informed of our progress and let you know when we can reopen. Thanks for your prayers and good wishes.
With this home page post, I was able to reassure the LAC’s constituents – NYC adult literacy program staff and our colleagues across the state and nation – that we were OK. Throughout the next two weeks, when lower Manhattan was locked down, I posted updates.
Here is the first and most important lesson to take away about communicating in case of emergency:
Make sure you have access to the following tools anytime, anywhere: website, e-mail service provider, and all social media outlets. Unless you are a one-person shop, give the login information to at least two people.
Your IT folks have (one hopes) all kinds of data security plans. This is not that. This is about the average non-geek communications or program professional being able to get through to your audiences even if your office and home (God forbid) are inaccessible.
In other words, your communication tools need to be web-based. Social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogs already are, by definition, on the web.
For your website, if you’re using a content management system (CMS) such as WordPress or Joomla, you have the ability to update your site quickly and easily even if you’re sitting in your sister-in-law’s living room.
If you’re still relying on a web designer to post all your content, it’s time to redesign. You’re overdue. I can help you find a content-design-programming team that will set you up with an up-to-date website powered by a user-friendly CMS.
Until you get the redesign done, bite the bullet and buy software that will enable at least two non-geek professionals to add content to your website. (Talk to your web programmer about what will work with your site.) In this case, you don’t have access from just anywhere, but only from the computers on which you installed the software. You should therefore have the software installed on at least one, preferably two, computers outside your office.
For e-mail, if you’re using an e-mail service provider (ESP) such as Constant Contact or iContact, you’re set to let your audiences know what’s going on in an emergency.
If you’re not using an ESP, get one. Today. I’m serious. The ability to communicate from anywhere any time is only one of a dozen reasons to use an ESP instead of Outlook or whatever e-mail client you use. (If you’re sending e-blasts from Outlook, e-mail me. I’ll tell you the other 11 reasons and help you get started with a cheap or free ESP.)
OK, you’re set to pull audiences to your website via social media outlets and to push your message via e-mail blasts. Now what?
On 9/12/01, I didn’t have an ESP, a comment-enabled blog, or social media tools. My online communication was strictly a one-way affair.
My, how the world has changed.
Now we have two-way communication tools. In addition to letting constituents know how we’re doing, we can:
- Ask how they are faring and feeling.
- Tell them how to make a difference, and ask for their additional suggestions. Everyone wants to help when disaster strikes.
- Give them a chance to share this information with their real and virtual networks.
- Respond! We’re trying to build a community of people who have shared a common catastrophe. We can’t literally dig our readers out of the rubble, but we can offer sensitive responses that let them know they have been heard.
Next you’d want to think about what to say and how to say it. The nature of the emergency will, to a large degree, dictate the message and the tone. If you have a communications professional in your corner, you’re ahead of the game.
Catastrophes happen, and we usually can’t prevent them. What we can do is prepare so that a natural disaster doesn’t turn into a communications disaster as well.