Digital Crisis Management (Part 2)

>> Listen to the audio version to find out additional commentary about the topics discussed in this post!


Download the MP3 file (9.2Mb, 19:00) – Get the show on iTunes!

 

FIR On Strategy with Andrea VascellariThis is part of a series of posts that explores the “Adaptive Digital Strategy Framework” , an operative guide that I created to plan, execute and manage online strategy programs more effectively and efficiently. Each of post of this series comes with an audio podcast in which you will find the audio version of the post with additional audio commentary about the discussed topics. The name of the podcast is “FIR On Strategy with Andrea Vascellari”.

In our previous cast/post we understood how we can predict the various phenomenons that can potentially originate a crisis and how an organization can plan the responsive actions needed to face such crisis situations.

That’s great at strategic level, but what should we actually do when the crisis hits? What tactics can we use? What process should we follow to manage and possibly reduce the damage caused by a digital crisis? This is what we are going to explore in this cast/post. Continue reading “Digital Crisis Management (Part 2)”

Digital Crisis Management (Part 1)

>> Listen to the audio version to find out additional commentary about the topics discussed in this post!


Download the MP3 file (10.3Mb, 21:27) – Get the show on iTunes!

 

FIR On Strategy with Andrea VascellariThis is part of a series of posts that explores the “Adaptive Digital Strategy Framework” , an operative guide that I created to plan, execute and manage online strategy programs more effectively and efficiently. Each of post of this series comes with an audio podcast in which you will find the audio version of the post with additional audio commentary about the discussed topics. The name of the podcast is “FIR On Strategy with Andrea Vascellari”.

In this cast/post we will understand how to strategically predict the various phenomenons that can potentially originate a crisis and how an organization can plan the responsive actions needed to face such crisis situations.  Continue reading “Digital Crisis Management (Part 1)”

How to Get the Best Out Live Events

23' International Trophy "Judo Vittorio Veneto" - 19/20 Feb. 2011

The web is starting to become a natural extension of ‘real world’ events. However, in order to achieve success you need to do it right. One of the niches in which my team and I specialized through the years is strategic online communications for events.

Last week we were in Italy where we helped the organizers of the International Trophy “Judo Vittorio Veneto” to get the best out of their event. 310 clubs, 2100 registered athletes from 18 countries, a 4500 seat sport arena, 2 days of competition and 1000 squared meters divided into 8 competition areas make this event the largest International judo tournament in Italy and among the top judo tournaments in Europe.

Itive crafted and handled the entire online communication plan of the event. Here are some interesting stats:

  • 30 hours of live video were streamed.
  • 181,000 minutes transmitted worldwide during the 2 days of the event.
  • 650 GB of bandwidth for transmitting the data online.
  • 1 control room, 3 cameramen, 2 directors of general video, 2 directors online.
  • Updates and moderation in real time via live chat, Twitter, and Facebook.
  • Results and brackets of the fights downloadable online at the end of each day.
  • 3 photographers, +800 photos, +23,000 views in 2 days.
  • …and more

I encourage you to go and take a look at the entire case study that we shared on the itive.net blog. There you’ll see several other stats that I’m sure you’ll find interesting and inspiring if you are looking to get the best out of your events. If then you want to see some broken arms and a few black eyes belts in action you can hit play on the video player below which is streaming all the finals that were shot during the weekend on-demand.

And indeed if you need help with your events, well my team and I will be happy to help you out 😉

Andrea

Communications Report for December 6th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

Communications Report for December 6th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

[Communications Report] for October 19th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

[Communications Report] for September 9th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

  • B2B Ads: Women click, men act | Econsultancy – Women deliver a 23% higher clickthrough rate than men, but men are 53% more likely to buy, start a free trial, download or complete a desired action than their female counterparts.
  • B2C Outpacing B2B in Social Measurement [stats] – B2Bs focus less on hits and followers, more on sales.
  • 5 Educational Email Marketing Infographics – Despite being the elder statesman of online marketing tools, email is still growing in adoption as a marketing channel.
  • AP Stops Fighting Bloggers, Plans To Credit Them As News Source – Only two years ago, the Associated Press tried to stop bloggers from using their content. Threatening to charge sites that used their content and demaned that The Drudge Reports pull headlines and story briefs from their site. But now AP is singing a different song – saying this week that they will credit bloggers for any stories they break.
  • Google Instant – The most obvious change is that you get to the right content much faster than before because you don’t have to finish typing your full search term, or even press “search.” Another shift is that seeing results as you type helps you formulate a better search term by providing instant feedback. You can now adapt your search on the fly until the results match exactly what you want. In time, we may wonder how search ever worked in any other way.
  • Skype Introduces 10-Way Video Calling – Skype 5.0 beta two is already available for download; it includes 10-way video calls, automatic call recovery and a cleaner user interface. The update is also said to improve call quality and includes a number of bug fixes to make the overall experience much smoother.
  • frankencamera: open source digital camera on [technabob] – Here’s another example that make you understand that the future is not just about tech but especially about consumer empowerment to end users self customize their products/services. Apps are indeed playing a fundamental role.
  • TPB AFK | The Pirate Bay – Away From Keyboard – TPB AFK is a documentary about three computer addicts who redefined the world of media distribution with their hobby homepage The Pirate Bay.
  • The Pirate Bay Documentary Maker Fetches $34,000 To Bring Us TPB Story | Startup Meme – Unofficial Facebook Guide – Simon Klose headed over to Kickstarter, a startup which people can use to generate funds for their projects from the community. The intention was to raise $25,000 in a month to hire the services of an editing studio to turn his plans to reality. However Klose got luckier than he must have anticipated, raising a healthy $34,000 from numerous backers.
  • Kickstarter – This is a funding platform for creative projects. Projects, funded by the community, must reach or exceed their funding goal or no money changes hands. Creators keep 100% ownership. Love it.

[Communications Report] for September 1st 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

  • What People Think of the Ad/PR Biz | Reuters – One-third of respondents voiced a positive view of the advertising/pr industry (6 percent “very,” 27 percent “somewhat.”) Twenty-seven percent were “neutral.” Twenty-five percent expressed a “somewhat negative view,” while 11 percent were “very negative.” (The rest didn’t venture an opinion.) The numbers aren’t significantly different from those yielded by last summer’s edition of this annual survey.
  • Is it time for a Chief Social Media Officer? | ZDNet – The role may not be prominent now, but it will happen.
  • New report on “The State of Mobile Communications” – Now is the perfect time for businesses to jump into mobile communications, says “The State of Mobile Communications,” a newly issued report by Burson-Marsteller and Proof Integrated Communications. The report provides recommendations based on the implications of a range of key mobile research reports.
  • 5 Tips to Maintain Social Media Momentum – Servant of Chaos – One of the challenges with social media is that it’s easy to start and it’s easy to stop.
  • The UK’s media consumption habits – Ofcom released its seventh annual communications market report last week. Its a goldmine of information about media consumption habits in the UK and is worth reading in full, the internet section in particular.
  • Facebook Usage Still Rising in Europe, but UK Growth Slows – eMarketer – The Facebook juggernaut rolls on in Europe, but the first sign of declining growth rates has appeared. In particular, the site’s meteoric expansion in the UK is tailing off.
  • Skype Etiquette – Some good tips to keep in mind when using Skype by Michael Arrington
  • Pre-recorded TV viewers cut out ads – The increasing use of digital television recording devices means fewer viewers will watch advertisements. Online video adverts have failed to make an impact on consumers with only 3% citing them as the kind of ad they were most likely to pay attention to.
  • Want an SEO job? Check out the Daily Mail’s robots.txt file … – This is actually a great idea!
  • 10 Tips For Aspiring Community Managers – Tips from community builders on what it takes to land a job and be effective at cultivating community.
  • The Value of a Social Media Fan….Priceless – CPM models are generally used to price traditional media ads which represent only a monologue selling a specific product and are not customized to measuring the overall value of social media. Facebook “impressions” are a completely different kind of media where more often than not, the post should be as divorced as possible from trying to make a sale and are more about creating dialogue, brand awareness and positive social conversation which indirectly leads to higher sales.
  • Top 5 Mobile Advertising Trends To Watch – After a tough 2009, advertisers are expected to increase mobile and digital marketing budgets over the next year. With this in mind, it’s essential that advertisers keep up-to-date on their options in the mobile space. Here, we’ve laid out five mobile advertising trends to watch over the coming year.
  • Infographic: The Geosocial Universe – This infographic, created by Jesse Thomas of digital creative agency Jess3, shows the relative size of social networks and online services such as Skype, Gmail, MySpace, Twitter and Foursquare, and also shows the proportion of their user base that access the service via a mobile device.
  • How to Handle an Employee’s Controversial Online Comment – Stuff just happens. In most situations, though, the most important factor is how the situation is handled.
  • 5 Items to Delete From Your Website Today – When we add ideas and actions, websites become more complicated. Complication creates confusion and often translates to lower effectiveness.
  • Youtube stars making 100000 plus per year: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance – There are 10 independent YouTube stars who made over $100,000 in the past year, according to a study done by analytics and advertising company TubeMogul.
  • 5 Huge Trends in Social Media Right Now – What follows are five of the hottest social media trends right now. Each are influencing our social, online and mobile behaviors in significant ways.

How to use Google Calendar as Project Management Tool

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Do you need a great tool to better manage your team, timelines, deadlines, relevant project’s data for you and for your clients? Here’s how Google Calendar can help you out.

2010-01-25_2010

Create a calendar for each project – To preserve client privacy I temporarily changed the title of each calendar you see in this first screenshot. The syntax though remains the same, ‘year’ (11=2011, 10=2010, etc.) and then the ‘name of the project’. Using a proper syntax helps you to keep your calendar in order and makes them easier to browse/search.

Sharing – Share the calendar with the members of your team involved in the project. You can even share calendars with clients if they express the need to monitor the stream of activities and project deadlines. I’ve been in this situation a couple of times.

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Timeline – By placing the tasks on the calendar you’ll automatically turn each calendar into a detailed project’s timeline. I found the ‘agenda’ view particularly valuable because it gives a clear overview of the upcoming deadlines you have set.

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Manage client access – Like I said above when I was talking about ‘sharing’, sometimes you can plan to give (or the clients want to have) access to the calendar/timeline. A problem I faced is that in complex projects you might want to create two versions of the calendar. One for the team with the technical details they need/want to edit during the project development, and a second one for the client with all its relevant information (periodic results, deadlines, key data, meetings, etc.). On larger projects you can create dedicated calendars for multiple teams, too.



Problem solving – With every project comes a good number of problems, roadblocks or issues. Often these issues are spotted by members of the team while they are taking care of their tasks. What can be done? The member of the team that is facing the problem writes it in the calendar as an ‘all day’ entry adding his/her name next to it. Other members of the team, that can/know how to solve the issue, take care of it or write on the entry tips on how to solve it. Once the problem is solved the entry will be marked as FIXED. If  at the end of the day the problem is still not fixed, it can be moved (click & drag) to the next day or to a different date. I know that at first this might not sound easy or natural but I can guarantee you that, once you get into it, it will help you working faster and better with your team. It’s like an open and on-going problem solving channel. Of course, the internal organization of how and who takes care of solving problems can change from company to company and team to team. You can really take this to the next level by enabling your team to add the ‘mobile’ component to it (check the links I shared at the end of this post to learn how to sync these features with your iPhone).

(again, to preserve client privacy I temporarily changed the date and subject of these entries)

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Hashtags # – I mentioned the use of hashtags for internal data management in a couple of other posts but I’ll bring it back in this one, too. Google calendar is searchable (I’ll never get tired to remind it!). This is very important because it turns our calendar into a database. Using hashtags in our calendar’s entries helps us in searching and tracking specific items over time. Use a unique hashtag for each project you work on. The tags are the same I use with my team in tweets and shared content (photos, video, etc.). Result? Whenever I search for a hashtag I’ll get a complete list of the performed tasks with relative date and time. Here’s where things get interesting, go on reading the next point…

Export data (PDF) – Every calendar, search results or specific layouts (day, week, month, 4 days, agenda) are printable and therefore exportable in PDF format. This is really handy when you need a summary of the work you’ve done (you can get it by searching for a specific hashtag related to a project) or for the list of future tasks of your project (printing/PDF the ‘agenda’ layout is what works at best for me). Believe it or not there might still be occasions in which people will ask you for a PDF version of the data. It happened to me with external teams and clients (especially government and public organizations, they often still need something to print out on paper. Well yes they could access it online but… you go and figure that out).

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What makes Google Calendar a great tool is its simplicity. I’m sure there are many other ways it can be used to help with project management. In this post I shared my tips & suggestions, what about yours?

If you liked this post you might be interested in also checking out:

How do you use it? How does Google Calendar help you in better managing your projects? Go ahead and share your experience in the comments here on the blog or via a quick “comment-ready-tweet” @vascellari!

Andrea

[Report] for January 16th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.