Social media and curry: protesting Singaporean style.

Actions have consequences.  Its a rule of public relations, crisis communications and of life.

I had the rule reconfirmed to me last night talking to a businessman in a bar in Singapore. As soon as I said I was from London he brought up the recent riots. It was all calm now I said.  He had arranged a trip to London next month to see some shows and enjoy the capital. 'I've cancelled it", he said, "we don't like to travel anywhere that's not safe".

His cancellation means another empty hotel room, theatre tickets not bought, restaurants not visited.  In other words, jobs and foreign exchange. I wondered how many people round the world had done the same. The recent riots in London are having economic consequences.

Singaporeans value their safety.It's probably the safest country in the world. Singaporeans themselves are peaceable in the way they conduct themselves. Their courtesy and respect for others and their welcome to visitors is hard to match.

They are showing that in the way they plan to demonstrate over a local controversy that's arisen about immigration.  Curry in its many forms is the national dish (a visit to Singapore is a must for the food alone).  An immigrant family from China complained about the smell of curry from a Singaporean Indian family's home.  The local mediation service got involved and suggested the Singaporean family only cooked curry when their neighbours were out.

When local people got to hear of it, it raised feelings about immigration in this cramped island.  There are some locally who feel immigrants are taking jobs and housing, a familiar argument across the world.  

How do Singaporeans demonstrate? Although many are angry, with courtesy of course. A Facebook page was launched to highlight the issue and last Sunday 50,000 Singaporeans cooked or ate curry to show solidarity with the local Indian family. By showing their solidarity in this way they hoped, in the words of the local woman who suggested it to "cook and share a pot curry and get to embrace and appreciate our culture".

The police did not need to be called, except where too much curry was cooked and more mouths were required to eat it.

The timing of the protest is interesting.  Immigration was a key issue in the recent Singapore General Election, the first in which social media played a significant role.

Today Singaporeans cast their votes in the Presidential election.  It's a non-partisan campaign. Although the President's role is largely ceremonial, the election is being seen as a referendum on the government.

(Posted from Chinatown, Singapore)

Generation Y and their quarter-life crisis!

"You don't need to be a great communicator to promote popular policies" said Singapore Minister for National Development Khaw Boon Wan when opening the annual Government Communications Conference in Singapore this week.

Minister Khaw

It's a annual gathering of the top communicators in Singapore's public service and an eclectic mix of speakers (including me) were brought to The Grand Hyatt hotel for an intensive day of reflection and discussion.  The Minister's presence underlined the importance the Government places on communications.   He said that the real challenge comes when communicators are required to explain significant and complex change to the public, such as healthcare reforms undertaken in the country.

Here are some of the top quotes that I managed to capture (there were so many I couldn't write quick enough).

Minister Khaw was formerly the Minister for Health and handled the SARS outbreak.  His golden rules from the crisis were: :Be transparent, honest, nothing hidden even if it is painful for the public to know, no secrets - let the arguments dictate the policy not the other way round; do not over-reassure, it's OK to say I don't know yet and never pretend to know; always show empathy and care and it's OK to admit worry; trust and credibility are key to crisis leadership."

Karen Hughes, Global Vice Chair of Burson-Marsteller and Former US Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy & Public Affairs and Counsellor at the White House to President Bush:

Karen Hughes

"Define yourself or you will be defined by somebody else.  Probably your critics."

"Effective decision making involves strategic communication.  The President is the Chief Communications Officer".

"The 5 C's of effective communication are clarity, conviction, compassion, consistency and credibility".

"You don't have to be the wittiest to be a great communicator, but you do have to be the clearest".

"If clarity is say what you mean, conviction is mean what you say.  A credible message is not just what you say, it's what you do."

Koh Buck Song, author and CEO of Integrative CSR Consulting:

Koh Buck Song

"Saying 'It's not in my job description' is not in your job description!"

"Brand keloids happen (that is, incidents that scar your reputation).  You should not try to change them.  They happened.  They are there.  Leave them alone and after time people will stop noticing them and see the real you."

Rodrigo Becerro Mizuno, MD, Government Industry Worldwide Public Sector, Microsoft:

Rodrigo Becerra Mizuno

"Generation Y are now talking about having a quarter life crisis".



Karen Hughes is the author of "10 Minutes From Normal" and Koh Buck Song's books include his latest "Brand Singapore".


(Posted from Singapore)

Difficult decision after death of pilot

250,00 people crowded into the seaside town of Bournemouth, on the south coast of England, last Saturday for the Bournemouth Air Festival.  The star turn was the Red Arrows, the jet formation display team of Britain's royal Air Force.  They are amongst the most skilful pilots in the world.  Only the elite of the RAF can be considered for duty in the Red Arrows.

After a breath-taking display over Bournemouth, the Red Arrows returned to land at Bournemouth International Airport when one of the jets, piloted by Flight Lieutenant Jon Egging, failed to pull out of a banking manoeuvre and crashed.  Flt Lt Egging, who was 33,  was killed.

The Air Festival was due to continue for a second day the following day.

After such an incident involving loss of life, organisers of events have a difficult decision to make.  When is it necessary to stop the event after such a tragedy?

There are reasons that an event might be halted:

1. Safety:  If the accident raises fears the event is not safe then there is no question that the event should be stopped.  The safety of the public comes first.  Had the event happened at the Festival and not at the airport, this would be non-negotiable. The organisers will almost certainly have urgently consulted with the Royal Air Force and the Civil Aviation Authority over this.
2. Taste: Organisers must take a view on whether it is in good taste to carry on with an event for public entertainment after a fatality.  The views of the family and the Royal Air Force may well have been sought.
3. Public feeling: after a death, there may be such a strength of public feeling that gross offence might be caused by the continuation of an event.  This does not appear to be true of this event.  The public hugely admire and respect the Red Arrows, and accept that what they do carries risks
4. Contractual obligations: in an event of this nature, there will be many legal contracts stipulating what should happen in the event of cancellation.  It is inevitable that financial considerations play a part, but they should not override the considerations in 1, 2 and 3.

In this case, the organisers decided that the event should go ahead, and astutely invited the public who were coming on the second day to wear something red as a tribute, which they did.   This had the effect of making members of the public who felt uneasy about going to the second day of displays to feel that they were doing so as an act of tribute.  Most who did so will have felt sincerely for the family of Flt Lt Egging and his RAF colleagues.  A minute’s silence was also held and a tribute film shown before the second day’s display commenced.  A book of condolence was opened. This was all fitting but not mawkish.

It was the right decision.  This was an accident away from the display and a tragedy.  Flt Lt Egging’s widow gave a moving tribute to her husband’s skills and bravery.  She did so with RAF support and supervision and she clearly wanted to.  Enormous care should be taken when exposing the immediately bereaved to the media and the backstop position is normally complete privacy.

These decisions have to made quickly and they are never easy.

The recent fatal accidents at pop concerts in Belgium and Indiana are a reminder that large scale public events carry serious risks.  Organisers must have a well thought through crisis plan and must rehearse it.  Such a plan must contain plans for mass communication with the public who might be planning to attend.

Meanwhile the Red Arrows will not be performing until further notice, pending a Ministry of Defence investigation.    The team’s aerobatic feats have thrilled countless people.  But this can never be worth the loss of a single life. 

(Posted from Singapore)

Diana Lamplugh - a natural communicator

The death of Diana Lamplugh represents the loss of one of the most natural and selfless communicators in Britain of the last 20 years.

Mrs Lamplugh’s daughter, Suzy, was an estate agent in London.  In 1986, she went to show a flat to a prospective purchaser called “Mr Kipper”.  She disappeared and was never seen again.

She was assumed to have been murdered, but neither her body nor her killer have ever been found.  The case received enormous media coverage at the time, because of the sudden and almost casual nature of Miss Lamplugh’s disappearance.

Mrs Lamplugh would have been justified in sinking into years of grief, self pity and perhaps bitterness.  We would all have totally understood.  But she did not.

She set about establishing a Trust - the Suzy Lamplugh Trust - to explore areas of safety of women working alone, including nurses, midwives, police officers and even office cleaners.

Mrs Lamplugh became a familiar and popular figure on television, radio and in the press for her tireless advocacy of the trust and a commentator on women’s safety.  She was always a welcome guest on programmes of any kind.

She was a very appealing communicator - sincere, forthright, and never a hint of self pity, and had the right to be heard because of what she had been through.  Never strident or unmeasured.  Always warm.  She was someone who could persuade the highest levels to listen.

Sincerity and integrity are underrated values for communicators in today’s reality obsessed society.   They shone through in Diana Lamplugh and I hugely admired her.   

Thank you, Mrs Lamplugh.   Rest in peace.

(Posted from Singapore)

English Courts acknowledge the power of Facebook in riots

Two young men have been jailed for four years at Chester Crown Court for inciting rioting and looting on Facebook in the recent outbreak of civil disorder in England.  The swiftness of this justice (the men pleaded guilty) and the length of the sentences has surprised many and is intended as a powerful signal to the public that the courts are aware of the strength of public feeling.

These are severe sentences - the longest so far handed out in the civil disorder - and longer than sentences given for actually rioting and looting.  They are a recognition by the Court of the power of social media to organise violence on a large scale.

But as well as being used to promote violence and disorder, social media has shown itself to be a powerful tool for the police in identifying and tracing criminals.

The swift actions of the courts fit a good pattern for crisis management and communications.

Leadership and decision making should always drive communications.  Communications without action lacks integrity and will never be strategic.

The ideal order is Communicate - Decisions - Communicate - Action - Communicate:

1.  Communicate - acknowledge the problem and express feeling and empathy with those affected

2.  Decision making - decide how you are going to deal with the crisis (in this case tough swift consequences for looters and rioters after the riots)

3.  Communicate what you are going to do (ie the decisions)

4.  Take the action you have decided upon (in this case swift justice)

5.  Communicate the actions you have taken.

Britain is currently in the next stage of this process:

6.  Decide what you are going to do to prevent a recurrence of the crisis situation

7.  Communicate what you have decided.

8.  Implement your decisions

9.  Communicate how you have implemented your decisions.

Things go wrong when this order gets jumbled up.  Communicating without decisions being taken (as was the case in the riots when the decision makers were on holiday and were slow to get off their sun loungers) or taking decisions and failing to communicate them.  Often decision-makers cannot agree and communicators are exposed when they do not have clear messages.

Life in England is returning to normal.  Tonight on the BBC, there is a nail-biting competition which has had me on the edge of my seat.   It is a cake-baking competition, and the winner must bake a perfect cup cake.  It is such a great antidote to all the violence and anger of the past week.  (Getting excited about baking is an English thing).

Meanwhile we do not forget the innocent citizens who lost their lives in the riots - including three young men who were killed as they stood guard over a place of religious worship in Birmingham, and a man who was murdered as he tried to put out a fire in Ealing West London.

Those who incited the violence and others who were rioting and looting will be out of prison before long and can rebuild their lives.    When the news crews move on, the families of those who were murdered will serve a life sentence of loss and bereavement.

Measuring the success of crisis communications

The police publish pictures on Flickr of alleged looters and ask the public : can you help us identify them?  The public reply: Yes.

West London, where I live, is quiet this evening.  Those restaurants that are still open are empty with staff sitting at tables playing cards.   The predominant sound remains that of hungry large guard dogs barking. I've come to view the sound as reassuring.


The fact that the streets are deserted is a measure of the success of the key message the Metropolitan Police have been giving - shops should shut early if they can and people should avoid areas where there might be trouble.


In a crisis, there's no time for focus groups and qualitative research (although that is useful in the medium to long term to review how your actions affected your overall reputation).


Instead, the best tools for measuring the effectiveness of your messages are your eyes and ears.


In a crisis people ask "What should I do?" and sometimes even "What should I think?"


Great crisis messages are easy to respond to and are ones that call for action.  Such as "get out" in a fire, or "stay off the streets" in the London riots.


The ubiquity of Twitter has brought a degree of sophistication into crisis messaging during the London riots.  I've been impressed by how police forces across the UK have been using Twitter.


Some, like Coventry Police (Coventry is a large industrial city in the Midlands of England) tweeted this evening that there was no trouble in the city, quashing growing rumours at a stroke.  Wise and clever.


The Metropolitan Police in London (@metpoliceuk) have used Twitter to send warnings to potential looters and to reassure the public that action was to be strong:


"Levels of disorder not the same as yesterday. A large presence will be maintained tonight."

and

"685 arrests now made re London disorder - incl. 1 for Reeves furniture store fire http://bit.ly/qIaAL1"

Reeves furniture store in Croydon, a long established family store, is destroyed by arson in the riots

How about this clever one from Greater Manchester Police? (@gmpolice):

"If you have been using social networking sites to incite disorder, expect us to come knocking on your door very soon"

The first casualty in a crisis is usually the truth so West Midlands Police (@wmpolice) has been doing what it can to keep citizens informed of what is going on, even if it is not good news (looting and violence were appalling in Birmingham last night - 3 innocent people were killed):

@WMPolice: "We are investigating unconfirmed report of shots fired just outside Birmingham centre.No injuries reported.Officers on scene"


and

"For all the latest updates for rest of the evening follow @WMPolice and visit www.west-midlands.police.uk"

Meanwhile social media is playing its part in helping the aftermath of the trouble so far.  Shops in London reported they had sold out of brooms as members of the public bought one on their way to volunteering to help clear up the streets - something organised in Twitter.  Local shops made tea and sandwiches for the volunteers.  One volunteer said: "If they come back tonight and create more destruction, we'll be back in the morning to clear it again. That's what Londoners do."

But most significantly, the camera enabled cell phone has provided thousands of images of looters and arsonists and the public are sending them to the police.  In London, the Metropolitan Police have set up a Flickr site with the pictures, asking the public to identify the criminals.  This is a repeat of what happened in Vancouver a few weeks ago when civil disorder and looting broke out after a hockey match.

One young man gave himself up at a police station today after his picture was posted.

Now that's a measure of the effectiveness of the police's message - "help us to identify the looters".


In the meantime, citizens remain very, very angry and want to see tough action from the Government. Parliament has been recalled tomorrow from holiday.  For the sake of its reputation, the quality of debate must be very high, and there must be a sense of tough decisions being taken.  One way to start would be to cancel the planned cuts to the police budgets (I haven't met anyone who supports these cuts now) and firing anyone who is employed in the public service who has played any role in the riots, including on social media.

The 3 Cs of crisis and a Twitter tidy-up

This morning, British people started to do what they do best in a crisis - they tidy up and make a nice cup of tea.  I say British people, but amongst the volunteers were many London School Economics students from every continent.

They all volunteered through a spontaneous movement on twitter to help the authorities clean up the mess on the streets after the widespread civil disorder last night.  And to hand in bedding, food and other items to help those who have lost their homes through arson attacks.

However, the overwhelming feeling expressed today in the streets, on the phone, on the underground, has been anger - to the point of boiling over - that citizens and businesses should have been subjected to this, and it is still going on.

One shopkeeper described the youths that destroyed her shop last night as "feral rats".

The police have now began the task of identifying the criminals, many of whom are young children, by publishing pictures of the scenes of disorder and inviting the public to identify them, including via social media.

The situation tonight is worsening again across many English cities.

In West London, where the giant Westfield Centre is surrounded by two rings of steel and a huge number of security guards, the streets are quiet.  London is a city that never sleeps and this is an area that's busy beyond 2am.  Not tonight. The sounds of sirens and hungry guard dogs barking are the main sounds, jarring already frayed nerves.

The main streets of West London, normally with nose to tail traffic, are largely deserted at 10pm this evening.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnston, returned from holiday today, just in time to see the burned out buildings.  He was discomfited when he was met in Clapham by angry citizens demanding to know why they had not been properly protected.  The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, was booed by people in the streets in Birmingham.

Overwhelming public support for the police continues with plenty of citizens saying "thank you" as they pass officers.

And today, there are signs of organisation, much of which can be attributed to the return of the Prime Minister - a little slow to return from holiday, but return he did.

What should a government do when faced with a crisis involving civil disorder?

First of all, leadership comes before communication.  You take decisions and then you communicate them.  The return of the Prime Minister to London gave a strong signal that decisions were going to made and control exerted.

The 3 "Cs" of a crisis apply to almost every situation.

Control - A crisis situation needs to be brought under control through doing the right thing and taking timely decisions.  In this case doing the right thing has involved taking decisions that stop short of what the public appear to demanding - which include bringing in the army and armed police.

Care - over every detail of crisis management and communication.  The utmost care about getting the facts right for example.

Compassion - in everything you do and say keeping the plight and feelings of citizens affected by the crisis uppermost - such as those who have lost their homes and businesses.   It is not possible to express too much compassion, and usually too little is expressed.

Once decisive action has been agreed, it's time to communicate. Messages in an emergency should be short, simple and loud and repeated often.

In a fire, for example, "get out" is the best message.    In this case "get off the streets" is a message that has got through to many London citizens.

In a crisis, the fewer messages the better - no more than three - and repeated very often in every forum you can find - radio, television, online, social media.

The three key messages the UK Government appear to have adopted were launched by the Prime Minister this morning:

1. We will make the streets safe.
2. We pay tribute to police bravery and we'll put more police on the street
3. The criminals will see severe consequences for their actions.

These fit the need to promote calm as well as meeting the anger felt by almost everyone - even visible today on the faces of some TV newsreaders.

In a crisis, you need to tell people what you are going to do, do it, then make sure they see what you have done.

That is beginning to happen tonight in London.  But meantime serious trouble is breaking out in Manchester and Birmingham.  This will not be solved in 24 hours.

A worrying sign of a lack of confidence on the part of the public is the formation of vigilante groups of citizens getting together to protect their homes and places of religious worship.  Some businesses have hired big guard dogs for their premises.  This is understandable and perhaps useful but it could result in further violence.  The presence and growth of these groups will be a useful measure of the success of the government's crisis communications operation.

So what did the Prime Minister say this morning that was a good start to the communications?

1. We will make the streets safe
2. I condemn the violence and criminality in the strongest terms
3. Tribute to police bravery.  There were 6,000 police on duty last night. Tonight there will be 16,000.
4. People will see severe consequences for their criminal actions - you will feel the full force of the law.
5. Parliament will be recalled this week.

He ends the statement declining to take questions saying "excuse me, there is important work to be done" which was well delivered but after three days of civil disorder, the public and media have many questions and they should get answers.

And there remains too few spokespeople on radio and television.  In a crisis, key messages simple, repeated and often.

BBC News reported this evening on the way television news bulletins round the world are reporting the crisis - "London's burning".  In the run up to the London Olympics in 2012, the reputation of the capital is at stake.

And remember the golden rule of a crisis - it's not what happens to you but how you deal with it that defines your reputation.



You can follow the police twitter feeds and reaction to the work of the police at:


Metropolitan Police, London  @metpoliceuk
West Midlands Police, Birmingham @wmpolice
Greater Manchester Police @gmpolice