How many of you have seen the movie Artificial Intelligence?

How about the movie The

Terminator, with Arnold Schwarzenegger before he became governor? How about I, Robot with

Will Smith? All of these movies have a similar premise. What would happen if computers could

‘talk’ or make decisions, and what if they made robots like humans that could act on their own

and interact with society in an intelligent, life like way?

We are still years from this as a reality, but inventors, computer programmers and

industries have been looking for help from computers to reduce the expense of labor, become

more efficient, and ultimately save money to run their businesses in a more cost effective,

productive and efficient manner. Many of you may heard of things like artificial intelligence,

neural networks and other programming techniques that imitate intelligence, but in fact are not

independently intelligent, but go through a process of steps to create what looks like a decision.

Today I would like to talk about the use of technology and its impact on business,

specifically in relation to public relations. A computer software technology called Decision

Support Systems (DSS) and Business Intelligence Systems (BIS) are used by company’s large

and small world wide today. These systems allow the executives in companies and many line

managers who are tasked with making decision to move the company forward. Since no one can

retain all data necessary to make every decision, we can be trained in certain areas of expertise

and spend 10, 20, 30 years becoming ‘experts’ in a field, and maybe even a somewhat expert

generalist. But knowing all of the facts and variables to make complex decisions in our world

today requires a support team much like the staff at the White House or a body of directors and

managers in a company.

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 Public relations representatives are called on to make complex decisions today about an

array of specific issues pertaining to an organizations viability and no one who is intelligent

makes those decisions alone. Today’s work environments are more complex and require us to

make more decisions faster. In public relations we may have only minutes or hours to obtain

facts about a crisis and begin responding to the press or media about details as they are

discovered. When a crisis like a plane crash or a significant event like a major accident that kills

or harms large amounts of people, information needs to be disseminated quickly. Organizations

and companies can face potentially devastating public relations and legal consequences.

Companies involved in a crisis risk losing their credibility and reputation which are essential to

running a company with the public’s confidence.

The goal of developing your plan is to get your people thinking and talking about what

might happen and how that can be effectively managed. The goal of the plan itself is to ensure

your people have the tools to get the crisis under control as quickly as possible to minimize the

damage (Reh, 2007 p. 1).

The loss of important constituents, as well as the potential for incurring legal liability for

alleged “bad acts of faith” is some of the serious consequences companies have to contend with

for their survival. Unfortunately, in their haste to respond to unfolding crisis events,

organizations often fail to recognize the importance of considering both the public relations and

legal implications involved and take a one-sided approach to communication (Fitzpatrick,1995,

p. 1).

Public relations as a field has progressed drastically since the father’s of public relations

Ivy Ledbetter Lee and Edward Bernays founded the profession and turned it into a profession of

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distinction. Different industries saw the benefit of public relations and adopted the practices of

trained public relations experts. Now, public relations experts have forged industry

specializations that work with different industries, government and non profit entities.

When it comes to how companies handle crisis, it is noted that 90% of crisis’s that take

place today are of internal origin (Wilcox, 2006, p. 258).

In two-thirds of the cases studied, a legal strategy was applied, with organizations taking

one of five approaches: (1) say nothing – this encourages speculation and mistrust by both the

media and the public; (2) say as little as possible and hope it “blows over” and release it as

quietly as possible. This has major implications of back-firing in the event the crisis escalates,

damage control becomes more difficult as time passes and all involved in inquiring about the

problem wonder if there has been an attempt at a cover up or the use misinformation to deflect

taking responsibility for the situation. (3) Stonewalling. Saying as little as possible in the attempt

to cite privacy laws, company policy or government security and sensitivity issues. This often

does not last long in our ability to ferret out information today from the Freedom of Information

Act. (4) deny guilt, or (5) shift or share blame with another party like the Ford/Firestone Debacle

(Fitzpatrick, 1995, p. 1).

Some of these tactics have proven to be reliable, but often unpredictable in their outcome.

Many case studies of outcomes based on distinct variables show the results of these tactics being

used are less than consistently reliable. This is where Decision Support Systems come in. To take

in account not only all of the variables involved in any situation, but to assess and ascertain

whether the risk of using that strategy outweighs the potential benefit is of utmost importance

before implementing a fundamental approach.

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 Public relations and legal representatives for companies are often in conflict with their

objectives and how to resolve the problems associated with their differing views. One reason for

lack of attention to legal concerns by public relations professionals is that they are simply

unfamiliar with the laws that affect their organizations in general and public relations activities

specifically. A study by the Public Relations Society of America’s members found that a majority

of respondents reported that they were only “somewhat” or “not at all” familiar with many of the

laws that affect public relations activities (Fitzpatrick, 1995, p. 1).

This leads to a common partnership of the legal department and public relations

department needing to work together and ideally report to the same executive to validate their

methods and approaches before being sent to publics.

Given the increasing number of crises actually created by legal disputes these days, and

the evolving nature of communication law, the need for legal knowledge backed by good policies

and decision management are even more crucial to the public relations practitioner. Having

Business Intelligence Systems (BIS) and Decision Support Systems (DSS) capability allows for

case scenarios to be analyzed with statistical outcomes reflective of the probabilities for success

when similar variables are being used. These variables that are pre-loaded into a response

database that can analyze public relations events of the past and their response and come up with

viable strategies based on a number of variables and factors involved.

Learning from other’s mistakes is an integral part of the ‘art’ of public relations as well as

the scientific methodology of the practice. As part of crisis planning, managers should review

reports of other organization’s responses and consider how they turned out. When this is done by

industry and grouped by similarity of type incident, a major lending hand to common sense is

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provided to the unskilled or new practitioner who has not yet received the benefit of years of

experience. Affirming decisions by senior staff can never hurt as well.

Such analysis helps companies prepare for their own disasters and allow them to build

hypothetical “what if’” scenarios from everything to their backup and disaster recovery planning

for their critical intellectual property to data used by business units to support sales, marketing,

information systems activities and overall business operations.

External crisis such as the Exxon-Valdez spill act as a constant reminder that companies

not having a ‘pulse’ on the sentiment and concern of the public and reacting appropriately can

severely damage their business and profits or put them out of business all together. To ignore

nine months of environmental news stories in the aftermath of the incident is negligent at best,

ignorant at worst (Fitzpatrick, 1995, p.1).

Using a simple Rich Site Summary format document (RSS) feed to receive news from

syndicated sources in an XML document (http://www.webopedia.com/term/r/rss.html) format

would have been an easy process to initiate by the public relations department of Exxon, but a

desire to monitor or be aware by corporate executives is much like leading a horse to water, they

may not drink it. Using news clipping services and integrating them with Business Intelligence

activities related to in-industry type events that have crises is critical for a strong defense as well

as a proactive offense.

Dealing with crisis management situations entails the active pursuit of preparation for any

contingent event. Much like Murphy’s Law where it states that basically the worst will happen at

the worst time, crisis planning is not forgiving and does not allow for many mistakes. You live

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with the loss of time and cost of the consequences, so the better you have planned, the less costly

the mistake.

Crisis’s come in many forms, so the management of case scenarios and their ability to be

categorized with logic based flow outcomes from a database of pre-loaded scenarios helps

instruct the public relations expert as well as the legal team in their responses.

“As an example, responding to marketplace rumors about potential problems

within an organization should be addressed, particularly if they have the ability to
undermine public confidence in the organization’s ability to operate successfully.”
Increased public understanding of organizational decisions and actions goes a long way
in calming employees and consumers and in diminishing the likelihood of legal claims
being brought against a company.
“The impact of rumors can cause long-term, sustained crisis for a targeted
company”, says Professor Barton. “The mere fact that people are talking about your
company negatively can lead to ramifications that are not fully identifiable at the outset.
Therefore, many companies assess damage incrementally and decide to intervene only
after contracts from clients have been cancelled, or top recruits refuse a firm’s
employment offer. Often, sales in a particular region have drastically dwindled.”
Crisis managers should develop legally acceptable response for worst case
scenarios and train a spokesperson to be candid but thoughtful in their answers to
questions from the media and other outlets. The key here is for the spokesman to be more
than a ‘mouthpiece’. They must understand both the legal implications that will affect the
organization and its operations and the legal issues affecting communication issues and
activities.
For example, a spokesperson that represents a chemical company should be aware
of both the statuary requirements regarding the production of toxic chemicals, as well as
the risk of defamation lawsuits by a disgruntled employee who was accused of being
negligent (Fitzpatrick, 1995, p. 1).

The word “intelligence” can be used in several contexts within the crisis management

process. Intelligence can refer to gathering data; it can refer to the data itself; and it can refer to

the application of knowledge to produce useful information from the acquired data. (Gordon,

2005, p.39). The computers using Decision Support Systems and Business Intelligence Systems

in combination with Data Warehouses and software tools used to acquire information from raw

data in a meaningful way cover all three forms of the definition of intelligence. Raw data can be

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captured for future use, then stored in an accessible form and finally is transformed into useful

information to be used by all departments of a company in the way they need to see the

information to have it be useful to them (Charnov, 1990, p. 39).

So the question becomes, “What help can a DSS/BIS system provide in a crisis

situation?” Since all computers rely on a “garbage in – garbage out” philosophy, knowing what

data to collect is of the first most importance. Once that data has been established, DSS can help

monitor the volume and intensity of event, abrupt or sudden change, insufficient information and

changes in external or internal environment of an organization. When these triggers have been

established, computer systems can reduce or manage uncertainty. The two models of

computerized systems are known as model-driven and data-driven. An example of data driven

events is a crisis like the Valdez oil spill where as new data enters the crisis scenario, variables

are calculated to evaluate their impact on the crisis. Model driven systems look at past scenarios

and determine what vulnerabilities might exist in comparison to a chosen company’s current

environment or planning and communication model. A communication driven DSS model can

reduce the negative affects of time pressures in a crisis situation by giving statistical probabilities

of success or failure of implementing certain actions or strategies

(http://dssresources.com/newsletter/129/php).

In the Ben Stiller and Jennifer Anniston movie Along Came Polly, Stiller is a risk

adjuster for the insurance industry and has a program for determining risk that shows a simple

pie chart that display the amount of risk verses the amount of reward for any potential

interaction, hobby, or sport. The simplicity of this type of illustration is that a computer loaded

with the right program and input can produce the right output. The over simplification of this

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process enables us to conceptualize the potential to use a computer and software to ‘solve

problems’.

Contingency planning (What if the computer is down during the crisis? What if the

electricity is not working? What if the internet has been knocked out by a nuclear bomb and the

radiation does not allow for digital transmission? etc.) is at the heart of most business planning.

Though some of these scenarios seem far fetched, it does not take a look too far back into

the past to remember supposed “rolling brownouts” of power in California that caused many

states to create disaster recovery plans that included multiple out of state locations as well plans

to have parallel processing capability and instant backups taken concurrently while data is being

written.

Web portals and web-based DSS/BIS systems can help monitor the news as it emerges

see events as they happen and help relief organization coordinate their efforts in public

emergencies and crisis situations. Whether the information is shared with the media, company

stakeholders or the general public, speed and accuracy becomes the critical component to make

the effort a success.

Improved communications technologies such as hand held and portable devices allow

first responders to problems to be able to coordinate and communicate effectively. In the recent

release of 9/11 movie United 93, the complexity of coordinating multiple events from multiple

agencies is demonstrated in the chaotic mechanics that have to be gone through to deploy

resources to deal with a crisis like a terrorist attack. As we watch several flight towers tracking

multiple planes (approximately 4200 in the air at the time of the crisis in the United States alone)

and trying to coordinate with the military and the Federal government to try to get authorization

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from the president to potentially shoot down planes that threaten the White House and other high

value targets. Even with the severe threat that was involved, had a better coordinated effort been

launched, significantly less damage to our reputation as a country and our ability to defend our

capital, national government and significant symbols of our strength as a nation became an issue

in that response came too late.

Since only 14 percent of business crisis are unexpected according to the Institute for

Crisis Management, the other 86 percent represent a “smoldering” crisis where the business or

organization was aware of potential business disruption long before the public found out. Since

management or perhaps it would be better represented as mismanagement caused 78 percent of

the crises, it would behoove many, if not most organizations, to have a crisis plan to deal with not

only sudden crises, but for slow burning issues that can grow organically within an organization

(Wilcox, 2006, p. 258).

It is necessary to have a Crisis Communication plan that involves the six components of

Issue management: (1) It is proactive and ongoing, (2) it takes a systematic approach to

predicting problems, (3) it anticipates threats, (4) it minimizes surprises, (5) it resolves standing

and newly identified issues, and with any luck it (6) prevents the majority if not all crises

(Wilcox, 2006, pp. 251-254).

Once these steps have been put into place, the necessary five steps of issue management

must be addressed to include; (1) issue identification, (2) issue analysis, (3) strategy options, (4)

an action plan, and (5) the evaluation of results (Wilcox, 2006, pp. 251-254).

Since an organization’s reputation is its most valuable asset, it is important that once a

company has a strategy in place, it is followed in a consistent, systematic way. All thought

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leadership should be on the same page in regard to the steps being taken and the single point of

representation and messages delivered to all publics in question. When dealing with problems,

the Public relations spokesperson should be well briefed on the legal and strategy issues before

moving forward with an action plan.

Even if technology fails in a time of need, the public relations practitioner will be better

off having gone through the preparation, planning and procedures to feed the technology and be

familiar with the steps involved in the process. This can only make the spokesperson more

capable. Technology is never a “fix all” and is only as good as the information being put into it,

but like all processes, the familiarity with the process can make or break the decision maker’s

chances for success.

Since any crises management scenario has many factors that feed into the final results, a

“it depends” type of flow chart (illustrated on page 12) will aid in giving a yes/no style format of

questioning to allow for the strength of the process to be built around as realistic of scenarios

affecting each company as possible. With input from as many departments as possible, the ratio

of success and potentially flawless recovery is possible. Therein lays the beauty of technology

and DSS/BIS systems to complete our human shortcomings of not having photographic

memories with instant recall.

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 References

Books

Charnov, B., Conway, H., Roukis, G., (1990) “Global Corporate Intelligence: Opportunities,
Technologies, and threats in the 1990s”, Quorum Books.

Gordon, Robert F., (2005). “Strategic Planning for Public Relations.” Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Book on-line. Available from Questia,
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=108665594. Internet. Accessed 3 February
2007.

Wilcox, D., & Cameron, G. (2006). “Public Relations, Strategies and Tactics.” 8th edition
Pearson and AB Books.

Journals

Fitzpatrick, Kathy R. (1995). “Ten Guidelines for Reducing Legal Risks in Crisis Management.”
Public Relations Quarterly 40, no. 2: 33+. Database on-line. Available from Questia,
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5000348182. Internet. Accessed 3 February
2007. userid:trevathantim@yahoo.com / password: welcome

Power, D., “How can computerized decision support help in crisis situations?”
DSS News, Vol. 4, No. 18, 08/31/2003

Internet

Reh, J. F. (2007). Disaster & Crisis Management Planning. “Survive the Unthinkable Through
Crisis Planning”, Available:
http://management.about.com/cs/communication/a/PlaceBlame1000.htm

Tortorella, A., “What is a corporate crisis?” Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide,

URL http://www.ogilvypr.com/expert-views/corporate-crisis.cfm
This site focuses on Corporate Crisis and Public Relations and includes case studies.

Decision Support Systems Resources (2007). Decision Support Systems. Available:

http://dssresources.com/

Webopedia (2007). Web Encyclopedia of terms including Information Technology terms.

Available: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/R/RSS.html

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