Local Disaster: Are you ready to be an industry representative?

Many of you will be aware of the recent record center fire in Albu­querque, NM that I reported on our twitter feed after seeing it on the Fileman Blog :

"Fire­fight­ers say they have made tremen­dous progress against a blaze at a busi­ness records stor­age facil­ity: http://ping.fm/Ke9qu 10:27 AM Jun 25th"

Disasaters, especially record center fires, make news headlines, and this made me think how could a competitor record center react in such circumstances. I couldn't help feeling that other record centers should jump on this opportunity to represent the industry in the local media. This has the benefit of them being seen as the local experts, of promoting the positive sides of the commercial record management industry, and getting some self promotion along the way. At a time like this, the media is going to focus on all the bad news, but fires are rare and a calm, representative voice in the media can help to give a balanced view.

Imagine if this happened in your market place? How would you react? If you had a media packet ready to go, you could be contacting the media immediately to become that local expert.

So how could you construct a media packet?

You could certainly look at what others do/did in such circumstances and put your own mark on it. As a private pilot, I regularly hear about small aircraft accidents, which nearly always make the local news. In the light of this, I wondered what the Pilots Association (AOPA) did to help pass on positive message, and found that they have actually created a media guidance for their members (if you have a pilot friend, you can view this at: http://www.aopa.org/members/files/pilot/epilot/2006/061013epilot.html along with a Guide to talking to Reporters movie at: http://media.aopa.org/mediatraining/AOPAMediaTraining.html). I also saw that they react quickly in the media to put their perspective onto the accident, with their own positive points, such as:

AOPA offers condolences after midair collision

“Saturday’s accident is a tragedy for all involved, and we offer our condolences to the families,” said Bruce Landsberg, president of the AOPA Air Safety Foundation. “...we should avoid speculating about who did what or who is at fault until the investigation has run its course. It is also important for the traveling public to understand that accidents like this are extremely rare.”

Finally, out of curiosity I looked at the website of the company affected, and then I took a look at BP's website to see how they are handling their own disaster. Although the record storage company is keeping their customers informed with online updates, BP has created a real sense that they are actively doing something (I won't get into the debate of whether they are doing enough, but suffice to say the website looks informative). Also BP created a new, home page to direct curious traffic, while the record center continues to direct traffic to their standard, home page which proudly proclaims that they are "...the unparalleled choice for records storage and services...". That's probably not a good thing to leave up!

Any disaster is a terrible thing, but it is important that the media get a balanced view. Preparation now for how you would react, should the media come knocking on your door for a comment, could make a huge difference to the future of off-site storage in your area, to the industry as a whole, and to your standing as an industry expert.