HUDDLE – MR. MAYOR, RELEASE THE TAPE

This week's perspective from Bob Reid: This play is still in progress, so we will dispense with making a call and instead call a Huddle with the newsmaker in question, to offer some direction on the field.  Mayor Rob Ford, you should release the tape of your call to 9-1-1 made earlier this week after you were confronted by a camera crew in your driveway.  I say this for a couple of reasons:  first, you can bet your bottom dollar that it’s going to leak out anyway – probably sooner than later – so you might as well be at the front of the train.  Much better to be leading a less than ideal story (so that you can have your positioning front and centre) than to be dragged back into it.  Second, if it does confirm what you have said took place (namely that you dropped an F-bomb out of frustration but didn’t call the operator any names which may or may not have started with an earlier letter in the alphabet), it settles the matter once and for all – and you can move on.  And third, if it contradicts the language you told the media you did/didn’t use, you can address that at the outset rather than having to deal with yet another purely reactionary scrum situation.  You are in a position to bring this whole saga to a close, or leave a time bomb ticking away.  Pull the pin.

Bob Reid has been a journalist and media advisor to a former Ontario Premier. He is now Veritas' principal media coach.

FUMBLE – CITY HALL MISSED OCCUPY OPPORTUNITY AT THE OUTSET

This week's perspective from Bob Reid: I have previously been critical of the Occupy Toronto movement for its lack of a clear message, objective or call to action (aside from setting up camp in a downtown park and messing up streetcar traffic through the financial district from time to time).  Let me also call a communications Fumble on City Hall for failing to set and manage an expectation at the outset of the movement:  namely, that the tents in St. James’ Park wouldn’t be permitted to remain forever.  Because guess what: now they’re busy winterizing.  I understand – and agree with – the administration’s original strategy of sending messages of tolerance and non-confrontation to the demonstrators when they first gathered; it would have been foolish in post G-20 Toronto to have done otherwise.  But what was missing was any indication that the city’s leadership would not tolerate the park squat indefinitely.  Now that Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday and others are beginning to make noises to that effect, it’s being viewed as a change in attitude – and it will be (at least rhetorically) that much more difficult to bring about a tidy resolution to the occupation.  Getting the communications right at the outset would have gone a long way to mitigate that.

Bob Reid has been a journalist and media advisor to a former Ontario Premier. He is now Veritas' principal media coach.

TOUCHDOWN – LINE OF THE WEEK

This week's perspective from Bob Reid: Item:  An OPP officer reportedly fired a Taser at one or more colleagues during a heated dispute at a detachment in Alliston.  Comment from OPP Association President Jim Christie:  “You really don’t want to encourage this type of performance management.”

Bob Reid has been a journalist and media advisor to a former Ontario Premier. He is now Veritas' principal media coach.

FUMBLE – “IT’S NOT RODENTS!”

This week's perspective from Bob Reid: A textbook example of how NOT to handle crisis communications, courtesy of the good folks at swanky grocery chain Pusateri’s.  Public health inspectors following up on a tip inspected the company’s flagship Avenue Road store yesterday and shut the place down after finding evidence of rats and a cockroach infestation.  When asked by the Toronto Star why the store was closed, General Manager John Mastroianni said “general maintenance . . . equipment maintenance, that kind of thing,” later adding “It’s not rodents.” Only when confronted with confirmation by public health did company officials then fess up, pulling together a late-night news conference and calling it “one of the worst days in our lives.”  Well, it wouldn’t have been quite as bad had they been up front about the situation in the first place.  Pusateri’s had a chance to acknowledge the problem, to detail the corrective measures being taken, and to try and put it into perspective (i.e. all grocers face the possibility of this kind of thing, we have a pest control company that routinely takes preventative measures, etc.), but no: by issuing a bogus denial, they shredded their credibility right out of the gate.  Now, as they continue to clean the store and eradicate the bugs and rodents, any statements of progress and the inevitable clean bill of health will be viewed with a degree of skepticism they have brought upon themselves.  The cover-up is always worse than the crime.

FIELD GOAL - RIM SCORES, SAFELY

This week's perspective from Joe Chidley: Waterloo-based Research In Motion has certainly had its troubles lately. From its recent dismal quarterly earnings to last week's extended meltdown of its much-vaunted e-mail service, the maker of the device upon which I'm typing this squib has been the subject of hand-wringing, dire speculation, and hefty criticism for months now. So RIM was due to get back on the field and score some points. And that's just what it did this week, by unveiling a suite of new apps possibilities and a revamped operating system. Not exactly a blunting strategy - as the good news came after the crisis - but the moves delivered by co-CEO Mike Lazaridis in San Francisco were welcomed by the developer crowd. That's important for the company at this critical juncture, especially as archrival Apple continues to unveil upgrades and improvements to its iPhone franchise. RIM is playing now to a vital component of its core audience. That's essential - but probably not sufficient. Winning over a captive audience of your own developer community is one thing. Changing the minds of consumers and investors is another. So we can't award a Touchdown - just a safe Field Goal. But for RIM's sake, we hope another scoring drive is coming up soon.

FUMBLE – BALSILLIE STILL DOESN’T GET IT

This week's perspective from Bob Reid: See my colleague Joe Chidley’s piece on a relatively good week for Research In Motion for the upside of the story – and allow me to offer the counterpoint.  I don’t disagree with Joe’s comments at all, but I will add one additional wrinkle, that being the astonishing comment by RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie in defending their poor PR job amid last week’s critical systems outage.  “Every minute spent doing PR is time not spent fixing the issue,” Balsillie told reporters.  That may be true if you are a one man operation, Jim – but for an organization of any size and scope, let alone one the size of RIM, in the midst of a crisis situation, the operational and communications responses simply must go hand-in-hand.  It’s not just about fixing the problem, it’s about TELLING your customers, shareholders and everyone else exactly what you’re doing about it – even if you haven’t gotten it all sussed out right away.  We all saw how putting PR on the back burner played out last week.  Fumble!

FUMBLE – OCCUPY TORONTO WANTS … UH …

This week's perspective from Bob Reid: We know there’s going to be a big protest in downtown Toronto tomorrow.  What we don’t know is why.  “Occupy Toronto” is the latest branch-plant protest spinning off of the month-long one that has seen activists decamped in a Manhattan park (“Occupy Wall Street”), and local organizers say they’re counting on the same long-term action here.  But what they’re not saying is exactly what they’re upset about, and exactly what action they are calling for – fundamental aspects of any activist-based communications effort.  They also say they don’t want any confrontation with police – yet have also asked participants to prepare to deal with the effects of tear gas and pepper spray, and have thus far refused to communicate with the cops about their intended marching route or any other actions.  No clarity on the one hand, and outright contradiction on the other add up to a colossal communications Fumble.

TOUCHDOWN – TTC REACHES OUT TO RIDERS

This week's perspective from Bob Reid: The TTC has had its share of bad news days over the past year or so, everything from sleeping subway station collectors to drivers caught texting behind the wheel.  These are the kinds of little cuts that can do serious reputational damage over time – and they’re the kind of thing that can’t be suddenly overcome with one very good news story.  So it’s great PR indeed for the TTC to be undertaking the kind of customer service initiatives it has brought forward in the past while (station managers, the appointment of Customer Service Officer Chris Upfold), the latest of which was announced this week: plans to establish a Customer Liaison Panel populated by members of the public and TTC officials, plus regular quarterly town hall meetings.  All of these measures send a strong signal: that the commission understands it needs to do a better job in customer service, and that it is making changes designed to achieve that goal.  As TTC Chair Karen Stintz put it, “Fundamentally, what we’re talking about is a culture change.”  Touchdown.

FUMBLE – BLACKBERRY MAKERS ALL THUMBS IN CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS

This week's perspective from Bob Reid: It’s ironic indeed that the two guys who revolutionized the way the world stays in touch were nowhere to be seen nor heard from when everything went bad for Research In Motion this week.  What began as a service outage overseas quickly spiraled into a cascading failure that ultimately enveloped five continents and tens of millions of Blackberry users.  iPhone nation gloated, Android users smirked, and furious Berry peeps ranted online that they were leaving and never coming back.  And all the while, silence from RIM’s co-CEOs, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis.  Instead, reporters were given a clumsily-arranged conference call with the company’s top-ranking tech official.  Finally, on Thursday morning, Lazaridis appeared in an online video, expressing his deep regret over the situation and vowing that his team was working “day and night” to get it fixed.  Eventually, the emails began flowing again, but the damage was done: they had waited too long to put the corner office into play.  A major crisis requires the visible involvement of the top executive(s), to make clear that the problem is being taken extremely seriously and to send the message that everyone throughout the organization is working on a resolution.  With the recent death of Steve Jobs (and the flood of affection for Apple and its competing products it inspired) plus the launch just today of the next generation iPhone, the timing couldn’t have been worse for RIM to suffer the body blow that was the service outage – and they certainly didn’t need to cap it with a self-inflicted black eye through their communications Fumble.