THE LATEST ON THE PROS AND CONS OF CONSTANT CONNECTION Armed with your smart phone, your tablet and your laptop, you're ready for just about anything. Go ahead: Ask me where the Nikkei index stands at this very second. Let me tell you about the latest post on our company's Twitter feed. Give me sixty seconds to text my boss to tell him about my last meeting before I head into the next one. Commentary by Firestorm Expert Council Member Grant Rampy, Director of PR, Abilene Christian University   We may be armed and dangerous, but we also walk around feeling mighty guilty. A black cloud hangs just overhead, not quite as close as all those cool toys we carry, but close all the same. Deep down we feel a bit like an eight-year-old who can't break free of his Nintendo DS, or like the teenager whose thumbs are calloused from pecking out status updates to her 500 closest Facebook friend...

Emory University’s Smart Move After A Stupid Mistake   Why this is a lesson worth learning, even if you aren’t in higher ed Commentary by Grant Rampy, Firestorm Expert Council Member Mr. Rampy is director of public relations at Abilene Christian University. He was White House Correspondent for Tribune Broadcasting in Washington, D.C., from 1999 to 2009. Emory Fesses Up Typically, universities love to share good news – regarding faculty scholarship, impressive student accomplishment, or for delivering a break-through in medical research; the better the news, the more reason to brag. The president of Atlanta’s Emory University finds himself suddenly, and apparently of his own volition, making news of an altogether different variety – the bad kind. On August 17, 2012, Emory’s president Jim Wagner announced that his school had misreported student data for more than a decade, da...

Social Media Risk Management Commentary by Grant Rampy, Firestorm Expert Council Member Mr. Rampy is director of public relations at Abilene Christian University. He was White House Correspondent for Tribune Broadcasting in Washington, D.C., from 1999 to 2009. Facebook post leads to protest, apology, resignation Jason Vincent should have known better. As a former television news guy, I can tell you: Most TV people know implicitly that they’re being watched. If you’ve been given the privilege to come into people’s homes to share word of the day’s event, you can bet the people watching have certain reasonable expectations about who you are and who you aren’t. They assume you behave in a certain way – that you, for instance, are not going to pull a Randy Travis (driving while buck naked and allegedly 99% lit); that you aren’t robbing banks on the side; and that, as a matter of course,...

Grant Rampy on Crisis Communication Reacting to a Fast Unfolding Crisis with Transparency As Director of Public Relations for Abilene Christian University, Firestorm Expert Council Member Grant Rampy shares his experience and response approach when the tragic news of a crash of a school-owned bus carrying 12 agricultural studies students, three faculty members and a faculty member's wife occurred. The group was on their way from Abilene to Medina to spend the weekend doing mission work at a children's home.   Authorities say the 34-year-old driver, faculty member Michael Nicodemus, lost control as the bus was entering a bend on U.S. 83 near Ballinger. The vehicle hit a concrete culvert and did a complete roll, ejecting some passengers. Anabel Reid, a student from Petersburg, was pronounced dead at the scene.   When a crisis is unfolding, the media has a huge role in tel...

Crisis Message Management   Every word counts  Guest Analysis by Grant Rampy Mr. Rampy is director of public relations at Abilene Christian University. He was White House Correspondent for Tribune Broadcasting in Washington, D.C., from 1999 to 2009. George W. Bush, Tony Hayward, and Cory Booker. What do they have in common? Well, they are each guilty of committing what’s known as the dreaded seven-second slip. In the thick of the federal government’s disastrous handling of the post-Katrina hurricane response, President Bush famously complimented hapless FEMA director Mike Brown: “You’re doing a heckuva job, Brownie.” To many, the off-handed declaration came to symbolize how out-of-touch the Bush team was with the plight of those hardest hit by the storm. At the height of BP’s response to the Deepwater Horizon well explosion three years ago, the company’s CEO tossed off a...

Social Media Risk   3 PR lessons from Heineken's bizarre dog-fighting crisis  Guest Analysis by Grant Rampy Mr. Rampy is director of public relations at Abilene Christian University. He was White House Correspondent for Tribune Broadcasting in Washington, D.C., from 1999 to 2009 Story Summary from PR Daily:  There is crisis control, and then there is the ordeal that Heineken is facing. The beer maker has been slammed in traditional and social media since photos of a dogfight with prominent Heineken branding went viral. Heineken has denied knowledge of the event, which apparently occurred at a Mongolian nightclub in 2011.  Of course, the masses took to Heineken’s Facebook page to berate the company. What could Heineken do? Blindsided by the photo, Heineken launched into action. The choice: come clean or obfuscate? When faced with a PR black eye, there is a cho...