Recently I was on the World Health Organizations website (WHO).
Reading WHO’s “Effective Media Communication during Public Health Emergencies” handbook several things come to mind.
As globalization increase so too does competition and bio-security risks, though this is a high-level overview, lower level issues must be considered. A local comm’s issue may be that a person finds a frog in a burger, it is my thinking that both should be treated as equals in severity from a corporate point of view. Both stories can reach every corner of the world at similar speeds, of course one might attract more attention that the other.
Concurrent trade wars are increasing the likely hood of corporate sabotage, and with the democratization of the IOT (Fake or real news) is free to blunder the internet changing opinions as it sees fit. The rate at which populism and mass hysteria is sweeping through Europe, Asia and the middle east is disturbing and demented. I see this Communication action plan as necessary, not only for health emergencies but any corporate emergency.
How so? One might ask.
Well for example, the acronym VUCA was only ever applied and used in the U.S. Army War College to describe the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity of the world after the Cold War. Its is now used and written about in the Harvard Business Review. The same will be said about WHO’s action plan “SEVEN STEPS TO EFFECTIVE MEDIA COMMUNICATION DURING PUBLIC- HEALTH EMERGENCIES” Maybe next time your chatting at the water cooler with your work colleague the ‘WHOCOM’ strategy will be your next talking point.