Last night I gave a lecture in Heather Pullen’s class on “Issues and Crisis Management” taught in the Continuing Education public relations diploma program at McMaster University. What was supposed to be a one hour lecture turned into a full three-hour workshop – mostly because of the students who were completely engaged and full of questions. Heather has done a great job preparing them. What a great instructor she is.
I spoke about the definition of “reputation” and “trust.” We drilled down to gain a cognitive and social understanding of those phenomena. Then we went through a definition of four major social media tool did a SWOT for each one. We talked about how each one could both lead to a crisis and how each one could be used in a crisis. We also talked about the importance of video for the future and how it should be shot to be authentic and credible during a crisis.
I was very pleased to meet all the students, some of who have been my students in the past or whose paths I have crossed in the community of practitioners.
It was a great evening. I look forward to my next invitation to speak to Heather Pullen’s class.