Dealing with Protestors

I spent the morning listening to protestors. As tempting as it is to use this space to poke holes in their arguments and assert my position that’s not very helpful for anybody involved. What is helpful is to recognize that there are likely lessons for everyone who does marketing and communication.

First, I was in a class a few years ago when a corporate public relations executive explains that the first step in any P.R. crisis was the “fix the problem.” I couldn’t agree more. While in this case there was no problem we could fix, we did have a clear position we were taking and it wasn’t really up for debate. I’m not saying you never give into the will of public, but in this case it was pretty clear where we stood and that gave me a lot of internal peace and a clear position I could go back to.

Secondly, it pays to wear your good suit. Standing in the midst of 18 protestors I think I realized that 16 of them had cell phone cameras and are now carrying around my picture. My friend Dave has put forth a position in where we as the media relations professionals should be taping each interview ourselves so that we could use on You Tube or our own sites later if needed. This might be helpful where editing doesn’t do us any favors. In this case, I think I could have done that and it would have probably worked to help faculty and staff better understand the situation.

Finally, dealing with protestors is hard work. It has been a long week at it is only 3 p.m. on Monday. I’m drained, not so much from actual work, but from the emotional energy of being on the receiving end of a lot of anger and ill will.

Maybe as the sky clears I will have more lessons, but that is it for now.