Nip it in the bud

Last week i was at a conference which was supposed to be about PR and Communications. During the conference we had different speakers from different organizations coming forward and speaking a lot about “new media” and how important it was in the context of the corporate environment.

Some came out and spoke about how blogs are no longer second to conventional media and the impact it can make to the masses or kill a product or company. Then we had some who came out and presented the March 8th general election results as a case study to show how important and the impact of new media.

It was pretty interesting to see the different views of how certain situations can be handled in certain ways to eliminate a situation to brew into a crisis. There was this one speaker who came up and spoke about how she looked at things and how she would handle a issue/crisis

One of the many things she spoke about was when there is a problem or a situation brewing a pr person should “nip it in the bud”. She was a obvious follower of Sun Tzu’s Art of War. She was very theatrical with her presentation style and she felt that when you smell a situation arising it should be killed from the root to eliminate any possibilities of it growing.

What was my perception of this approach….. ?

For me it was like the RPK scenario. RPK was seen as a threat to certain people who were in power(like when you have a critic towards your product). The critic went on and on about how crap your product is and gave evidence in the process. What was done? It was “nipped in the bud”, he was sent to the ISA and the problem was solved(in the view of who ever did it).

Is that the kind of solution which is acceptable in the landscape of today’s world?? Personally my answer is NO. I would prefer a more diplomatic approach! How would i have done it?

Confront and Resolve is my approach.

We live in a world where we want the truth! If RPK was seen as a problem and he if he was nothing but air, why wasnt he confronted in the proper way? Charge the man and give him a chance to defend him self! If his comments were nothing but lies and there was no substance in what he was saying, it would have come out in the open and the name of those implicated would have been cleared and he would receive the due punishment for it!! Now what has happened in my view is that ,those implicated are affraid that they have been found out hence they have removed the problem “ISA STYLE”.

Is that acceptable in today’s world?? Not for me at least!

The conference was a good one never the less and it was interesting to see some of the other participants reaction towards blogs and bloggers. Some are taking them very seriously and some are still sceptics. As for the Nip in the bud concept…Not for me, i prefer the confront and resolve one

Not something im doing on a regular basis yet but im striving to do just that!

What are your thoughts??