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Home > Learning > Tips from the Trenches > Y2K Communications Strategies tips from the trenches - y2k communications strategiesThis month we call on our partners and friends the crisis experts at Mindszenthy & Roberts in Toronto to share some of their experience and humor on everyone's favorite topic. Well respected crisis management consultants, Bart & Gail have recently developed a Y2K Communications division that is helping organizations develop strategies to make certain public relations capital is not lost in the Milennium flip-flop.Y2K worries wreaking havoc in your planning meetings? Take a pill, laugh a little, and check out the Top Ten Tips for surviving the Milennium at the end of the piece provocatively titled, "Y2K Rage?"
Y2K Rage: Coming Next?
By Bart J. Mindszenthy (c) 1999, Y2K Communications Counsel, TMRC Reproduction permitted with attribution First, there was road rage. Then airline passenger rage. How about Y2K Rage? Farfetched? Probably not as much as you may think. Just imagine this scenario... It's January 1, 2000. Happy New Year. Here comes the New Millennium! And everything seems to be working. Phew...relax. The Chicken Littles were wrong after all. So Monday morning you head for work. But guess what? The door to the underground parking garage doesn't work. You know that, because there are dozens of cars jammed around the door with frustrated people trying to figure out what to do. Okay, so you all find outdoor lots and walk six blocks in driving snow, slipping and sliding all the way. Now, you discover yet more people in the lobby. Hundreds of them, all waiting for the one elevator that's working. What you hear is that both the door for the underground and the elevators are acting up because the overall security system, with its independent computer system, went a little crazy when it got conflicting time-coded information from all the things it monitors and manages. A long wait later (beats climbing 47 storeys), you arrive at the office. You've now missed the important conference call from Beijing. So you try to call, only to discover that some of the phone trunks in China aren't working because of the Y2K "bug", and you can't get through. Fax won't work either. You're not in a good mood. Your mood erodes further in the afternoon when you talk to your broker. Guess what, he says sheepishly: His computer doesn't seem to want to talk to some other computer that should link him to yet another computer trading system, and so the stock you were determined to sell hasn't been sold and the price is dropping. An hour later, you work your way down what seem like thousands of stairs (the elevators are still acting up, of course), and you retrace this morning's long, wet march to the car. You drive home, open the door, and when you punch in the code for the security system, all hell breaks loose-sirens wail, bells ring. You can't shut the thing off. Finally, you call the monitoring service only to be told there's a slight problem that should be corrected within just a few days. But meanwhile, they tell you, every time you set the alarm or shut it off, chances are your system will go haywire for a while. But not to worry-they're working on it. You're now in a foul mood. Until you check the mail. There's a letter from your insurance company-Byzantine Life-one of those cold, form letters advising that your policy premium will be 100 years overdue effective January 8th, and that unless you remit $874,645.72 within 10 days your policy will be cancelled. You call the 800 number immediately, only to hear a recorded voice tell you that your call is important and that your anticipated waiting time for a caring customer service representative is 37 minutes. Meanwhile, the alarm system is still bellowing in full fury. Slamming down the phone, you open the next letter. It's from the company that installed your automatic lawn sprinkler system a couple of years ago. And it tells you that because of the embedded computer chip in the system you may find that you'll be watering your snow every morning at 7.30 unless the system is disconnected. Sorry, it says-a slight Y2K boo-boo with little chance of anything bad happening, except for the lines freezing and bursting, in which case, please call. It's then that you kick the cat right over the couch. Y2K Rage at work. Impossible? No. The fact is, there are so many tools, items, gadgets and gizmos that in your everyday life depend on time-coded computers and chips that all this could happen. That's why you need all the information you can get in the coming months. You need to Y2K-proof yourself as best you can. Because chances are, in some way, you'll likely be the victim of some Y2K "bug" lurking somewhere in your life. Bart Mindszenthy is partner in the Mindszenthy & Roberts Corporation, Toronto. Y2K Communications Counsel is,a division of TMRC. Bart can be reached at mr@mrcom.com, or contact Y2K Commnications Specialist John Newton, Ph.D, P.Eng. at jnewton@interlog.com. Y2K-Proofing Yourself:
10 Key Tips
Information courtesy of Y2K Communications, Toronto Bart Mindszenthy 416.924-2425 |
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