Imagine that you’re the Winnipeg School Division and your current claim to fame is a couple of cell phone videos of two of your teachers simulating a lap dance and oral sex during a high school pep rally. The high school is pilloried by media around the world. The teachers in question are lambasted by students, parents, politicians and every human being who hears the story and shakes their head in dismay.

So what do you do if you are the Winnipeg School Division? Why, you pretend nothing has happened at all. That has been the approach of the WSD administration ever since the Churchill High School lap dance scandal broke.

Today’s Winnipeg Free Press reported that the division has even removed any media stories from the clippings it sends to its trustees. Those would be the same trustees that the citizens of Winnipeg elected to govern the administration.

Let’s repeat that: the trustees are supposed to govern the administration.But I digress.

This story continues to go from bad to worse. What started as a serious lapse of judgment for a couple of high school teachers has escalated to a potential crisis of confidence in the entire school division administration.

It’s hard to tell why the administration is burying its head in the sand on this. There have been a few comments saying that it’s a personnel matter and therefore is entirely private. That may be, but that doesn’t mean it’s not also a full-blown communications crisis for the school division and the school in question.

As it happens, I live in the catchment area for Churchill High School. I also have a son for whom my wife and I have to soon decide if he’ll attend Churchill or some other school that doesn’t have lap dancing during pep rallies. As a parent, I’m looking for some sign that the school and the division understand the depth of the mistrust this episode has bred. As a voter, I’m searching for some evidence that the school division is capable of handling itself competently. Sadly, I’m seeing the exact opposite on both counts.

The school division could have taken a much more pro-active approach to this situation while still respecting the privacy of the teachers. Its executive management team should have immediately responded both within the school community (before it hit the media). And once it hit the media, it needed to speak through the media and via its own publications to the general public (to reach would be parents like me). We need to be reassured of the culture and policies at work in our schools and in our school division.

Instead, the only public action it’s taken has been to threaten the students who took the videos and to see that they’re removed from YouTube. Seems to me they’re trying to move mountains to protect the reputations of two teachers that have deservedly lost them on their own. Meanwhile, the reputation of the WSD and of Churchill High School has been permanently smeared by their inaction.

Knowledge can be a terrible thing… especially when what you know is horrible or salacious or illegal.

Since people are social animals, our baser instinct is often to spill the beans and tell all about what we know. As a public relations consultant, I am often called on to tell my clients to say nothing.

A perfect case in point was in the Saturday Winnipeg Free Press when Gordon Sinclair Jr. took a young woman’s story of her affair with her boss and turned it into a sermon on transparency in communications. Mr. Sinclair may be many things, but as a PR consultant he would fail miserably.

When you consider whether you should come forward and divulge your secrets to the rest of the world, you should ask yourself a few questions. First and most important are the twin-headed dragons of: what is the potential upside and downside of coming forward? If the only upside is to get some revenge, then zip up. That is made only truer when the potential downside is to turn a private embarrassment into a public humiliation.

Other questions to ask: is it likely that your story will come out on its own? Could a reporter reasonably sniff it out and get independent confirmations without your help? More often than not, the news never gets out. It can even go to court where all the details will be placed on the public docket, and chances are still fair that it won’t be reported in the newspaper. In Manitoba at least, there are too few reporters who can chase only so many stories.

The reality is that scandals are constantly occurring in businesses, charities and private homes all over this city. Most of them remain secrets. When it comes to malfeasance or criminality, that’s a shame. When it comes to private matters, it’s a good thing. Because contrary to what reporters and columnists tend to think and say, it is RARELY in your best interest to go public.

I feel badly for the young woman involved here. I know her. She’s a good person. She made a mistake in her private life and has now amplified it. I suspect (though I don’t know) that her decision to come forward was made in a cloud of emotion. It’s at times like those - when you’re too close to your terrible secret - that you should seek professional advice.

The Winnipeg youth soccer community erupted in drama last week as the city’s community centres announced they were setting up a new youth soccer league to rival the one run by the Winnipeg Youth Soccer Association (WYSA).

Both organizations are case studies of how poor communications practices have led to distrust and anger among stakeholder groups, which has decimated goodwill on all sides.In fact, now that its secret plans for a new league are out in the open, the Greater Council of Winnipeg Community Centres has admitted that it only pursued this action because WYSA refused to meet. GCWCC says it has asked for meetings with WYSA numerous times only to have their requests rebuffed or the meetings cancelled.

WYSA was turning turtle, pulling itself in to its shell and refusing to discuss legitimate concerns of a major stakeholder group. After all, a large portion of WYSA’s revenue comes from community centres and - as a soccer convenor for Lord Roberts Community Centre, I know they do have some legitimate concerns.

1. WYSA is worthy of its reputation for high-handed arrogance, running a cumbersome bureaucracy that needlessly wastes volunteer time, and which focuses more on premier programs while virtually ignoring rec league soccer.

2. The district soccer clubs (such as Winnipeg South End United) run great premier soccer programs, but they do so at the expense of recreational soccer leagues. District clubs such as WSEU annually decimate rec leagues by recruiting community centre players to fill their developmental leagues.  That practice is commonly (and rightly) viewed by convenors and parents in the south district as nothing but a charade designed to drive revenues to pay for premier programs.

3. Soccer fees have risen steadily over the past few years. When challenged about fees, WYSA and the district clubs appear reluctant to offer clear explanations for the increases or for where all the money is going in the first place. (I`m always sceptical of budget line items labelled `miscellaneous.`)

Not talking about these things won’t make them go away.But then GCWCC is no better. In fact, they took their strategy from the same playbook: plot in secret for years about how to get even with WYSA, don’t bother to consult with your own stakeholders, don’t do any substantive research… just bluster your way into setting up a new league. That’ll teach ‘em. Now they’ll have to talk, eh, what?

As it was presented to the Manitoba Soccer Association annual general meeting on Saturday, GCWCC says its new league will be cheaper and will somehow bring hundreds of new players into the fold (though they were shockingly spare on details on this score). The folks at GCWCC freely admit that they want to return to the good old days when community centres ran youth sports in this town (without asking why they deservedly lost that role to more specialized organizations over the last 30 years).

If I wasn’t involved in the soccer world myself, and if I didn’t love the game and want my kids to play it, I’d probably just laugh.It’s shockingly bad planning that community centres - who take their power from the people - didn’t bother to consult with anyone outside of an inner circle. There was no attempt to canvass parents, players, soccer convenors, etc. for ideas on how to improve the game. As a result, the new league will have a hard time claiming legitimacy.

The biggest problem in Winnipeg soccer is that there are too many competing fiefdoms, each trying to build themselves into empires on the backs of a shrinking pool of players. The GCWCC proposal is nothing more than a power play to try to wrest control over soccer from other organizations and, at the same time, drive more revenues into community centres.

On the other side, WYSA’s ‘my way or the highway’ attitude suffers from the same delusion of power. They want to run soccer without the hassle or inconvenience of being questioned about their decisions.

The real story is the one being lost as adults fight so hard to protect their turf: the kids are being ignored as everyone wrestles for bigger slices of their parents’ cheques. I believe that we need a great simplification of soccer. We should forget about who ‘controls’ the league and worry about how to get a better one.

GCWCC is right about one thing – we should encourage a bigger, less expensive rec league – but we don’t need a new, rival league to get this done. (All that will do is drain more volunteer time, goodwill and trust out of the system.) We need WYSA to climb down off its high horse and make it happen. Reduce player fees and administration and embrace the notion that we’re all working for the common good of a single pool of players.

We also need a system that requires less volunteer power to run. That means doing more to centralize and streamline registration, team building and player development in each district. For that, the community centres need to recognize that they are just as guilty of abusing volunteer time. The current system is wildly convoluted, creating an unnecessary workload on convenors, treasurers and community centre managers as they swap and transfer players around the city (and we won`t even touch on the issue of fields in this city). The only reason for this system`s existence is because that’s the way things have always been done in Winnipeg … a terrible justification of a stupid system.

Finally, soccer should follow the lead of hockey with its widely accepted tiering system for players. Only the top players make the premier teams, all others are placed according to their abilities, with the large majority playing in the lower tiers. This will go a long way to improving the players’ enjoyment of the game as it decreases the potential for lopsided contests that leave players dejected and looking for a way out of the sport.

I was shocked and dismayed at the cavalier disregard GCWCC and WYSA seem to be treating the kids they purport to serve. GCWCC has made matters worse with its new league. The only silver lining is that this may force WYSA to reform its ways. The alternative is a rapid and sad degeneration of soccer here just as it enjoys massive popularity everywhere else in the world. A pox on both their houses, I say.

If either side employed good communications strategies, none of this would have happened and we’d all be happily planning for another season instead of trying to clean up a nasty mess.

Grand Chief David Harper sure made the most of things this week. He’s the one who led the symbolic protest against Health Canada over the body bag fiasco.

Health Canada apparently sent shipments to some remote Manitoba reserves that contained body bags in addition to hand sanitizer and other items. Harper found out about it and decided to make the most of the situation. He brought the body bags to the Health Canada office in Winnipeg and marked the boxes “return to sender.”

He told Canada AM that the reserves in question have been awaiting emergency preparedness kits in anticipation of more H1N1 flu cases, but have yet to receive them. Instead, they got body bags.

The emotional and political impact of this story was immediate. Opposition leaders postured that the government was betraying its callousness. The Minister of Health apologized and promised an immediate investigation. The story has led the national news cycle replacing the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington and Parliament’s avoidance of a fall election.

The entire episode is an example of why ongoing, open communications with stakeholders is vitally important.

I have no way of knowing why Health Canada has apparently been slow in delivering the kits Chief Harper referenced. I suspect that body bags may well be an appropriate item to deliver to communities that are expected to face a higher than average incidence of severe flu this fall. Preparedness isn’t always sunshine and light. The problem, I believe, was less in the delivery than in the surprise.

Communicate clearly with your stakeholder groups. Tell them what’s coming, listen to their response, remind them what’s coming and what you heard… and then, once done, tell them what you just did.

Health Canada deserves the headache it’s getting. Harper had every right to exploit this situation. His aggressive use of the media here will help his communities get the medical supplies they need sooner.

I recommend that Health Canada start its investigation with its communications protocols.

Occasionally someone will ask me if we do news conferences. Yes and no, I answer. We’ll set up news conferences for clients when they’re appropriate, but those circumstances have become increasingly rare. It might still be possible to fill a room with reporters in Toronto or New York, but it’s not easy in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

It wasn’t always this way. Only a decade ago, local news conferences were much more common. Public relations people would dutifully set up rows of chairs, podiums with urns of coffee at the back of the room. Displays and demonstrations and other things of visual interest were set up and media kits full of information assembled. And the rooms would fill with radio, television and print reporters.

That was at a time when news people were more plentiful. Today, there are scarcely more than half a dozen newsrooms of any size and energy in Winnipeg. For radio, you have CBC Radio One, Radio Canada (CBC French) and CJOB, all of which are staffed with more on-air hosts than reporters. For television, there’s CBC, Global and CTV (easily the most important of the three based on ratings). There’s also CITY TV which still airs local news on its Breakfast Television broadcast. In print, there’s the Winnipeg Sun and the Winnipeg Free Press. It’s instructive that even The Free Press, which has the largest and most active newsroom, is a tough sell to get out to news events.

All these newsrooms have been shrinking in recent years and many radio stations have given up the idea of generating their own news entirely. So there just aren’t that many reporters around to show up to a news conference.

As a result we tell our clients that the traditional news conference isn’t the way to go except in circumstances where you have intense public interest in a subject and limited time to satisfy multiple interview requests. For example, you might have a genuine crisis on your hands that is of great public interest and you need to release information to a broad audience all at once. (The police still do this on a regular basis as do many other emergency services organizations, though they characterize these events as briefings rather than the more formal ‘news conference.’) On the other hand, you may also have a visiting celebrity to whom you need to restrict access (due to his or her popularity and limited availability).

In the main, except for special events, media relations efforts in Winnipeg and Manitoba are more commonly one-on-one efforts. We tend to pitch our stories more actively and directly than we did before to individual reporters, editors, news directors and on-air hosts. There’s just too much competition for the attention of a dwindling pool of news people.

This scenario is even more pronounced outside of Winnipeg. Brandon has the Brandon Sun, CKX TV and a couple of local radio newsrooms. There are small weekly papers and rural radio stations across Manitoba who are even more strained for resources than their big city counterparts. In Saskatchewan, where we regularly reach out to both urban (Saskatoon, Regina, Moose Jaw, Yorkton, Prince Albert) and rural audiences, the problem is even more pronounced with even smaller newsrooms. The same goes for Northwestern Ontario where geography and a battered regional economy combine to reduce the local news pool (it’s a five hour drive from Thunder Bay to Kenora and I’d be surprised if there are even two dozen local reporters to cover the whole area).

Notwithstanding the challenge it places on our democracy where the media have long formed an ‘unofficial opposition’, it also makes our job of media relations that much more challenging.

It’s interesting to note that where traditional newsrooms have fallen away from covering some stories, hyper-local news websites have begun to pick up the slack. In Winnipeg, for example, you should check out www.ChrisD.ca. ChrisD.ca is one of many local bloggers we reach out to on behalf of clients. In fact we spend as much time using social media - Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Picasa - and talking to bloggers on any particular topic as we do talking to reporters.

Get used to it. The days of multiple, large newsrooms are over.

Dooley Communications is pleased to be celebrating its second full year in business this summer, offering senior level public relations and corporate communications services. From our base in Winnipeg, Manitoba, our firm now serves clients from across Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

We have organized small and large media events for clients and created entire public relations strategies for others. We regularly conduct media training seminars, and counsel organizations through the minefields of issues management and crisis communications. We’ve helped write and produce annual reports, newsletters, brochures and websites, and we’ve written countless blogs and advised on the best use of social media.

It continues to be a fun, exciting challenge as we build a service-oriented public relations firm here in the Canadian Prairies.

So thank you to all our clients. We look forward to serving and growing with you in the future.

A video showed up on YouTube this week that’s a prime example of how one unhappy customer can create a commotion like never before. United Breaks Guitars illustrates how important it is for companies to realize new media is giving average customers very powerful voices.

As the story goes Dave Carroll and his band, Sons of Maxwell, were on a flight from Halifax to Nebraska. During the connection in Chicago the band watched through the plane’s windows as luggage handlers threw around his guitar case containing his $3,500 Taylor guitar. Once he arrived in Omaha and claimed his luggage he was not surprised to find his guitar broken – so began his nine month fight with the airline for compensation.

After it was explained in no uncertain terms there was nothing UA could do, Dave Carroll made the last person he talked to at the airline a promise. He said he would write and produce three songs about his experience with UA and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world. His goal is to reach 1 million views within the first year. This is the first installation in the trilogy and has already been viewed almost 500,000 times in the first 48 hours. These views are followed by almost 5,000 comments describing bad experiences with UA and other short messages of support to continue the good fight.

We have all been in this position – we are unhappy with the way we are being treated but feel helpless. Even if we do boycott the giant company in question our few dollars don’t impact its bottom line, therefore they don’t seem to care. But with the advent of new media websites designed to disseminate user-generated content to the masses quickly and freely it is now possible for any unhappy customer to cause a stir forcing a company to pay attention.

As a PR consultant and a consumer, I understand both sides of the story. As much as I am glad individuals have a tool like YouTube to tell their stories, I feel for companies that are unprepared to deal with this new form of unhappy consumers. Companies need to realize that the days of ignoring a complaint because it is just one person is over, those late in realizing this are more likely to become victims of crusades like the one Carroll is on.

The phenomenon is called a swarm and it is a  scary prospect for many companies who fear they’ll fall victim to this sort of attack. But on the other side of great adversity there is also great opportunity. The rule of thumb is to engage your complaining customers urgently, sincerely and in the medium they’re using. Apologize for transgressions if there are any and make amends quickly and professionally. If the complaint demands a new way of business for you and your industry, and if it makes sense, why not consider becoming an industry leader? Be the first to tackle the issue. For UA, can the company forge a better policy to deal with damaged luggage? By responding in the appropriate manner to Carroll’s complaint UA may even be able to win over the many other dissatisfied customers who have logged comments in support of the anti-UA effort.

As media changes and evolves, the rules of PR change as well. Companies need to know what is happening with their brands at all times. Just as the assaults are getting more imaginative the responses must be as equally as inspired to win over a very fickle public that loves to see someone sticking it to the man.

What a blunder. What a perfect case study in what NOT to post to your professional blog. Yesterday, Jeremiah Owyang, a senior Forrester Research analyst, posted an item that attacked Mzinga, a company he follows.

Gah, it’s painful stuff to read. It’s clear within the first two sentences that this is a post that should never have been published. Relying on hearsay, this respected social media industry analyst hints that Mzinga is a shaky company on the verge of falling apart.

He never lays out the evidence of the company’s failings - surely there must be something bad - because he says he doesn’t want to start rumours. Yet he succeeds in doing only that by dealing solely with innuendo… and then, in a rhetorical flourish that only a self-important analyst could write: I strongly recommend that any Mzinga clients or prospects stall any additional movement till they brief me next Monday.

Really? I mean, really? Lawyers, start your engines.

The blog post blazed a fast and broad trail through the Twitterverse and the comments that followed the original post correctly blasted Owyang. It was an irresponsible post made without much, if any, forethought. Owyang responded quickly, to his credit, but with only a weak apology.

There are times in everyone’s professional life when you want to strike out publicly at a client, or a vendor or a rival. In almost every case, it’s best to keep your mouth shut at least until you have all the information (and often afterward too).

Maybe he was frustrated with a perceived lack of response from the company and he wanted to use his bully post to whip the company into line. That’s something my first journalism instructor Mack Laing called the phallic typewriter syndrome. Maybe Owyang was tired and wasn’t thinking clearly. Or maybe he was just plain sloppy.

Always take care in what you write and how you write it.

Facebook backed down today to a storm of protest over its new terms of service that granted the social networking site ownership of all network content forever. Founder Mark Zuckerberg said in his blog that the site was going back to the drawing board and rewriting the terms. In the meantime, the old terms will prevail.

A couple of weeks ago, we revised our terms of use hoping to clarify some parts for our users. Over the past couple of days, we received a lot of questions and comments about the changes and what they mean for people and their information. Based on this feedback, we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.

Discontent and complaints erupted over the weekend when Consumerist revealed the new terms of service and questioned whether Facebook should be able to own all the rights to all the content that users post on its site.

Part of the issue, I believe, is the way Facebook went about changing its terms of service. They did it very quietly, making no public mention of it other than updating the terms on its site. Nothing leads to a swarm of negative attention on the Internet like the appearance of deceipt and abuse of power.

Now Facebook seems to have learned that the old rules of public relations have plenty of application in social media. I’d argue they’re even more important. With Facebook, we’re dealing with the biggest community relations experiment in human history.The key is to win credibility by acting with consistency, integrity and honesty. You need to be prepared to consult broadly, which means you need to be prepared to not like what you hear.

The process can be messy. It can take longer. It might lead to imperfect solutions. But if done well, it should leave you with your organizational reputation (and market share) in tact or strengthened.

Facebook says today that it will consult with its users as it redrafts its terms of service. That process will be more difficult for it today than if they had started with that strategy two weeks ago before posting the new terms unilaterally.  Instead Zuckerberg and his posse violated one of the most sancrosanct rules of public communications: don’t bully communities.

If you’re in a crisis and there’s an elephant in the room, the number one rule of communications is to share your observations about the elephant with your audience. Point out the elephant. Marvel at its size. And if you’re the one who invited the bloody thing into the room, apologize for doing so. Prime Minister Stephen Harper had an opportunity to do just that last night, but failed.

In this case, the elephant was a massive, sweaty, angry elephant stampeding around the room smashing the furniture, but still he ignored it. Canadians are angry at what’s going on here. No one voted for this bizarre and distasteful coalition of Liberals, NDP and Bloc. Had it been an option on the ballot, not even the most religious Dion or Layton supporter can believe it would have won.

But all of that aside, the Prime Minister caused this mess with his hamfisted attempt to kneecap the opposition parties by proposing to take away their financing. In the same economic update, he put off any mention of a stimulus package though he’d promised one just days before. Last night was his chance to apologize for his lacklustre presumption that he had the support of Parliament. Last night was his chance to say he’d withdrawn the party financing measures and that he was sorry for bringing them forward without consultation. Last night was his chance to say he was willing to work with the opposition to ensure this government - the government that Canadians elected - could continue.

But he didn’t say those things and he’s probably going to be trampled by the elephant because of it.

Of course the opposition parties deserve more disdain and criticism. To dress this naked power grab up as the only means to save the economy is to beggar belief. Nobody can possibly believe that having NDP leader Jack Layton and five of his droogs in cabinet will be good for the economy … nobody, except for Jack Layton, of course, whose party has lusted for power for years and been stymied by voters every time.

Layton is now on record saying he started plotting and scheming for this turn of events even before this Parliament began sitting. He wants his turn to spend the public purse. His plan has always been to hike taxes on our corporate sector and to give away billions in social spending. That approach, in our current economic crisis, will be a two-headed monster that will devour any economic advantage Canada currently has.

Liberal leader Stephane Dion wants his turn to rule and he has the side benefit of being able to dig a knife into his archrival Harper before he’s forced to step aside (even his own party doesn’t want him as PM). And Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe has a Cheshire Cat smile as he covets veto power on budgets that will no doubt deliver untold billions to Quebec.

In this crisis, the best way out is for Harper to recognize that he is the lightning rod. What is happening on both sides is not rational behaviour. It’s turned into a petty, partisan, personal vendetta against him. He must apologize for his behaviour first. And if he can’t ratchet down the rhetoric and get Parliament working again, then he must also consider resigning to defuse this situation. What a shame, because he is the best one we have to lead us out of the current economic crisis. Canadians just said as much a few weeks ago in an election.