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Royal Caribbean: How an Open Dialogue Can Avoid a Shipwreck

There aren’t words to describe the tremendous amount of devastation that the country of Haiti has endured since last week’s earthquake.  As people around the world are responding to this crisis, one company in particular, Royal Caribbean, has been called into question about it continuing to send cruise-ship passengers to Labadee, Haiti, about 100 miles from the devastated capital of Port-au-Prince. 

Labadee is a private destination in Haiti where Royal Caribbean cruise ships dock and send people on excursions.  The company has been involved with tourism in Haiti for roughly 30 years and has spent a lot of time and effort working with the local government.  

Royal Caribbean made the decision to continue docking ships in Labadee less than one week after the earthquake.  Critics have been up in arms about why the cruise line would think it’s appropriate to send vacationers to a recently devastated area.  I personally can see both sides of the argument.  But, let’s talk PR strategy here, specifically, what Royal Caribbean has done correctly.

• It has been providing continued updates on its corporate blog by John Weis, associate vice president, private destinations, and by Adam Goldstein, president and CEO, discussing its reasoning for continuing to use Labadee as a port-of-call.
• Its maintained ongoing communications with third parties about Royal Caribbean’s relationship with Haiti and the Haitian government.
• It has made multiple statements and updates on its strategy and why ships are continuing to stop in Labadee. “There were a lot of discussions about this, but in the end, Labadee is critical to Haiti’s recovery and hundreds of people rely on Labadee for their livelihood.”
• It is showing the specific and tangible relief that Royal Caribbean is providing to the people of Haiti, including transporting food and water and a “commitment of $1 million toward the Haitian relief effort. This contribution will be spent supporting Food For The Poor and the Pan American Development Foundation,” according the Royal Caribbean Web site.

All in all, the strategy of keeping the dialogue open and communicating with the public has been successful.  In every communications strategy, there will be critics whose positions will be swayed by open dialogue, but Royal Caribbean has done a good job of going after the neutral and positive audiences and keeping them from turning into opponents.

Perhaps most important in this situation is Royal Caribbean’s generous donations. Here’s to hoping that they are reaching those in need.

By Kate Corcoran

Facebook and Cloud Computing – A Lot More In Common than You’d Think

There’s been a lot of talk about security in the cloud lately.  According to a recent BT Global Services poll, 53 percent of CIOs questioned expressed concern about intellectual property being stored in a public cloud because of potential security breaches.

This makes me think:  Is it the cloud that people are scared of, or is the misconception that cloud computing is an all-or-nothing game?  Cloud computing was discussed at a panel held last week by the New York Technology Council.  The panel, consisting of Alfred Spector of Google, Bill Zack of Microsoft, New York City Council Member Gale Brewer and moderator Arik Hesseldahl of BusinessWeek, discussed technology trends that will impact New York in 2010 and beyond.

Since I work with clients who are involved in the cloud computing space, this topic resonated the most with me.  As Bill mentioned during the discussion, 15 years ago he never would have believed that companies would be outsourcing their payroll operations, and now it is a common reality.  He said that when dealing with cloud computing, it’s a matter of knowing what information you can and can’t put in the cloud.

Alfred continued with this idea, pointing out that the flow of information across enterprises is a given.  While this poses security challenges, they stem from the architecture in a highly connected world, not the cloud.  We must focus on how we architect the future to allow the relative free exchange of information.

As with any new technology, cloud computing will take some getting used to.  To tie into the non-technologist’s view, I remember when I first joined Facebook in 2004.  At the time it was only open to college students and as a college senior I saw no problem with sharing my personal information with every other student in America who wanted to see it.

Once Facebook was opened to the rest of the population, we saw the flurry of stories about protecting your personal information from graduate schools and potential employers.  My friends who were applying to law school deleted their Facebook pages for fear of not being accepted.  After this initial period of fear, we eventually adopted security settings for our information.  Now, you can decide each time you post information who you want to see it.

This is where we will eventually go with cloud computing.  After this initial frightened period, companies will adopt architectures and procedures to properly guard the most protected information and allow less sensitive data to exist in the cloud.  So, like the potential law student who waited for the time when they could privately post college pictures on Facebook, the corporate community will eventually be able to utilize cloud computing successfully and without fear.

By Ashleigh Egan

“C” is for Content – That’s Good Enough for Me

Content, content, content.  We’re surrounded by it.  It joins us on our commute through smartphones and free newspapers, greets us at work in e-mails and on the Web and sometimes it follows us to bed in the form of a good book.  In fact, the ubiquitous presence of so much information makes it tempting to think it is a commodity without a price.

In many cases, content is free.  It’s available to us in online versions of major newspapers like The New York Times and in blogs by our favorite writers.  It’s streaming to you on Pandora.com and is probably available for download anywhere you can get an Internet connection.  There’s one thing I know for sure:  It’s rarely in print anymore.

In fact, a recent Harris Poll shows that less than 25 percent of 18-34-year olds read a paper each day.  Although the majority of readers above  the age of 45 are still buying newspapers, their support hasn’t been enough to maintain distribution.  As a result, many have been forced to change their business models or shut down entirely.
 
The question to me is not where we’ll consume our media (online) but what it’s worth to us.  Journalists and other trained professionals are still breaking the news in ways that networks like Twitter and Facebook can’t because their function is to interest rather than inform us.  (The Pew Center for Research shows that digital-only outlets account for just four percent of original pieces of reporting.)  So shouldn’t we pay for traditional media sources?
 
Apparently, there’s a difference between inclination and obligation.  However much we value our news, music, videos and books – we don’t want to spend much money on them.  The Harris Poll cited above showed that 77 percent of adults are unwilling to pay anything to read a newspaper online.  The adults who are open to a fee advised that they are not willing to pay much: Only one in five of those polled would pay a fee of $1-10 a month for unlimited access to the same information.
  
As information providers begin to experiment with different ways of delivering to readers and the market responds with their wallets, we’ll begin to see what the future of content really holds for us.  In the meantime, you’re likely to see me reading about it – preferably behind a slightly smudged section of newsprint.
 
By Isa Loundon

From Actuary to Roustabout, and Everything In Between

CareerCast.com recently released its 2010 Jobs Rated Report, which ranked 200 jobs from best to worst.  If you’re curious, the “best” is actuary and the “worst” is roustabout (a job that requires physical labor and maintenance on oil rigs and pipelines – certainly something that I am not suited for).

Public relations (PR) executive made the ranks at 79 (beating out my boyfriend’s profession though – architects were rated at 86).  CareerCast explains that the rankings are given based on factual analysis and hard data, not guesswork.  According to CareerCast’s data, while PR ranks very low in physical demands (7.24 on a 3.95 to 43.23 scale), we rank pretty high in the stress department (78.523 on an 18.776 to 110.936 scale). 

This made me think – as a PR professional, am I really as stressed as this ranking says I should be?  I consider it not as much stress as a desire to succeed.  We juggle multiple clients, working to perform at our best for each one.  We take on as many opportunities as possible, and work to see each through to the end.  At the end of the day, the reward is the great coverage we achieve, our happy clients and understanding that we are helping to grow and enhance the reputation of our agency.

In reviewing CareerCast’s rankings, I have to take them with a grain of salt.  Rating a job can’t be done on a profession-wide scale, but can only be understood office-by-office.  At Articulate we work hard, but the rewards and work environment are the returns for our hard work. 

Perhaps it’s this desire for feedback and reward that drove me to PR.  If I performed the same exact job, month after month, year after year, I’d quickly tire of it.  PR is an ever-changing world, and our multiple clients and tasks keep us on our toes, growing and adapting to become the best that we can be.

By Ashleigh Egan