When an Iridium communications satellite slammed into a Russian bird at 22,000 miles per hour it forced one company into crisis mode, while creating a unique public relations opportunity for another, unrelated firm.

The spectacular collision on Tuesday, February 10^th nearly 500 miles above the Earth created a debris cloud that presents a remote threat to other satellites, as well as the international space station.  Although its satellite phone service will only be moderately affected for a brief period of time, Iridium’s communications team moved quickly, issuing a corporate statement (http://iridium.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=885) and making top executives available for comment.

The communications leadership at Integral Systems (http://www.integ.com) moved just as rapidly.  A provider of satellite command and control systems for commercial and government customers, Integral was in a unique position to provide journalists with an understanding of why the accident occurred and its potential implications. 

The company’s public relations team proactively reached out to a number of business journalists who had been assigned to cover the story. (Full disclosure, Integral has been a Strategic Communications Group (Strategic) client for nearly a decade.)

The resulting editorial in respected media outlets like the Washington Post and Associated Press further solidified Integral’s leadership in the market.

Integral’s rapid response media outreach proved successful because the company adhered to a number of important best practices, including:

1.  Focus on how you can address the “why” when calling on journalists.  The purpose of the outreach is to serve as a valuable resource for reporters, rather than hyping your company and its products. 

2.  Have a knowledgeable and engaging spokesperson available based on tight reporter deadlines.  In Integral’s campaign, it was CEO John Higginbotham who made speaking with journalists a priority.

3.  Understand your place in the article.  It may just be a quote at the end of the story.  That’s fine.  This is high-value visibility, plus serving as a quality resource to a journalist on deadline cultivates a relationship.

Marc Hausman is president/CEO of Strategic Communications Group, a public relations consultancy based in Silver Spring, MD.  Read more at http://www.strategicguy.blogspot.com.

Humor is risky because it is so personal.

What I consider a laugh riot, you may perceive as a sign of stupidity or, even worse, a reason to litigate.  For this reason, companies tend to shy away from incorporating humor into their social media, marketing and promotional content.

This is a shame though because when done well humor has the unique ability to accelerate the impact of a program.  It pushes content viral, leading to a dramatic increase in audience awareness and engagement.

Consider EA Sports and their “Tiger Woods: Walk on Water” video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ1st1Vw2kY) on YouTube.  The company’s willingness to playfully poke fun at a glitch in the programming of their own game produced a promotional spot that has been viewed by more than 2.7 million viewers.

I am a self-proclaimed funny guy and I’ve spent more than 15 years peppering business discussions with humor as a relationship-building strategy.  I’ve only had a handful of attempts fall completely flat because I recognize that comedy in a business setting delivers best when:

-You poke fun at yourself for something that is minor and insignificant.  For instance, my Propecia-armed battle to maintain my thinning head of hair (http://strategicguy.posterous.com/cant-grow-any-new-hairbut-i-ca) is typically a crowd pleaser.

-The comedic content is relevant to the audience targeted.  Recently, a group of my colleagues at Strategic Communications Group (Strategic) produced a wonderfully entertaining video (http://tinyurl.com/c74tqm) to present a set of tactics for our own public relations program.  The video hit the mark because it plays on a series internal conversations we’ve had at the company, as well as gently pokes fun at the personalities involved.

Marc Hausman is president and CEO of Strategic Communications Group, a public relations and social media consultancy based in Silver Spring, Maryland.  Read more at http://www.strategicguy.blogspot.com.

Jack Nicholson, Leonard DiCaprio and Matt Damon delivered exceptional performances in the 2006 crime flick The Departed. 

The basic premise:  Nicholson (the mob boss) leans on his police informant to find an undercover officer who has infiltrated his organization.  It turns out that Nicholson is also on the take, leaking information to federal authorities about the illegal activities of his partners in crime.

Basically, this is a story about what happens when rats run wild.  In the end, everyone takes a bullet.

Life appears to be imitating cinema at Yahoo! these days.  New CEO Carol Bartz is determined to stop the leaking of inside information to reporters like the Wall Street Journal’s Kara Swisher (http://kara.allthingsd.com/).  One of Bartz’s ideas is to offer cash payments to employees who turn in their colleagues for such transgressions. Ironically, word of this policy leaked (http://tinyurl.com/d5ux4g) to Swisher.

OK…a couple of thoughts on this.  For starters, it is incomprehensible for staffers to knowingly violate the terms of their employment agreements and disclose confidential information.  There are more appropriate and ethical ways to express dissatisfaction with a company’s policies.

I also continue to be perplexed by the desperate measures employed by smart, experienced executives in an effort to squash leaks.  For instance, members of HP’s Board hired private investigators then used illegal tactics to identify an undisclosed media source.

And now we have Yahoo!’s Bartz who is creating an environment where rats will run wild.  The company may in fact put an end to the leaks.  Yet, they’ll be left with a culture defined by suspicion and mistrust.

I raised this issue with my colleague Chris Parente (http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisparente) who faced a comparable situation at a former employer that battered by leaks to a local business reporter.  Chris’ thoughts:

“(The payments) Never could work because it turns a bad situation even more poisonous. Employees spying on each other.  That will further erode morale.

The approach that was effective for me was getting executives out of bunker mentality and actually talking with the media about what they could; making sure accurate information was included in the stories.”