The ideal damage control strategy is not to suffer any damage in the first place. Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and those around him should have seen this one coming. Since confirming that he would not attend the upcoming Pride Parade on the Canada Day weekend, Ford has taken no end of heat from gay and lesbian organizations and editorial columns alike, criticizing him for failing to continue what has now become tradition for mayors of this city. Taking part in the parade is a gesture which communicates volumes, a lesson well-known by Ford’s predecessors and others in positions of authority in the community such as the chief of police. Refusing to show up for not only the parade but ANY of the numerous Pride-related events taking place over the entire week has given Ford’s critics an opportunity which they have leveraged in the media to huge success. Putting at least one Pride event on his sked – and saying the right things about the importance of the event to the city and Toronto’s values of inclusiveness, tolerance and respect – would have given Ford something to point to and would have taken away the communications weapon he has handed to gay and lesbian community leaders, his critics, and media pundits.

Bob Reid has been a journalist and media advisor to a former Ontario Premier. He is now Veritas’ principal media coach.

One of the biggest social media stories of this past week was blogging platform Tumblr surpassing veteran WordPress in user numbers, despite having been around for only half the time of its competitor. Tumblr has been praised for allowing users to share pithy content and easily link posts to other social media sites. Its gain on WordPress is particularly impressive considering social media giants like Facebook are seeing significantly slower adoption rates in Canada and the US, allowing experts to speculate about opportunities for emerging social media tools like Tumblr. Tumblr Director/Media Evangelist, Mark Coatney, created a very ‘sticky’ quote this past week when he interviewed with National Public Radio (NPR) in the US. In describing Tumblr, he said, “It’s more almost like an email experience in a way,” he said. “You’ll dash off an email or do a tweet because it’s quick and easy, so it’s taking that thinking and applying it to blogging.“ By comparing Tumblr’s blogging platform to email, Coatney created a simple and highly-relatable analogy. The quote showed up in PC World, Mashable, The Atlantic, Media Bistro, Poynter, and a number of other credible social media blogs.  As we often highlight in our Veritas Media Coaching sessions, using a simple, concrete, and unexpected analogy for interviews or news release quotes creates clarity for your audience, paints a picture in their minds, and ultimately will increase your chances for media traction.

Jess Bennett works with the Corporate and Public Affairs practice at Veritas, providing strategic counsel on digital communications strategy and execution. She is immersed in social media from blogging to exploring new trends and platforms.

I live in Waterloo, run a Toronto PR firm and own RIM stock. That makes me either the most conflicted or the best qualified person to weigh in on the recent communications plays of the beleaguered tech giant. Sadly, these days it feels more like piling-on than weighing-in. But it simply can’t be helped. In football terms, watching RIM (and say it isn’t so) RIM’s agency handle PR matters of late is a lot like watching an endless loop of Brett Favre game video. On the heels of widespread media criticism about the tone taken in the analyst call and even following my colleague Joe Chidley’s well-intentioned advice here last week, it continues to look like Fumble after Fumble. Recently, according to a report from a local Waterloo radio station, RIM issued 200 pink slips on Monday. Neither RIM nor their PR agency responded to media inquiries when the story broke, according to Canada’s two top news outlets. The CP story that ran the following day suggested RIM wouldn’t comment and quoted their agency as having no details about the lay-offs. In the same news cycle, the departure of a senior marketing official who jumped ship for Samsung was covered. How did that story get told, you might ask? Apparently through Samsung and the departing employee’s personal tweet. Again, nothing from RIM. I’ll hazard an educated guess that there has never been a successful crisis communications strategy based on the “turtle” approach, which it seems RIM has adopted here. As we repeat in this column ad nauseam, the simplest of rules in corporate communications and particularly in crisis communications is “control the message”. If you don’t, someone else will. The risk is high in this case, where failing to manage the message also gives the impression that things simply may be out of control – a bad impression to leave leading into a critical shareholder vote. These are complicated and difficult times for the organization, but proactive, clear communications has proven time and again to be the only way companies come out the other end of crisis with the least bruises. RIM is a global leader and an iconic Canadian brand. We all want them to do just that.

A veteran of communications and politics, Beverley Hammond is the President and CEO of Veritas Communications.

Not really a full-on touchdown, but my vote for line of the week goes to Washington Post columnist Justin Moyer, in a piece called “Awkward: Eliot Spitzer covers the Anthony Weiner scandal for CNN.” Pointing out the similarities between Weiner’s exhibitionist exploits and the former New York governor’s scandal-ridden past, Moyer begins by acknowledging that inside knowledge can often lead to better-informed media commentary. “But as anyone who has squirmed while watching Eliot Spitzer discuss the latest political sex scandals on CNN knows,” Moyer adds, “there is such a thing as having too much skin in the game.” ’Nuff said.

Joe Chidley served as the editor of Canadian Business Magazine for over nine years. He is now the senior vice-president of corporate and public affairs at Veritas.

Karen Stintz gets it. The Toronto city councilor and TTC Chair knows full well the frustration of commuters when the system bogs down and makes their commute even tougher. So when lightning strikes messed up the signaling system at the Wilson yard on Wednesday, snarling efforts to get trains into service on the Yonge-University-Spadina line for the morning rush, Stintz not only knew about it, she was caught in it as well. We know this because she sent several dispatches out via her Twitter account @TTCchair, explaining the cause of the problem, noting that even though no one can prevent a lightning strike she was still meeting with senior staff to see how they might deal with them more smoothly, and in a later message praising TTC and EMS staff who responded quickly to help a woman who fainted on the train Stintz happened to be riding on. She walks her talk, rides the rocket, and uses Twitter to let all her fellow riders know what happened when things go wrong, and what she’s doing to try and prevent a repeat.

Bob Reid has been a journalist and media advisor to a former Ontario Premier. He is now Veritas’ principal media coach.

Just about everybody thinks they pay too much for those nasty and largely inexplicable roaming charges that kick in every time they step off the plane or cross the border and check their mobile phones. Earlier this week, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) lent credence to that gripe, with a report that suggested Canadians pay more for roaming fees than any other nation in the developed world. In media reports, most of the telecom players responded with standard lines about competitive pricing, higher costs, and so on. But not Telus, which jumped on the bandwagon by completely agreeing with the OECD – and vowing to do something about it. Brent Johnston, vice-president of mobility marketing for the third largest wireless company in Canada, said that Telus planned to cut roaming charges by more than half in the coming days as part of “an entirely new and dramatically simpler pricing framework for international roaming.” To our way of thinking, this move and message displays a textbook degree of responsiveness. If you can find a way to communicate not only your sympathy for customers’ problems, but also your plan to fix it, then you have hit on a golden opportunity for effective PR. By jumping quickly on the widely reported OECD survey, Telus managed just that.

Joe Chidley served as the editor of Canadian Business Magazine for over nine years. He is now the senior vice-president of corporate and public affairs at Veritas.

The punch lines have all been made, so aside from that headline, I shall attempt to keep focused on the communications play Rep. Anthony Weiner made on Monday, when he fessed up that yep, not only did he tweet a boxer-shot of his privates out to the world, it was actually a sneak peek into the kind of online cavorting he had been doing with half a dozen women for several years now. We’ve seen this kind of thing before – with, for some reason, shocking frequency involving New York State officials – and so it was surprising indeed to see Weiner deviate from the standard mea culpa news conference. The first part was pro forma: a statement of admission and apology, with appropriate levels of emotion, concern for impact on family and full acceptance of responsibility. It was when he took questions afterward that the “you’ve got to be kidding!” comments started around our offices. At first, Weiner actually looked pretty good: he made no excuses, and was actually quite pointed in saying he was absolutely in no way blaming any one or any thing besides his own foibles and bad judgment for the pickle he was in. He apologized without reservation to every reporter and other individual to whom he had lied. He was obviously ready to make these kinds of statements and admissions. But then about half-way through, inevitably, the reporters started probing into details he wasn’t prepared to have to deal with: did he have phone sex with these women? And how did he know, given the anonymity of the internet, that they really were adults and not possibly underage girls? “She’s young enough to be your daughter!” one female reporter exclaimed, in reference to one identified as being 21 years old. Weiner was left reeling, forced to acknowledge that one can never know for sure exactly with whom one is communicating online … but that he was nonetheless sure they were all adults. Yeesh. As if the whole bald-faced series of lies – and his refusal to resign his seat in Congress – weren’t enough, Weiner took a nightmare crisis communications situation and made it even worse that it already was.

Bob Reid has been a journalist and media advisor to a former Ontario Premier. He is now Veritas’ principal media coach.