Just two hours ago, the DC Metro system also known as WMATA ground to a halt. The crisis was apparently caused by a complete meltdown of the transit service’s servers and/or power systems. The issue caused the operations, communications systems and website to go completely offline.

Hundreds if not thousands of tweets from across the region started flying in right after 11 p.m. on Thursday night. Yet both the @wmata Twitter handle and the semi-personal Twitter handle of its chief spokesperson Dan Stessel @dstessel were absolutely silent.

One of the most powerful benefits of engaging on social media is to bring goodwill to your organization. If you engage, be transparent, and human online, people who use your service – whether you’re a restaurant, nail salon, or major metropolitan mass transit system – will give you a little leeway, cut you a little break during a hiccup.

Metro has done a great job recently reaching out to customers, addressing criticism, highlighting improvements and generally opened up the agency to the public. They have been lauded for their recent efforts even by those who have historically been its biggest critics. Yet months, even years, of public relations and community outreach efforts are quickly forgotten when a real crisis occurs and you neglect the relationships you worked so hard to build during tough times.

Sure you’re ‘new friend’ is great to hangout with when things are great. They’ll come hangout, have a few drinks. But when you run out of gas or lock your keys in the car, do they suddenly forget to answer the phone?

Even if they can’t help you right now, they should still ‘answer the phone’ and say sorry. Tonight, Metro didn’t even let it go to voicemail. Everyone received a “this line has been disconnected” message.

In just two hours, Metro has killed any goodwill they have earned over the past year. They’ll have to work twice as hard to earn all that back now.

Having a COOP/Crisis plan is essential for an organization that operates at this scale – not just from an operations standpoint, but from a communications and public relations standpoint.

I think it’s essential city leaders to understand why their decision was met with such criticism.  We need to ensure those in charge of communications – especially at first-responder/life safety agencies – understand how important and powerful these tools can be. – MR

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When I read the recent comments from new DC Fire ad EMS Communications Director Lon Walls in the DCist this evening my jaw literally hit the floor. Here is the quote:

“Social media is for parties. We ain’t givin’ parties.” – Lon Walls, via @dcist_updates

With all of the ink given to debunk this antiquated mindset – especially in DC over the past two years with #snowmageddon, hurricanes, earthquakes – you’d think that a professional communicator would be the last person to utter those words.

But rather than ridicule and staying in the spirit of “If you get it, share it,” I thought we’d throw a little something for Mr. Walls.

And if we’re going to have a social media party, you’ve gotta invite some folks. So who is in?

1. FEMA is in. And they’re bringing Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Twitter. FEMA Director Craig Fugate had other plans but decided, “We can adjust much quicker if we can figure out how to have this two-way conversation and if we can look at the public as a resource. The public is putting out better situational awareness than many of our own agencies can.”

2. The Red Cross has RSVP’d. Four of five (80 percent) of the general and 69 percent of the online populations surveyed believe that national emergency response organizations should regularly monitor social media sites in order to respond promptly. And it turns out Red Cross will be coming with LAFD.

3. The Los Angeles Fire Department is bringing 2 guests: @lafdtalk and @LAFD_CERT_BATT5.

4. The National Fire Protection Association wouldn’t miss it. They’re pushing all of their friends to come too.

5. The Seattle Police Department is in the house.

6. New York City will be there.

7. Lodi Police Department (New Jersey) will be there. They might check their twitter feed to get situational awareness before they come like they did during Irene though.

8. You can count on Emergency Management – “the award-winning, all-hazards publication of record for emergency management” – to be the first to arrive.

9. And I know it can be expensive to throw a party. So the Crisis Commons folks have volunteered to help out.

10. We’ve also got a poster for the “get together.” Click it to enlarge.

Feel free to invite others in the comments section below.

Disclosure: I am a former communications director with the DC Government and helped lead the development of the city’s original social media strategy and launched the city’s first Twitter account @dcra and trained several others in effective use of these tools.

This dialogue is already extremely active and is broken down in specific categories and competencies.

So my question is: Can state and local governments learn from this exercise? Do state and local governments have the same pain points as federal websites?

Tonight we pull out some of the main topics from the dialogue and discuss.

Join us tonight at 9 EST. See you there!

We are excited to have Kristy Fifelski, @kristyfifelski, web manager for the City of Reno and creator of http://govgirl.com, as our special guest tonight on #localgovchat.

Kristy manages the award-winning Reno.gov website and employee intranet by day and recently began an exciting new video blog to share her experiences, opinions and even reviews new technology. Oh, and she’s funny too.

With the earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and other things Mother Nature is throwing at us lately, Kristy will shed light on how to prepare, organize, respond and recover from disasters using the web.

There has also been a of discussion recently on whether government could leverage advertising during these tough budget times to bring us out of the red. And she’s got some opinions.

Join Kristy and the rest of the #localgovchat gang tonight 8/31 at 9 EST.

There are the politicians and there is the government. There is a distinct separation. Government social media accounts should promote and support services. The politician accounts should be used to support the special initiatives and agendas.

Government and services are continuous. Initiatives and agendas have (or should have) a clear beginning and end – like a politician. There is room for both. And there needs to be both to build a healthy social community.

Join us tonight on #localgovchat at 9 EST tonight. Follow the #hashtag and jump right in.

Join us at 9 EST for #localgovchat where we’ll be discussing user interface, communications, marketing apps and more. Can IT and Communications play nicely in the sandbox together? Or do we all need hybrid departments merge a little of each?

Join us!

(And yes I’m at the park with my kids and needed a quick photo. )

Photo via American Progress                                  

Join us tonight at 9 EDT for a #localgovchat with Maryland’s newly appointed Chief Innovation Officer Bryan Sivak.

You can read more about Bryan, formerly the Chief Technology Officer for the District of Columbia,  here, here, here and here, but I think the most telling quote about his approach to open government, Gov 20 and technology innovation are best summed up in his comments to GovFresh early last year. When asked what his “three-word Open Government motto” was, he responded:

How about a range of mottos, of different lengths:

Two words: Question everything!
Three words: Take some chances!
Four words: Start small, fail cheap.
Five words: Don’t be motivated by fear.

Tonight we’ll discuss how he has and will continue to push innovation and challenge the status quo. But hope to also touch on some of his other passions including shrinking the digitial divide, ROWE, social media’s role in innovation and more.

Join us tonight at 9 EDT by following/searching the hashtag #localgovchat. See you tonight.

Empire Avenue has catalyzed the latest round of heated posts about ego and influence and whether you will even be to design a formula that makes it easier to measure who you need to reach. For PR and Marketing folks this is the Holy Grail. Whether it’s a game, a tool, or both, remains to be seen.

But then I started thinking about games and one of my favorites is pick-up basketball. There’s something cool about a bunch of random people wandering out from their neighborhoods – with their last names scrawled across their ball in Magic Marker – to the local park for an evening of talking you know what. So while I was waiting to play the other day, I thought about what the public courts can teach us about social media.

1.       ‘At the Playground’, Somebody Will Always School You

While some guys like to play in private athletic clubs or church games, one of the best things about playing at a public park is you never know who will show up. One night you’ll have to cover a wiry little guy who never misses. And sometimes you get banged around by a big man. Never knowing who you’ll be guarding keeps you on your toes and forces you to make quick adjustments.

In social media, we ALL tend to gets stuck in channels or communities where we feel comfortable. We know each other, we know our strengths and weaknesses and we know who the go to guy is for certain topics. But as PR folks, we need to step into other communities just to listen. We need to hear the other side of the argument. If you’re a single man, follow a mommy blogger hashtag for a few nights. If you’re a woman who hates sports, follow a NBA game hashtag. I think if we dip into other channels just for a second, we can better adjust our tactics and our content. And we might meet some incredible new people.

2.       Never Underestimate the Goofy Looking Dude Who Came by Himself

It’s too easy to dismiss the skinny old dude wearing what appear to be vintage Chucks, khaki shorts and Jazz Festival t-shirt. But when he steals the ball from you and hits repeated jumpers off the glass in your face, you quickly learn this guy can ball.

 Some of the freshest minds in the business have just a few hundred  followers. And they look like co-eds, have avatars with baseball hats, and they are geniuses. Appearance – and follower/friend counts – means nothing. Even some of the most important leaders in the digital space have around 1,500.  It’s never going to be an easy to identify the right people. It just isn’t. It’s always going to be hard work.

3.       Two Lay-Ups is Still Better Than One Three

Nothing drives me crazier than a guy who does nothing but pulls three pointers all night. Up by 5, he bombs a 3. Down by 2, he pulls from 26 feet (NBA three-point line is 23.75 feet at the top of the arc). When he hits, it draws some big cheers. But the other 80 percent of the time, it gets nothing. Sometimes all we needed was a lay-up.

It is too easy to go for the big splash in PR. Sure, it’s exciting. But over the length of a campaign, you want something sustainable. You want something high-percentage. I’ve seen too many government campaigns start huge and get great numbers for a week or two, but then quickly fade away. You need to pace yourself and allow the community to grow. You need to give time for the initiative to gain momentum organically.

4.       ‘You Would Rather Look Good and Lose than Look Bad and Win’

Sometimes you can be the hero and hit the game winning basket, sometimes you’re the guy who hustled, got the rebound and threw a great outlet pass to that hero.

Let’s face it; most people in this space are Type-A personalities. We want to win and be seen winning. But you’ll never build a stable program or teach others to become leaders if you always think you could have done it faster and better. Making your clients shine is one thing, but the true leader will let their own staff or team members shine. Do you get all the high fives and kudos? No. But you can watch from the sidelines with pride as you help mold one social media ambassador after another. From the very beginning of this “movement” the philosophy has been much like the Social Media Club’s tagline, “If you get it, share it.” This is something we all need to remind ourselves of everyday.

Most governments take a posture that you’re just luck to have a place to order pizza from.

With nearly 85 percent of the citizenry having access to the web – either through mobile smartphones or wifi – within the next two years, the government has a true opportunity right now to be aggressive providing excellent – excellent includes honest - customer service. The tools are there. Government just needs to take them and really use them.

Why the hesitation? Because these systems clearly reveal – with real measurable data – the flaws in the system or showcase the lack of resources on the part of government. Ignoring them, many still think, will make citizen concerns less credible and less visible and will minimize damage to public perception. Anecdotes are easier to discredit as rarities.

So the question is do we need more tech or just the right people to make customer service and service delivery more efficient and satisfying to the residents?

Join us tonight on #localgovchat 9 EST!

- Mike