The PR response to Virginia Tech and beyond: this latest tragedy showcases the need for comprehensive crisis communication plans that take technology into account.

Imagine you're the engineer in the cab of a freight train locomotive. Your 8,000-ton train is moving at 50 miles per hour, and with 400,000 tons of momentum behind you, the immutable laws of physics dictate that it will take several minutes and about 7,500 feet to bring that hurtling mass of steel and inertia to a complete stop. Suddenly, you see a loaded school bus pull onto the tracks about a quarter-mile ahead, then stall. As a skilled and trained professional engineer, you know that there are critical steps you can take: You blow the air-horn, you activate the emergency braking system, you grab your radio and warn your dispatcher. But you also know that your train takes 7,500 feet to stop, and that school bus is now less than 1,000 feet in front of you. All of the professionalism and good will in the world will not prevent a tragedy. Still, because you're a professional, you do everything you can--you follow your disaster plan to the letter--knowing full well that there are some things you can do and some things you cannot do.

Now imagine that you were the public relations director at Virginia Polytechnic Institute on that horrible morning in April, when the senseless act of a disturbed individual left 32 students and faculty dead. You could not prevent the attack, but because you're a professional, you could follow your disaster plan to the letter, knowing full well that there are some things you can do and some things you cannot do.

When a disaster strikes in the workplace, you'd better have your crisis plan already in place, because there is no time to make one up. And if you've done your job well, your plan will have been field-tested and will call you and your staff into action, not into a committee meeting.

The violence that occurred at Virginia Tech was, sadly, not an isolated incident. In the immediate wake of horrific events like this, communication is one of the most vital aspects of the response. Although no plan can anticipate everything, a detailed and field-tested crisis communication response has to be ready and waiting. Once the crisis hits, it's already way too late to formulate one.

A viable crisis communication plan--one that includes both outbound media PR communications and internal communications--must:

* Be workable with the resources at hand. If additional resources will be needed, they must be obtained and installed before any disaster hits.

* Be workable in real time. There is no time during a crisis for planning or even for committee meetings to decide what to do first, or next.

* Be able to go on auto-pilot, with responses that can be instituted right away.

* Be communicated in advance to the appropriate local, state and national agencies. When a crisis hits, government officials will become involved, and they will want to know how you plan to handle communications.

* Have low-tech backups. In some crises, high-tech communication systems can fail.

* Be field-tested to identify problems before they occur.

* Be rehearsed so that those who may be caught emotionally off-guard nonetheless respond appropriately.

* Be reviewed internally at least quarterly, and updated no less than annually, to take into account changes in technology and other factors.

* Take into account the need to communicate in real time to affected internal (and affiliate) constituencies, as well as to the external media and other outside parties.

* Include post-disaster components aimed at restoring the organization's image with key internal and external constituents.

Those are some of the broad guidelines for preparing a crisis communication plan. However, the Virginia Tech shooting taught its own very practical, real-world lessons. These lessons can apply in every corner of the world.

1 Crises that involve workplace violence will inevitably involve interest and advocacy groups that are seemingly far removed from the actual site of the tragedy. For these organizations, their involvement is best treated as a crisis of their own. At the same time that the Virginia Tech shootings became a communication crisis for the university, the incident became a communication crisis for organizations ranging from immigrant and mental health advocacy groups to pro- and anti-gun-control organizations, as well as to all other universities.

2 Quick, aggressive communication can save lives. At Virginia Tech, the lack of aggressive, timely communication may have cost lives. University officials spent more than two hours in internal meetings before sending out a tepid first advisory via e-mail that didn't warn students to seek safety but rather asked them to be the eyes and ears of campus security.

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3 While new social media technology can help get the word out, there's still no replacement for traditional "low-tech" solutions. While e-mail was the university's apparent sole choice for communicating during the crisis, it ignored a campuswide public address loudspeaker system that could have reached students inside their dorm rooms or classrooms, as well as those walking on campus--perhaps even some who were headed toward a fatal encounter at Norris Hall.

Virginia Tech's failure to create and field-test a clear, bold and time-sensitive communication plan that specified immediate action may have compounded tragedy. Those who later became victims might have taken more prudent action if they had known that prudent action was even needed.

Many communication professionals advocate the use of Internet-based communication tools, from text messaging to "Twittering" [see Tech Talk, page 11], to get the word out quickly and universally. There is significant merit in using the evolving tools of social media to bolster more traditional means of sending out urgent bulletins to a community such as a college campus or an office building--assuming that the sender has each recipient's cell phone number and e-mail address, and assuming that all recipients are online and reading their e-mails, or have their cell phones turned on and handy. However, when time means lives, a loudspeaker-based public address system might still be more effective. When something bad starts to happen, the word has to get out immediately--and unless everybody is online, a virtual solution cannot be the only solution.

In the future, universities and other organizations will have lockdown policies that are immediately implemented when an incident occurs. New communication technology has a role, especially on campuses where the administration has access to so many people's e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers. However, text messages and cell phones would be less effective in, say, a crowded football stadium or mall full of anonymous strangers. Campuses have a unique opportunity to use new communication technology, but this cannot be said of most organizations that need crisis communication plans.

Bottom line: Crises are going to happen, and they might happen to your organization. When they do, PR and communication professionals will be judged on how well they respond to the crisis, using the information and tools at hand to do the best job they can.

Editor's note: This new column will analyze recent PR crisis situations and how they could have been avoided or resolved by using savvy PR strategies and tactics.

Ned Barnett, APR, has 35 years of experience in public relations and is the founder of Barnett Marketing Communications, with offices in Las Vegas, Nevada; Atlanta; and St. George, Utah.