Intern Point Paper: Week Six University of Maryland Department of Communication COMM386: Experiential Learning, spring 2014 Jessica

Schram March 6, 2014

POINT PAPER Campus Communicators Meeting (Crisis Communication) Subject: This week there was a lot of office commotion regarding crisis communication due to the recent data breach. Because of the breach, there was less work to be done on my end, but a lot of meetings that were important for me to attend. The Campus Communicators Meeting was among the most important because it was hosted by my office for all department communicators to come and learn about UMDs plans going forward and how they can effectively handle media requests or answer questions for students, faculty, staff and alumni regarding the data breach and the credit monitoring solution. Background: Crisis communication is an integral part of every communications department, and is crucial when managing important information that is disseminated to publics as large as the University of Maryland. The way our office speaks about crisis communication is by thinking about reputation management through the analogy of a piggy bank. The trick is to keep it balanced, Assistant Vice President of Marketing and Communications Brian Ullmann said at the Campus Communicators meeting. Every positive piece of news is a deposit and all negative attention is a withdrawal. Unfortunately, for Maryland and many other companies, withdrawals tend to have a larger impact and garner more media attention than positive information does. The good news is that effective communication can help crises from escalating and can prevent negative media from spreading to the hands of the wrong people. To manage crises effectively, the following steps are taken by the UMD Marketing and Communications department: Protect the reputation of UMD by communicating with speed and accuracy. Serve as an information hub for all departments by disseminating knowledge through a single, central channel. Listen to feedback via troubleshooting o Use social media as a listening channel to gauge the severity of the crisis. o Undercommunication and overcommunication are both frowned upon, so it is important to see how many people are actually talking about an issue before you react. Keep a constant flow of communication to inform constituents with the most upto-date information. Discussion: Although the data breach incident was a large withdrawal from the University of Marylands piggy bank, the spontaneous event has given me tremendous insight into crisis communication from both an internal and external perspective. (more)

My office completed the following tasks during the first two weeks of the data breach: WEEK #1 First 36 hours spread the word to all communication channels o Mass emails o 24/7 call center o Notifications and info updates on Twitter o Established a dedicated data breach website (FAQs, presidents letter, etc.) Continue updates as the week continued o New letter from President Loh o 24-hour response inquiries continued o Track daily statistics about web traffic and social media impressions (I helped) o Manage the media Determine spokesperson Develop media statements for UMD, Loh and OIT department Manage inquiries and interviews WEEK #2 Video letter of President Loh o Updates about the upgrade in credit monitoring service (increased from one free year to five free years) Continue to update and troubleshoot Drive awareness of Experian credit monitoring service Begin planning series of educational forums for students (I plan to play a big role) Continue media engagement and tracking

Recommendation: Because we are now on week two of the crisis, the office is beginning to analyze its actions to see how it can improve for the next crisis. Delay a bit For example, when Ohio State had a data breach, they waited three months before releasing the information. Unlike Ohio, the University of Maryland did their best to release the breach information within hours of finding out. While Maryland was commended for handling the crisis quickly, their rather immediate response didnt give them much time to establish a solid series of solutions and inform all of the right people before the press started asking questions. Lesson: Either have a crisis communication plan ready in the case of an emergency or wait a day or two before releasing the information while you establish a solid solution and notify department heads. Better educate the student population on the severity of the issue and increase their knowledge about credit monitoring / identity theft. Although University Marketing and Communications is working hard to disseminate upto-date information about the data breach, studies show that only 15 percent of affected individuals will take advantage of the Experian service. At the Campus Communicators meeting, one of the employees from the office of student affairs said that students seem to think they are unaffected by the breech if they do not have a credit card. (more)

Unfortunately, however, even without a credit card, students names and social security numbers are still at risk for being stolen, which means identity theft is very plausible. Lesson: Our office needs to figure out more/better ways to educate the students on the severity of the data breach. After the meeting I talked to my supervisor about my interest in getting involved with student education, and she said it sounded like a great idea! I will now be working downstairs with communications on Tuesdays and upstairs with Web and New Media on Thursdays to continue to manage and resolve this crisis.

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