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Communicating the Biggest Bank Failure in US History with Former WaMu VP Internal Communications Karen Horn
Handling corporate communications for the biggest bank failure in US history with Former Washington Mutual Vice President of Internal Communications Karen Horn of Horn Communication at the 2009 PRSA International Conference in San Diego. Prior to her position at WaMu, she was the senior director of employee commitment at Cisco.
Note: Alan Elias, senior vice president of corporate communications for Washington Mutual Card Services and Cisco executives Jeanette Gibson, New Media Manager and Maureen Casper, Senior Director of Corporate Communciations have both been featured on previous episodes of this podcast.
01:37 – A summary of why and how Washington Mutual became insolvent, the FDIC seizure and the sale of the failed financial services firm to JP Morgan Chase for $1.7 billion.
03:52 – What the sale of WaMu to Chase meant for home owners who had financed their homes with a home loan from Washington Mutual.
04:36 – What happened on Sept. 25, 2008, the day WaMu employees found out the bank had been seized by the FDIC, and the declaration of the sale to JP Morgan Chase, which came by way of their government relations team.
06:23 – The government relations team’s decision to communicate the declaration via telephone rather than email, since the initial accounts were speculative.
06:55 – Scripting the message to employees about the collapse and the FDIC seizure, so that if a seizure did occur, WaMu could inform employees before the mainstream news media, and the decision to distribute that communication via email.
08:05 – Coordinating the distribution of the internal communication to employees with the company’s external communications efforts to the news media and how they sequenced the news break strategically to control its release.
09:16 – The emotional reality of learning that the company you’ve been working for has gone belly up and that your pension and 401k are gone.
10:58 – At what point do you turn your back on your employer’s corporate reputation? Do you go down defending the brand, or do you surrender to trying to save the memory of a sinking ship?
12:31 – WaMu’s use of an internal leadership blog in their intranet, which was maintained by the bank’s COO, as a way of attracting criticism and indentifying friction points within the bank.
14:50 – Lessons learned and advice to financial services companies about how to integrate social media into a communications effort.
16:10 – Using an external social media channel like a blog to make a market for stock, sustaining a conversation over the long haul and making sure the organization’s reasons for blogging are realistic.
18:32 – Is internal communications more important in the conversation age, since we are migrating from a world where the center of the organization was the mouthpiece, to one where the center of the organization informs its edges, and its edges inform the world.
19:56 -- The single biggest corporate communications lesson learned from handling corporate communications during the collapse of Washington Mutual.
22:54 – How WaMu communicated with customer services representations in the days leading up to the failure, to motivate them to do their best to protect the banks interest, despite its precarious financial predicament.
20:59 – End
RECOMMENDED PODCASTS:
Social Media Training the US Armed Forces Public Affairs Staff at DINFOS with Staff Sgt. Joshua Salmons
Inside the Online Video Business with Blip.TV co-founder Dina Kaplan
Daily Candy Editor-in-Chief Dany Levy goes On the Record…Online
Jason Rosenberg, Online Communications Director for the Democratic National Convention Committee
Eric Schwartzman (@ericschwartzman) is an independent new media and social media consultant, the creator of the top-rated New Media and Social Media Boot Camp, which has been attended by more than a thousand public relations and marketing executives from the private, public, government and nonprofit sectors. In addition to advising clients on best practices for online newsroom and website design, deployment and management, Schwartzman offers a portfolio of social media training courses to accelerate the acquisition of social media communication skills, as well as social media strategy and campaign support. Schwartzman is also the founder of online newsroom software as a service provider iPressroom.
On the Record…Online is the Official PR Podcast of the 2009 PRSA International Conference. Subscribe via RSS or follow us on Twitter @ontherecord and get them as soon as they’re released.
View all episodes
By Eric SchwartzmanHandling corporate communications for the biggest bank failure in US history with Former Washington Mutual Vice President of Internal Communications Karen Horn of Horn Communication at the 2009 PRSA International Conference in San Diego. Prior to her position at WaMu, she was the senior director of employee commitment at Cisco.
Note: Alan Elias, senior vice president of corporate communications for Washington Mutual Card Services and Cisco executives Jeanette Gibson, New Media Manager and Maureen Casper, Senior Director of Corporate Communciations have both been featured on previous episodes of this podcast.
01:37 – A summary of why and how Washington Mutual became insolvent, the FDIC seizure and the sale of the failed financial services firm to JP Morgan Chase for $1.7 billion.
03:52 – What the sale of WaMu to Chase meant for home owners who had financed their homes with a home loan from Washington Mutual.
04:36 – What happened on Sept. 25, 2008, the day WaMu employees found out the bank had been seized by the FDIC, and the declaration of the sale to JP Morgan Chase, which came by way of their government relations team.
06:23 – The government relations team’s decision to communicate the declaration via telephone rather than email, since the initial accounts were speculative.
06:55 – Scripting the message to employees about the collapse and the FDIC seizure, so that if a seizure did occur, WaMu could inform employees before the mainstream news media, and the decision to distribute that communication via email.
08:05 – Coordinating the distribution of the internal communication to employees with the company’s external communications efforts to the news media and how they sequenced the news break strategically to control its release.
09:16 – The emotional reality of learning that the company you’ve been working for has gone belly up and that your pension and 401k are gone.
10:58 – At what point do you turn your back on your employer’s corporate reputation? Do you go down defending the brand, or do you surrender to trying to save the memory of a sinking ship?
12:31 – WaMu’s use of an internal leadership blog in their intranet, which was maintained by the bank’s COO, as a way of attracting criticism and indentifying friction points within the bank.
14:50 – Lessons learned and advice to financial services companies about how to integrate social media into a communications effort.
16:10 – Using an external social media channel like a blog to make a market for stock, sustaining a conversation over the long haul and making sure the organization’s reasons for blogging are realistic.
18:32 – Is internal communications more important in the conversation age, since we are migrating from a world where the center of the organization was the mouthpiece, to one where the center of the organization informs its edges, and its edges inform the world.
19:56 -- The single biggest corporate communications lesson learned from handling corporate communications during the collapse of Washington Mutual.
22:54 – How WaMu communicated with customer services representations in the days leading up to the failure, to motivate them to do their best to protect the banks interest, despite its precarious financial predicament.
20:59 – End
RECOMMENDED PODCASTS:
Social Media Training the US Armed Forces Public Affairs Staff at DINFOS with Staff Sgt. Joshua Salmons
Inside the Online Video Business with Blip.TV co-founder Dina Kaplan
Daily Candy Editor-in-Chief Dany Levy goes On the Record…Online
Jason Rosenberg, Online Communications Director for the Democratic National Convention Committee
Eric Schwartzman (@ericschwartzman) is an independent new media and social media consultant, the creator of the top-rated New Media and Social Media Boot Camp, which has been attended by more than a thousand public relations and marketing executives from the private, public, government and nonprofit sectors. In addition to advising clients on best practices for online newsroom and website design, deployment and management, Schwartzman offers a portfolio of social media training courses to accelerate the acquisition of social media communication skills, as well as social media strategy and campaign support. Schwartzman is also the founder of online newsroom software as a service provider iPressroom.
On the Record…Online is the Official PR Podcast of the 2009 PRSA International Conference. Subscribe via RSS or follow us on Twitter @ontherecord and get them as soon as they’re released.