So there I am minding my own business scanning Twitter and David Mullen follows me. I think, hey who’s this Mullen character, check his profile, then blog (which is my standard procedure before following) and read his piece What My Toddler Taught Me About Crisis Communication. It’s a solid piece.

Having five kids, my life is in a constant state of crisis, I mean really why limit it to just the toddler stage. David looks too young in his twitter picture to have teenagers, unless he does the politician’s trick and use a picture from 20 years ago. David, wait till you have teenagers, if you are not in a crisis, you are waiting for one. Or to use Steven Wright’s line, “you know what it feels like to lean back in your chair and right before you fall, you catch yourself. I feel like that all the time. More vintage Wright.

A key item to do in the middle of a crisis is take notes about what you would have done different in the events that led to the crisis. Take the notes, not immediately after the crisis, but while you are in it. If you wait till after you get the deer in the headlights response to the questions, “What did you learn from this crisis?”

While you are in the middle of the storm, there needs to be someone taking notes from the players making the decisions about the crisis. Someone who is close enough to the players that is writing down when someone says, “I wish I _____________” or I knew something wasn’t right when __________________

Those are the priceless pieces of information and human interest that will make the follow-up media coverage of the crisis credible, it will give humility to those who are otherwise viewed as powerful and all knowing. I’m not talking about admitting mistakes so the opposition can play the spoils, no I’m talking about learning and that requires even greater maturity and leadership.

A crisis is a reality TV show unfolding in real time with a potential impact far beyond the players on the screen. After the crisis, people and processes are going to be held accountable. That doesn’t necessarily mean publicly executed (not literally) etc. but accountable to teaching others about that crisis, how to avoid it. To explain what was it about that time, place, people, and situation leading up to the crisis that made it a harmful mix.

This is how we as a society learn. Turning this topic to the current financial crisis; It needs a full accounting, outside of the political circus, outside of the amphitheater of punishment, outside of the judgment of general philosophy of government. The public has a right to understand what were the intentions of policies, government and private sector, that led to a global and system-wide upheaval that impacts the knowing and unknowing, the guilty and innocent. It was long in the making, so don’t just look to yesterday, last year or this Administration. It is a situation that shows how countries and economies are interdependent. So we better keep an open mind and a silent tongue because this is a crisis we can’t afford to repeat. A lesson in humility and PR from Mr. Maruggi (my dad) who said , “keep your words soft and sweet cause one day you may have to eat them.” Thanks pops.

Early this morning www.twitter.com/newsgang shared this article from CNN.com about how Wall Street arrived at its financial crisis and how to avoid it in the future. It highlights how short-sightedness and incentive compensation plans contributed to taking on higher risk. Another aspect of the crisis is how financially connected we are globally.

It is a long held belief of mine that some aspects of our corporate culture, finance, and legal to name two, need to change if social media is to become integrated into America’s regular business environment. Today social media is discounted by corporate executives at worst and politely accepted as a pilot project by most others. Yes there certainly are corporate leaders like Sun, Coca-Cola, GM, Ford and others, but I don’t think I’d get an argument with the statement “social media is still in an early adopter phase in corporate America.”

The connection between the Federal bailout of international financial services firms and social media is captured in some of the elements that I believe will be part of the response to this mess. Those elements are:

1) Greater transparency and disclosure – social media loves and rewards both
2) Institutional incentives that are longer term in nature – this will allow more discussion about imperfections in a company without as much hysteria of how it will impact this quarter’s investor call.
3) Accommodations for the interconnected nature of economies – social media connects individuals from different cultures all the time, perhaps we can take this from a micro level to a broader understanding without it becoming an issue of national pride, but instead one of social growth (Robert Scoble told me this is more a wish than a reality, but I’m an optimist)

Last year at the Society of New Communications Research symposium we had several excellent group conversations about the limitations placed by the finance and legal departments on social media implementation in a corporate environment. Finance is clearly concerned about monthly and quarterly impact to stock price and other metrics within its jurisdiction. Legal is concerned with that any admission on the web, direct or indirect, of imperfection would be seized upon by a zealous trial lawyer in our litigious society.

We surely have a long way to go in addressing these cultural obstacles. As the dust settles around Wall Street, the blame assessed and the remedies constructed to prevent a reoccurrence, watch for these elements of longer-term corporate perspective incentives and greater disclosure. These characteristics will help social media advocates change a corporate culture in ways that will allow the organization to see greater benefit from social media.

By the way, the next Society for New Communications Research symposium is being held in Boston, November 14, I’m sure we’ll pick up this topic and many others, here’s the social media and PR agenda.