TLDR - Crowdstrike CEO’s Late Apology Further Upsets Users, The How-to Behind the Trump Photo Compared to Iwo Jima Flag-Raising
Weekly Newsletter Featuring Nifty Tools, Useful Research and Unintended Case Studies in Comms
We start this weekly issue of the TLDR newsletter, with some visual and beautiful song lyrics that I heard yesterday at KFC while queuing for coffee.
So far from home
I'm getting kinda sick of it
I miss you like my cigarettes
It’s from a song titled “Far” by Silvy and Jeff Satur. Comparing missing someone to cigarettes is especially apt if you ever tried to quit smoking. Here we go with the latest weekly trends, research, and interesting — often unintended — case studies in communications.
In This Issue:
Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz’s Late Apology Upsets Users Affected by IT Service Outage
An AI Co-author Might Make your Story More Creative but Less Unique
The How-to Behind the Trump Photo Compared to Iwo Jima Flag-Raising
Lose the Lingo to Spark Engagement in Science Communication, e.g., 'Supermodel Granny' Drug Extends Life in Animals
Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz’s Late Apology Upsets Users Affected by IT Service Outage
George Kurtz, CrowdStrike CEO, co-wrote a book that’s often referred to as the bible of computer security. Till this week, he probably only read about crisis management communications but did not finalize a response plan with his team. It’s common for companies to start paying more attention after — not before — a crisis.
Cybersecurity company CrowdStrike recently pushed an IT update with a bug that resulted in mass outages worldwide. Hospitals canceled surgeries, planes were grounded, and customers couldn't use their cards to make payments. The company's initial response was full of corporate-speak and lacked an apology. Predictably, the affected users got more upset.
Six hours after these systems went down, he apologized. 'We are deeply sorry for the impact that we have caused to our customers, to travelers, to anyone who has been affected by this, including our company,' Kurtz said in an interview with NBC’s 'Today.'
Key Insight: This is another reminder that every company should rehearse crisis management and communications procedures before something bad happens.
CrowdStrike’s stock price fell dramatically over the day, dropping by as much as 13% at some points in trading. To aggravate the company’s PR crisis, the UK’s chartered institute for IT, the BCS, said it could take weeks for systems to recover, as the fix required a manual reboot of affected machines and most standard users would not know how to follow the instructions.
Actionable Strategy: Given the scale of the problem, what CrowdStrike does has more impact than what it says now. CrowdStrike must ramp up quickly and hire a temporary team to assist their clients. Clients should be prioritized by potential impact, such as hospitals to minimize delay of potential life-saving procedures. And don’t forget to issue regular updates about its mitigation measures on social media.
Further Reading:
Heidi Miller LinkedIn article: How to apologize for an outage, a lesson for CrowdStrike
An AI Co-author Might Make your Story More Creative but Less Unique
The artificial intelligence revolution has proven helpful across the economic board—in customer support, programming, idea generation, and marketing. However, little is known about the impact of AI on human creativity. A new study finds that when generative AI is embraced in the storytelling scene, individual writers might get a creative boost, but overall, stories become more alike.
Those who worked with AI wrote stories that were about 10% more creative and 22% more enjoyable, and differences were especially notable for those who scored lower in the initial control test.
Key Insight: When the researchers examined the stories as a collective, they found that the ones assisted by AI were more similar, dampening overall content novelty. So while AI might boost individual brainstorming, it can’t yet push the upper bounds of collective human creativity, the findings suggest.
Actionable Strategy: This dynamic resembles a dilemma: With generative AI, writers are individually better off, but collectively a narrower scope of novel content is produced. As PR professionals, it might be a winning strategy to apply generative AI to content outlines while using the time saved to come up with something really creative.
Further Reading:
Original research: Generative AI enhances individual creativity but reduces the collective diversity of novel content
The How-to Behind the Trump Photo Compared to Iwo Jima Flag-Raising
After the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on July 14, 2024, the world saw an iconic photo of Trump, surrounded by Secret Service agents, with his fist in the air and blood streaking down his cheek. Behind them, an American flag set against a stunning blue sky. This photo was compared to the Iwo Jima flag-raising image and taken by Evan Vucci, the Associated Press photographer based in Washington, D.C.
Later on July 18, 2024, a rally attendee known as ‘Brick Suit’ posted his video about the events of that fateful day. Through this footage, we see two other photographers were under the stage as well but only Vucci emerged with the iconic shots. We saw how he applied ‘Observe, Adapt and Anticipate’ principles to obtain outstanding results.
Vucci shared his thought process at that moment in time: “What’s going to happen next? What do I need to do? Where do I need to be? What is the light? What is the composition? So those are the things that start to go through your head.”
Key Insight: Wow, we see how Vucci’s expertise and experience shone through in the aftermath of this incident. It’s a reminder that journalists and PR professionals must accumulate enough know-how to quickly go through a rigorous thought process when confronted with unanticipated situations.
When we view the footage, Vucci had initially photographed Trump with a higher camera angle. Upon observing an American flag drifting downwards, Vucci opted for a lower camera angle to capture the flag. When Trump was escorted off the stage, he adjusted his position quickly to capture the iconic images.
Actionable Strategy: As Vucci said himself, “I’m glad I didn’t let anyone down. I got a standard to hold.” That’s a formidable standard for any journalist and PR professional as we go about our daily work.
Further Reading:
Lose the Lingo to Spark Engagement in Science Communication
EurekAlert!, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) scientific newswire interviewed me recently. I suggested, "Suppress the urge to communicate to external audiences using corporate lingo and industry jargon. Since we tend to communicate mostly within our company and industry, we often write as if audiences can understand the relevant culture and context. They do not!"
Key Insight: To see a ‘lose the lingo’ example, see a recent BBC news headline: 'Supermodel granny' drug extends life in animals. This article highlights research indicating a drug has increased the lifespans of laboratory animals by nearly 25%, in a discovery scientists hope can slow human aging too. The treated mice were known as "supermodel grannies" because of their youthful appearance.
Compare this versus the original headline of the research article: Inhibition of IL-11 signalling extends mammalian healthspan and lifespan. The difference truly speaks for itself.
Actionable Strategy: We need to understand the ‘why’ before tackling the ‘how’ and should truly engage our internal experts to learn the limits of their existing research and ask what’s next from a research perspective. It’s a prerequisite before we can transform sometimes dry technical data into narratives that engage and educate the public across various platforms.
Further Reading:
Interview: Lose the Lingo to Spark Engagement
BBC article: 'Supermodel granny' drug extends life in animals
JX (Jaxon) Tan founded Momentum AI Communications, a boutique PR consultancy based in Singapore. He has an MSc in Marketing Science from Nanyang Technological University, previously led international communications for BGI Genomics, and was the head of content (APAC) for PR Newswire. Reach him on LinkedIn to discuss ways to simplify science and spark engagement together.