Providing The Power Within

FPL's Core Messages

As a consumer, I know how frustrating it can be when my power goes off - even for a minute.  The clocks start blinking and I have to (gasp!) reset them. Two summers ago a major storm (Derecho) swept through the Ohio Valley, and my family was left without power for a week.

Two years later and I now find myself sitting in an office speaking in-depth about how different that same story looks from within the walls of a power provider. Not only will I now have more tolerance when my power goes out, I’ll also have a bit more patience when my power is restored. 

Within FPL, storms aren’t the only crisis that causes threats to the system. (Read a former blog post here about how impressed I am with their storm preparedness.) And, today I got an inside look at how their media relations team pro-actively prepares for the multitude of issues that can surface when an emergency does occur.

The power from within is what FPL calls Response to Query (RQT). It is a library of messages, already in place, designed to protect the company’s reputation and disseminate key information on a variety of potential issues. Obviously, FPL cannot be prepared for every thing that could go wrong, yet, I am impressed with how in-depth their pre-approved document database is, and that it can circulate in real-time if needed.

I discuss in my PR writing courses the need for large companies to have “dark websites” available to them in crisis situations. Because in a crisis time is of the essence, a dark website is constructed pro-actively and sits dormant until its needed. And when it is, it can immediately go live with ease. Read more about dark websites here.

FPL circulates these RTQ’s to the appropriate subject matter experts within the company for pre-approval and thus each serves principally as dark website. (One you hope you never have to “turn on”) However, I have preached countless times in my social media class, how important it becomes to have control of the organization’s message by putting out quick, and accurate information. This is when the organization’s power surfaces from within.

A company’s power is derived from its ability to fix the crisis while maintaining a mutually beneficial relationship with key stakeholders. I find FLP’s pro-active RTQ’s allows the to organization to conserve some internal power, while actively seeking to use it’s external power to actively maintain those mutually beneficial relationships.