Richard-Merrin
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BBC assembles experts to comment on Sony crisis
The fact that it's been one of the worst couple of weeks for Sony -- and its customers -- cannot be disputed. However, the future of this crisis, which started a couple of weeks ago when Sony's network was hacked and user information was stolen, is anybody's guess. As such, BBC News assembled a panel of four industry experts to comment on the situation and speculate where Sony might go from here. Richard Merrin, a PR director, said that Sony demonstrated both the worst and best ways to respond to a crisis: "In the first instance, Sony waited ten days before telling users what was happening, which is a classic error in terms of communications. It knocked consumer [confidence] and damaged Sony's reputation. But with the second incident, it has acted extremely quickly and seems to be following the four golden rules in crisis PR -- to be open, honest, transparent and fast." "In terms of PR, I think Sony can turn it around," said ComputerandVideoGames.com's Tim Ingham. "Consumers are often quickly outraged by this sort of wobble from a global corporation -- but we tend to have short memories if we're not personally damaged by a given incident." The security expert, Sophos' Graham Cluley, said this doesn't change how users should protect themselves: "People need to be more careful with their passwords and make sure that they have different passwords for different online accounts." You can read the rest of the comments at BBC News.
