The Case
Some might say winning an award for crisis communications without a crisis is like being named best dressed in a nudist colony. But when UUNET Technologies began planning for
Y2K, no one knew exactly what would happen when the clocks rolled over to the new millennium.
UUNET, an MCI WorldCom company, was right in the crossfire of this impending unknown - an Internet technology company that would go through the rollover eight times with its
more than 70,000 business customers in 100 countries and multiple time zones.
The Countdown
UUNET turned to its external PR firm, Merritt Group Inc., to help set up systems to communicate with the press, customers, partners, employees and, if anything went wrong, the
government. In preparation for the event, they worked to ensure that all spokespeople had a consistent message and that all audiences, internal and external, were kept in the
loop.
"The biggest challenge was to make sure our customers were kept up to speed, whether through our messages directly or through the media," says Mara Radis, senior manager of PR
at UUNET. "Obviously no one had ever been through anything like this before, so there was a lot of anxiety. The more they knew about our preparation, the better they were going to
feel."
UUNet's PR team developed a detailed plan to manage communications, including:
1. A war room, stocked with communications equipment (five analog and five PSTN dedicated phone lines, two analog fax machines and five IP dial network connections, plus
wireless backup for IP connectivity and telephone communications); a research center for tracking broadcast and Internet reports; contact information for all key reporters; a list
of key partners and customers; a list of the company's top executives with emergency contact information; and several maps and clocks showing the time in each critical time zone.
2. Key message statements, drafted in eight languages, to cover up to 15 possible scenarios, from "normal network operations" to "outages on competitors' networks or
within their equipment that could lead to customer and media concern about the reliability of the UUNET network."
3. Internal information-gathering systems, including an hourly industry conference call, plus regular calls within UUNET and with the corporate PR team at MCI Worldcom.
4. External communications systems, flowcharts guiding the PR team through various approval processes for different crisis scenarios.
5. Process testing, on Sept. 9 (9/9/99) and in November. The team established global conference call lines, staged multiple mock crises and contacted executives for
approval.
No one placed any bets on what was going to happen at midnight, per se, but there was a lot of speculation about what the new millennium could bring.
"We were intimately involved with the whole process and we really didn't have much of an idea," Radis says. "I think most people felt comfortable with our network, but there
were a lot of variables we had no control over. For example, we can't control whether the power stays on, but if that collapses, it ruins our New Year's, too. It was strange being
in a situation where you were forced to rely so heavily on all kinds of other people and companies."
Happy New Millennium!
After months of preparation and stacks of colorful flow charts, it almost seems like it would be a let down that the world didn't crumble, time zone by time zone, as the new
millennium dawned.
"I wouldn't say it was disappointing," Radis says. "It wasn't like we were sitting there twiddling our thumbs. We were involved with conference calls every few minutes. It was
actually really exciting, because every time the clock turned over in a different time zone, the room erupted in cheers. It was a real adrenaline rush every hour."
There were a few incidents, not necessarily linked to Y2K, which tested the communications process. But as reporters checked in during the first few hours, then days of the New
Year, the PR team was able to reply that there was nothing to report.
And it didn't even take begging or bribery to get the PR team members to work on what will go down as one of the biggest party nights of their lifetimes.
"Everybody really wanted to be a part of it. I didn't have to pull any teeth to have people come in at midnight," Radis says. "We were all so involved, no one wanted to miss
out after all the anticipation... [In the end], we all felt like we had done the job we had set out to do. Maybe the preparation and the planning was more than we needed,
especially considering nothing major happened, but we don't ever have to ask ourselves, Did we do enough?"
Teaming Up on Crises
Mara Radis, senior manager of PR at UUNET Technologies, is quick to deflect personal praise, pointing out that there was a U.S. team of about seven full-time PR people working
on the Y2K situation for UUNET, plus a vast network of international partners.
Her advice: "No good communications plan can be pulled off with just one person. It's got to be a team effort all the way through or it's never going to accomplish your goals."
Mara Radis
UUNET Technologies
703/886-5441
Megan Lamb
The Merritt Group Inc.
703/556-6300, ext. 111 l
[email protected]