Ready for Digital Vigilantes

An item from this week's Chronicle of Higher Education describes the challenge for school leaders posed by social media and other digital outlets. Inherently unmanageable in nature - in fact, that is part of their appeal - most university presidents and their head of school counterparts find themselves on the back foot in deal with a social media backlash.One interesting trend noted in the article - which we have seen in our client schools - is for stakeholders to be increasingly attentive to the interior workings of the school. Rather than social concerns in the larger world per se, what is most often the spark for social media protests are how the actions of governance and administration reflect bigger social concerns.From cases in places as diverse as the University of Missouri, the University of California - Berkeley, Oberlin College, and the Canadian International School of Hong Kong, there is much to be learned about how and how not to respond. The main take-aways are:

• Never under-estimate the speed at which messages transmit and mutate in digital media - what used to take days and weeks now takes seconds and minutes to spread;
• Understand that every message from school leaders will be parsed "almost at a Talmudic level," a point made in the Chronicle article by one interviewee;
• Avoid knee-jerk responses - manage and moderate your own emotions to keep from making a bad situation even worse;
• Never minimize - acknowledge the facts as quickly as possible and avoid trying to put a best face on the situation;
• Have a crisis communications plan in place in advance, because it is too late once the tweets start flying; and
• Know what is on people's minds before it boils over - administrators should stay close to key groups such as faculty, students, parents and alumni.

The bottom line is to expect school dramas to play out in social media and be prepared rather than behind the curve.