# Web3 Crisis Comms Controlling Narratives When Sh*t Happens | Victoria Calmon - Mento Labs - Speakers: Victoria Calmon - Channel: [Ethereum Denver](https://streameth.org/ethereum-denver) - Date: 2024-10-09 - Duration: 12:16 - Topics: blockchain, web3, ethereum, Entertainment - Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-8pp2SGKN6Ds - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pp2SGKN6Ds ## Description Sh*t happens. From hacks, to layoffs, to managing challenging personalities, and more, Web3 peeps need to be aware of crisis scenarios, create a plan, and execute flawlessly. This session will enable the audience to understand how to manage a crisis situation in the best way to own the narrative. ## Transcript can you hear me all right hello peeps good morning e Denver how's everybody doing thank you so much for joining me this morning I'm very honored to be here I was afraid that everyone was going to be a little bit tired partied out and hung over this morning so thanks for showing up and not leaving me alone here on the stage by myself it's great to see so much interest in web 3 crisis Communications it's something that I'm really passionate about are there any journalists in the audience they're being shy this morning they're covering some news they don't want to hear my secrets before we get started is it okay if I say okay because I say it on every slide so I just wanted to have a little disclaimer there we're gonna have some fun today with a subject that's quite serious but with some e Denver flavor so often crisis situations in web 3 are handled one of two ways either something happens and uh the organization ignores it and hopes it will die by itself or you have the Other Extreme uh the case of SBF where he wouldn't stop talking to everyone so we have two extreme situations both handled very badly and so I would like to share some of my own experience to help web 3 organizations navigate the crisis Communications Waters so let's get started I've been through a lot of first of all let me tell you a little bit about myself uh I'm originally from San Francisco so I started my career in the Silicon Valley 1997 web 2 working in Tech in the.com boom I was a junior marketer working for a startup that had an office in paloalto and an office in France and I thought well how cool is that I could speak friendship work it was a very fast-paced uh unfiltered and toxic environment especially for a young 22-year-old woman things that were absolutely not acceptable uh in the workplace were considered normal corporate behavior and when I spoke up about things that made me uncomfortable I was told that I didn't have a sense of humor things were very different back then uh there were no smartphones and social media hadn't taken off yet but crisis Communications have always been something that have existed in web 2 and web 3 so over the past 25 years here I've had a variety of marketing and communication roles in web 2 technology organizations ranging from startups to Global organizations um on a personal note I've been married for 23 years and I'm the mother of two young adult University students so there's not a lot that scares me anymore I I've been in web 3 since 2018 when I joined consensus today I'm head of marketing and cobs at mentol Labs we're on Booth 29 next to the main stage if you want to learn about real world digital assets come and talk to us we'll be happy to tell you more I'm very grateful for my web three Journey I'm also a member of shifi so shout out to my girls who heated up the stage just before me love it's amazing organization I'm a mediate trainer and coach so I work with spokes people of all different profiles and backgrounds to help them feel comfortable speaking with the press and navigating through uh spicy situations some of you who know me personally may know that I'm a sailor and I'm also known as uh cman eth but I'm called the captain so the captain is also uh supposed to go down with the ship but the captain is the one person in control of your boat when you're navigating through any situation so I've been in the trenches mult multiple times uh in terms of Crisis situations and I just want to share a methodology I've put in place with you to help you navigate through spicy situations some of the organizations that I've worked through in the past in web 3 so in web3 happens every day it certainly does it keeps us on our toes anything and everything can happen and does so from hacks leaks rug pulls outages restructuring layoffs product failures spicy employee situations frauds scams and AI is coming so guess what we're getting ready for even more spicy things deep fakes videos Etc things are going to get even spicier and crisis Communications will need to evolve along with the landscape why should you give a about about web 3 crisis Communications a poorly managed crisis situation can lead to terrible consequences negative press coverage escalation of rumors trolling loss of funds reputational damage loss of loyalty and let's not forget jail hello SPF this leads to a loss of confidence in the web 3 Industry as a whole and that impacts us all and everything that we're building because we want to deliver the values and the promise of web 3 with solutions that provide security transparency privacy data ownership and negative stories impact and tarnish the entire ecosystem so my methodology is three steps before the storm during and after so let's start with before the storm I'm going to keep it really simple what needs to happen first you have to get your together all spokes people in every organization need to be properly media trained you need to understand uh who is supposed to speak to the Press on which topics and they need to understand how to stick to their talking points implementing a crisis commom strategy is like taking out an insurance policy you hope you never need it but you should invest in one and be prepared anyway so a crisis commom strategy is a blueprint that will help you define how to respond to a crisis situation with the proper procedure in place to protect your reputation key stakeholders need to be identified and there is only one Captain one spokesperson to lead the organization through the crisis the core team should have a brainstorming session to try to identify all the possible scenarios that could happen and prepare a list of spicy questions that you could expect and top topics that you can address this is before the crisis happens the common goal for the team should be to prevent a crisis from occurring in the first place or if a crisis does happen prevent the spread of misinformation and negative press during the storm here comes the crisis here's your dumpster fire all of a sudden you find yourself in the middle of this what do you do when the hits the fan how are you going to know how do you know you have a crisis you're going to start getting alerts probably through social media your channel of choice your Discord Community sometimes your friends your partners your investors reach out and say hey something's going on you got to deal with this right now and you can also get incoming media queries right the Press are watching you they know what's going on and they want the scoop so they're going to start reaching out something is wrong a fire is starting to burn and you need to to act now so when the hits the fan what do you do you stay calm you need to act fast you need to gather your team together you need to understand the situation what happened what's going on how long is it going to take to fix Etc one spokesperson from the team the captain needs to prepare a holding statement and you publish this straight away on social media on your blog on your Discord with your community no other person in the organization should communicate or respond to anything on social media you need to really keep the lid on this thing until you understand what's going on let your captain handle it and monitor the situation so here's an example of a holding statement short and to the point uh wallet connect was a victim of a fishing attack a fake email was sent out and they just put out a statement to their Community uh informing users that there was a malicious site so it's very important to be transparent on social media with your community as soon as something is going on how do you avoid a you need to control the narrative during a crisis situation you need to control what information is shared publicly it's important to be proactive about this and communicate as soon as possible take the lead of the situation before the dump fire spreads so think about this you already do this all the time on dating apps I've never been on one before having been married for 23 years that was before Tinder but apparently what yall do is post your best self out there all the time like looking hot and everything so you are always controlling your own narrative out there which is fantastic but you need to do the same thing in a crisis situation you need to control the narrative what information is out there so you need to demonstrate leadership and respons responsibility and the goal is to maintain and restore your reputation and trust with the community according to uh my good friend and SEO expert Victoria ulina she says the best place to bury a dead body is page two of Google so when you start getting negative press coverage you want to bury that with positive news controlling the narrative and you want to try to get to the return to normal situation as soon as possible after the show storm you need to keep your head above water and here's some good once the dumpster fire has been put out you need to put out a postmortem statement okay so this is published on your website on your blog providing transparency to the community what does it look like it's a statement saying what happened what was done to address the issue how are we going to make sure it doesn't doesn't happen again how are we going to fix it and we need to move forward after this right uh a crisis situation is also a good opportunity to control the narrative and talk about what's next a product launch a new partnership an upgrade something positive to bury that negative activity and negative news you can take this a step further set up an AMA session with your community and even do more proactive Outreach with the guidance of your crisis commoms captain so here are some key takeaways no be prepared ahead of any crisis situation and stay calm Act Fast trust your spokesperson publish a holding statement Monitor and update put out your postmortem for transparency and move forward to bury the dead body you have any shitty questions you can always reach out to me on uh telegram Twitter scan my code come visit me on the booth happy to share more happy to answer any questions thank you