Last week we talked about people and companies who have botched their brands, such as Toyota, Lightsquared, and Herman Cain, and companies who managed crises superbly, including Tylenol and Ferrari (TurkelTalks: They Never Even Saw It Coming). But who knew that an even bigger – and more horrific – story was brewing with the almost unimaginable allegations of child molestation and bureaucratic disinterest at Penn State? Many of the responses I received through the blog, and all of the responses that came as direct e-mails, asked what Penn State should and could do to rescue their brand.
The simple answer is that the only thing they can do to protect the institution is to not try to protect the institution. All the powers that be at Penn State can really do is take care of the children who have been harmed and try to ensure that these horrors won't happen again.
But the bigger question is, what can we all do to help make children safe in our society? And while changing our institutions and our mores to protect our kids is an enormous and never-ending undertaking, there is something we can all do immediately.
Right now there are about six million children in the United States who have life-threatening food allergy. Sarah Boudreau-Romano is a pediatric allergist and mother of four children, three of whom have food allergies. As part of her life calling, she has created a blog to help educate the world about the reality and seriousness of food allergy and to help support those families who live with this 24/7. Dr. Boudreau-Romano just uploaded a blog post that explains a new piece of bipartisan legislature drafted by Senator Durbin and Senator Kirk that will allow schools access to injectable epinephrine in the case of a severe allergic reaction.
So while the plight of child welfare seems almost overwhelming in this day and age, here's something we can do to make children safer.
Dr. Boudreau-Romano's blog was nominated to the Circle of Moms' Top 25 Food Allergy Blogs and is gaining popularity every day. With your help we can push her blog to the top of the list and build the kind of credibility and critical mass she needs to further champion the legislation on Capitol Hill.
Here's the site link: TheAllergistMom.com (you can vote by clicking the pink badge to the right of the site). Or you can go directly to the voting link HERE. And if you're active on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or anywhere else online, why not pass this story – and the link – on to your universe of friends and contacts? We'll harness the power of geometric progression just like the old Fabergé Organics Shampoo commercial – “They'll tell two friends, and they'll tell two friends, and so on and so on and so on.”
Just in case you're wondering, I don't have any pharmaceutical clients and neither of my children have food allergies (okay, my son doesn't eat peanut butter – but it's not a health issue!). But if just a small percentage of you (my 11,255 enlightened readers) click on the site and vote for Dr. Boudreau-Romano's blog, we can harness the power of the Internet to make our country just a bit safer for our children.
That certainly won't help JoePa or the Nittany Lions rescue their brand, but it will help at least six million children and their parents. Pretty damn good results for a few seconds' effort.