Howard Owens spent his Saturday migrating a small weekly newspaper site from one content management system to another.
On a Saturday? Why?
Because the town the paper covers was the one in Kansas that was almost completely destroyed by tornadoes.
It’s called Greensburg and the paper is the Kiowa County Signal.
Along with most of the town went the newspaper’s offices and all the login information for the existing web site, so reporters couldn’t have posted stories even if they had a CMS that allowed them to drop the newest bits on top, blog-style, without much effort.
So again, I’ve gotta ask, in an emergency like this, what’s your plan?
More important than the plan, of course, is the mindset that got Howard and his team to spend their Saturday making sure that the 1,500 residents of this town could get their local news from local sources.
So what’s your mindset in an emergency? Is it bureaucratic or is it agile? Thinking about a print cycle, or thinking about breaking news online?