New Media Creating a Crisis

As stated in my previous posts, an organizational crisis can come from a variety of outside sources, be it political-legal, economic, social or technological. Although many of there forces can be the cause of crisis, they also present opportunities.

For instance, technological factors include scientific improvements and innovations that create both opportunities and threats for a company. Advances in technology such as the Internet, computers, satellites have proven to be very beneficial to many different industries, the fashion industry included. Today, almost every major designer has an online website that allows customers easy access to their clothing at any time. Also, designers such as Marc Jacobs are taking advantage of new technologies such as live streaming to broadcast their fashion shows online.

While advances in technology has proven to be very beneficial to designers and the fashion world, it can also be the cause of problems. Recently, Robert C. Duffy, President of the fashion house Marc Jacobs created a Twitter account. His tweets, which provide insider information about upcoming lines and shows along with candid photos of Jacobs at work designing his latest masterpiece; became instantly popular gaining over 4,000 followers within two short weeks. While his use of social media has proven to be a very successful promotional tool, it has also caused several issues for the company.

For example, when Duffy released several top executive phone numbers on his twitter page, the company faced an extreme overflow of calls that they were unprepared to deal with. This not only compromised the time of the companys executives, but also tied up their phone lines and prevented important phone calls from getting through. Although this may not seem like an extreme crisis, it proved to be detrimental to the fashion house.

This examples goes to show that no matter how much you may want to, you cannot control what people choose to post on the internet. Although Duffy probably did not think much of it at the time, he created a minor crisis for the organization through the use of his social media page.

To check out Duffy's twitter page, click here!