Nope!

Not a word!

As my colleague Marla used to say: “Crickets!”

That’s what we got from Verizon when on December 6th their 4G service went out.  As of this writing, December 7th, it is still out.  Possibly nation-wide.  Possibly across all 4G devices.  With no “fall-back” to 3G or Any-G!  Thousands, perhaps millions, of customers with no data.

And, no answers.

Calling support, one was given conflicting reports.  First, it was localized and on a few devices.  Then, it was nation-wide, across the board.  Bottom line:  No one really knew.  And, in the absence of the truth, in the absence of good communications, one is left to speculate:

“I know! Is it aliens?”
“How about a government conspiracy?”
“How about a foreign government/terrorist attack?”
“How about hackers stealing *our* private information and credit cards?”
“How about little Jimmy playing with his dad’s computer?”

Who knows?  Certainly Verizon isn’t telling!

Which brings us to something we’ve faced at different client sites:  More than once, when managers have to communicate bad news, they “sit” on them.  They hope the news will get better with time.  They hope the problem will go away.  It rarely does.

Our advice has always been the same:  Get in front of the issue, now!  Communicate as soon as possible, as clearly as possible, and keep doing that until the issue is resolved.  Otherwise the problem is multiplied – not only do you have the issue to begin with, but now you have no credibility and you’ve lost your cohorts’ faith in your ability to resolve it.

The blatant mishandling of this outage by Verizon is but one example.  I am sure you can think of many more… (Really? Let me get this straight: You thought if you ran for President, a 13-year-old-affair wouldn’t come out? Really?)

So, as we all wait for news on the solar flare that ate Verizon’s network, we can at least take this silent, data-free moment to reflect and to promise ourselves that we will not be as stupid!  We promise to be proactive, honest, and forthcoming in the new year.  How is that for a New Year’s Resolution?

Happy and healthy holidays to all, and a prosperous 2012!