Since I was a little girl, my dad’s wise words of advice stemmed from John Lennon’s song, “Beautiful Boy.” He tells me: Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.

He couldn’t be more right.

Perhaps my obsessive need for organization, strategies and plans A, B, C (and D) explains why he constantly reminds me of these important facts of life.

Life never goes as planned. Rather, it is everything that happens in between these plans. There will always be changes, challenges, and well, things that just screw up EVERYTHING.

Little did he know I would carry this information with me into my public relations/communications career, and well, utilize it to prepare MORE plans.

I am learning that in this field, you can never be too prepared. My favorite class thus far at Penn State was a newly added Crisis Communications course. My professor told us, “If any organization ever tells you they are resilient to crises, they are lying.” We had the opportunity to choose a local organization, discuss the most likely crises with executives, and move forward in creating an entire crisis communications plan for the organization to implement if needed.

Here at Springboard Public Relations, we coordinate the Annual NJ Sandcastle Contest, which, in all its 24 years, has never been cancelled due to poor weather conditions. Well, there is a first time for everything. After six weeks of stifling weather, brown grass and water restrictions, it decided to pour, thunder and lightning, this morning on the day of our event.

This surely is not a crisis of the epic BP variety, but when 10,000 people are expected to kick sand around, you need to have a contingency plan.

So as the lightning crept closer to our base of operations (the beach), the team (hat tip to Springboard) jumped into contingency mode.  We needed to layout our options and re-strategize.

Because of safety reasons, we made an immediate decision to reschedule the event. We quickly mobilized, utilizing the Web site, Twitter, Facebook, media relations and a phone team to manage inbound/outbound calls – all designed to get the word out about cancelling and rescheduling the event.  We also needed to make sure our sponsors, such as Whole Foods Market and Herr Foods were notified as they were planning to deliver tons of products.  All of this was completed before 8:00 AM this morning, less than two hours from the initial decision.

An organization must always have a contingency plan and must know what to do when the unexpected arrives. Contingent is the perfect word—every organization should respond quickly and be flexible in its planning purposes.

Of course, remember to breathe first.  Oh, and by the way, the new date for the NJ Sandcastle event is July 28!

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