We’ve made careers communicating with – or on behalf of – people and organizations on their worst days, which means we’ve had to master the art (and science) of communication during crisis, or when people are angry, frightened and distrustful. It’s what separates us from the spin doctors, imitators, part timers and politicos. We learned it requires more than a particular set of PR skills – it requires no small measure of integrity, empathy, experience and a never-ending penchant for practical knowledge.
Enter The Crisis Communicator blog. Its purpose … and our mission, if you will … (or is it, Its mission … and our purpose? … or maybe our vision … ?)
[pregnant pause]
Anyway, we like the idea of using this platform as a catalyst for spreading meaningful, principle-based expertise to organizations, agencies, companies and people who want to communicate deliberately with integrity, empathy and sincerity.
Exactly who do we think we are with our thinly veiled mission statements and lofty talk of vision and catalyst-ism? (No, not a word – yet.)
Between the two of us is a combined 50 years of professional communication experience. Most of that time spent as specialized federal first responders, which meant doing the job of a crisis communication manager, PR advisor, planner, writer, trainer and speaker. We also have backgrounds in journalism, photojournalism, branding, strategic planning and a bunch of other stuff that makes us sound knowledgeable. Because we are. We’ve both done risk communications (for real). We’ve done disaster response operations (a lot). We’ve taught people how to do these things that we’ve done (a lot). We also realize that even when one masters a field, there’s always more to learn, and we’ll readily share tactics, training and techniques that are new to us. Aren’t you the lucky ones*?!
*winky smiley face
And yes … we own a consulting business but we do our best to keep the dark side from this one. We don’t have plans to monetize this thing or use it to build our email list. We never spam and we will never share your email or content information. If relationships developed here turn into leads or other gigs, that’s cool, but that’s not why we’re doing this.
So why are we doing this? The same reason Neo entered the Matrix – it’s what we’re supposed to do. Communication on a bad day is what we know, it’s what we’re good at, and it’s something we’ve seen attempted with disastrous results time and again.
Why should you participate? You get content, analysis, wit, occasional humor and some expert advice free. What content? Well, let’s see:
* Reviews of what professional communicators are publishing (or, what organizations are publishing that has an impact on the crisis communications profession)
* Professional tips on everything from the basics to high-level strategic planning
* Analysis of events in the news as lessons learned for communicators
* Case studies on big-impact or complex incidents to share best practices
* Information analysis for ongoing crises
* The latest gouge on the profession from the front lines as harvested from our personal experience doing crisis communications and crisis comms training for real-world events
Sound good? Good.
p.s.: The best way to reach us for blog stuff? SDCrisisComms@shawn-douglas.com. If you’re interested in adding a couple of ballers to your team as consultants? Check out our business site http://www.Shawn-Douglas.com
p.p.s: You can also hit us up on our personal twitter handles @bs_brewer and @PRhynardPIO. We tweet like bosses @crisis_comms
p.p.p.s: You know those stories that include the phrase “… and he worked his way up from the mailroom.” I actually did that. Click the link for the highlight reel (mailroom job not included.) ~ brandon
p.p.p.p.s: You know those stories that include the phrase “… and he worked his way up from the mailroom.” My buddy Brandon may have done that but I’ve always held out for middle management. Click the link to see where that’s got me. ~ Paul
The Crisis Communicator 
I an becoming more familiar with social media however I’d like to find a social media monitoring app. I’d like to know what works for other PIOs before I select one and then find out that a different one has better features or monitoring, or whatever.
LikeLike
Hi Julie, it’s mostly a matter of personal preference, as well as how many platforms you want to work with (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) I use HootSuite as my main social media monitoring tool because I can track and post to multiple platforms. Brandon is partial to TweetDeck as he mostly uses twitter. Both are free but you have the option to pay a little extra for more features.
LikeLike