Putting the “I see!” in ICS for Communicators

December 8, 2015 · by brandon brewer | in Pro Tips | tagged Collaboration, crisis management, emergency communication, emergency management, Government Comms, Greatest Hits of 2015, incident communication, Joint Information, Operations, preparation, Public Information | Leave a comment

Wow. 2015 sure happened, didn’t it? In the spirit of this season of giving, Paul and I are counting down (and re-sharing, re-posting, re-tweeting, re-facebooking, etc., etc.) our Top 10 Most Read Pieces (look at all those caps!) from this year of the Crisis Communicator blog. We’re continuously blown away by how many people visit […]

Talking Points are a Guide, Not a Script

September 16, 2015 · by brandon brewer | in In the News | tagged effective communication, incident communication, Public Information, Risk Comms, Risk Communication | Leave a comment

A public information officer colleague returned from a recent disaster incident deployment and gave me the lowdown on how the job went. Turned out it could’ve been better! A particular low point for my friend came when he was demobilizing and had a short exit interview/debrief with the incident commander, focusing on his team’s contributions. […]

Katrina’s Environmental Catastrophe (That You Probably Never Heard Of)

August 31, 2015 · by brandon brewer | in Historical Cases | tagged community relations, Corporate Comms, Environmental, Government Comms, Here We Go Again, Hurricane Katrina, Katrina 10th, Lesson Learned, Natural Disaster, What Not to Do | Leave a comment

Note: This piece is the last of four we’ve put together for the 10-year anniversary of Katrina. Paul and I reported to the U.S. Coast Guard’s Public Information Assist Team the summer of 2005. Our team was in the disaster zone from Aug. 28, the day before landfall, until Feb. 8. It’s difficult to celebrate any kind of “anniversary” for the recovery phase […]

Ten Years After: How Katrina Made Me a Better Crisis Responder

August 26, 2015 · by brandon brewer | in From the Field, Historical Cases | tagged Crisis Comms 101, Hurricane Katrina, Katrina 10th, Lesson Learned, Natural Disaster, The Fundamentals | 2 Comments

I’d love to change the world But, I don’t know what to do So, I’ll leave it up to you Note: This piece is the second of four we’ve put together for the 10-year anniversary of Katrina. Paul and I reported to the U.S. Coast Guard’s Public Information Assist Team the summer of 2005. Our team was in the disaster […]

The Better Way to Give Affected Masses Crisis Info

August 6, 2015 · by brandon brewer | in From the Field, Historical Cases | tagged community relations, effective communication, Lesson Learned, PR, Public Information, public meetings, Public Relations, reputation management, Risk Communication | 2 Comments

Here’s today’s public service announcement from me to you: if you have bad news or risk information to communicate to people affected by crisis, don’t ever (ever, ever, EVER) choose to hold a town hall meeting to do so. Some people look at me like I’m crazy when I say this – even veteran communicators – so […]