My friends over at the U.S. Coast Guard’s Public Information Assist Team – the service’s deployable crisis communications experts – have alerted me to two things in the last few weeks – one, that the service has published a new pocket guide for incident public information officers (PIO) and, two, that they began distributing (and […]
Tag Archives: Government Comms
In times of crisis, the top communication objectives are typically to provide information to the public that will help them stay safe, that will tell them how they can help your organization to help them, to reassure and to instill confidence. All communication strategies and tactics, therefore, need to be developed with these objectives in […]
If you work in U.S. emergency management, particularly at the local, county or state level, you are probably already aware of the fine courses provided at FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute – both the brick-and-mortar schoolhouse in the Maryland panhandle, and via their online presence. I’ve taken several courses at the school over the years, have […]
The first chapter of Kathleen Fearn-Banks’ “Crisis Communications: A Casebook Approach,” covers – as the chapter title indicates – “Crisis Communications Today.” Several topics in the text stood out for me during a recent reading: 1. The importance of being able to clearly define what constitutes a crisis A key point during a discussion of […]
tl;dr – If there’s a possibility that something your organization is about to do will lead to perceived risks from stakeholders outside the organization, you need to have a risk communication and outreach plan in place before going forward with your operational plan. Americans used the phrase “the new normalcy” to describe how things had […]
The Crisis Communicator 