Speaker 1: Hello, my name is Vincent Covello, and I'd like to share with you in this segment information about crisis communication planning. There have been quite a few books written on crisis communication planning. In fact, sometimes people have argued that a crisis communication plan can be used as a doorstop. They're several hundred pages long, and unfortunately, very seldom used when they have that much detail. So for the purpose of this segment, I've selected out what I consider to be the 10 most important things to consider in crisis communication planning, recognizing there's much more detail available on crisis communication planning, and you can run into plans that run for several hundred pages. So with that in mind, let me just share with you what those 10 steps would be. The first is you have to put together the right communication team. You want to keep that team as small as possible, given the needs of the situation. You want to staff it with experts, including, for example, experts if it's a radiation issue. You would have radiation experts or scientists if it's a water contamination issue. You want experts available on communications, particularly on risk and crisis communication, which is a specialized field of communications. You would certainly want people available to you on public health issues. And finally, you even want on your team legal. A lot of times, legal is put into position of a gatekeeper. We produce, for example, our plan, and then we send it up to legal for approval, as opposed to making legal part of the process itself, not just in planning but also in message development. And the team would be responsible for the various action steps associated with the plan. The second is goals, that a plan should start off with goals, objectives. For example, the goals might include to inform the public of the situation, to provide guidance on appropriate responses. It might be to simply ease the public concerns and to prepare the public with answers to questions they might have. We want to develop step number three, is I consider this particular part of it to be among the most important, if not the most important, and that is developing a list of anticipated questions, concerns, and messages in response to those questions and concerns. Many plans I've seen have simply what are called talking points, as opposed to a comprehensive list of questions and concerns and responses to that. In particular, we're looking for message maps that would begin the answer to the question or concern simply, and they'd get more and more complex. Unfortunately, in today's world of social media, information passes very quickly from person to person, information can become viral, rumors and misinformation can spread. We have to be part of that process, and to be part of that process, we have to anticipate questions, prepare responses, and be able to deliver those responses as part of our plan. Number four is we want to prepare the materials that will support our messages. That includes, for example, fact sheets. These are the traditional, for example, communication materials that we have for a crisis or emergency, but they become a critical part by which to supplement whatever we might be saying at a press release or whatever we might be sharing otherwise face-to-face with individuals. Fact sheets, website content, social media content, background materials. But as consistent with all the principles of risk communication, we want to make sure the information is clear. Typically, we start off the communication as if we're speaking to a 12-year-old, sixth to eighth grade as the beginning point for communication. We want to layer the information from simple to complex to make sure that it can get to the widest possible audience, and then we narrow it down. I've used analogies before of a tip of an iceberg, that we share the information, what you see above the surface is the very simple information, and then we get deeper and deeper into the information. We want to limit ourselves to no more than three key messages and make sure that the information we've produced in our fact sheets, website content, social media, that it's very concise. Twitter, for example, limits you to 140 characters if you're using social media as a way by which to share information. And if you look at actually the social media, 140 characters, it typically translates into about 25 to 27 words using conversational English. Then we want to develop the logistics, the roles and functions. Each member of the crisis communication team should have a specific role and function. Typically, these roles and functions are played out in a joint information center, a JIC. They may be everything from hotline, manning the hotlines, monitoring the media. We want to have a backup to what to do if the technology fails, if we put all of our eggs in one basket, assuming, for example, that we'll have power, assuming that we'll have laptops available, that we'll have, for example, video cameras available, that we want to make sure that we have backups for all that logistical part of communications. And then finally, the one that often we fail on is this 24-hour, 7-day-a-week, 365-day contact list, not just for notifications of all the individuals who should be notified, but even for our team itself. Unfortunately, if a key member of the team is not available, if we have no way to access that person, we don't know where they are, they're on vacation, they're at a movie, they're at an opera, we could lose that window of opportunity, that magical window of opportunity providing information because the specialist is simply not available. We want to coordinate with our communications with other organizations. This goes back to the notion that we're only as strong as our weakest link. If one of the organizations involved in a crisis communication response is very poor in their communications, hasn't anticipated questions, hasn't prepared responses, hasn't practiced, it's called APP, anticipate, prepare, and practice, that will often be the focus of the media. They'll pick up on what is said. They'll use that as a soundbite, it'll go viral in the social media. So therefore, we want to make sure that effectively all members of the crisis communication team, including our partners, are up to the same level of speed and excellence. Number seven is we want to identify the opportunities for media training. Media play a critical role in a crisis, so we want to make sure that those who would be interacting with the media have the skills necessary. There's a large number of media skills. We do cover this in other segments, but they include, among other things, that we want our media spokespersons to remain calm and controlled, where everybody else may be losing their head, that they are the picture of calm in the center of a storm, that they can communicate in a non-technical way using ordinary, plain English, that they can deliver key messages succinctly, that they can convey information with empathy, sincerity, and they finally that they're knowledgeable about the issue, at least enough to handle the communication setting in which they are present. Number eight is we want to spend a lot of time thinking about how do I get a message out? Delivery channels. There are quite literally hundreds of ways by which we can deliver a message that should be included in the crisis communication plan. It's to start off with traditional, for example, fact sheets, websites, press releases, and then, of course, we have to include social media, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, texting, Twitter. All those become ways by which we can share information with others, and we should lay out what we're going to use for what techniques for delivering information we're going to use, what are the strengths, the weaknesses, cost, and benefits associated with each, and of course, when you start looking at these different techniques, each of them has a cost associated with it, and we have to decide if we have the resources available for meeting those costs. Number nine is we want to make sure that we have the media lists. Since they play such a critical role, we want to make sure in our plan that we have the contacts for the various individuals who should be contacted in an event. These include phone numbers, email addresses for the media contacts. We want to keep them up-to-date. Unfortunately, people continually change, for example, their telephone numbers, their emails, their hash marks, et cetera. We want to make sure we have the most recent information that we can use to make sure we get them the information when they need it. And finally, number 10 is practice, practice, practice. As with any skill, we want to make sure that the crisis communication plan has not just updating in it, but also opportunities to practice. Practice in terms of tabletop exercises. That should be part of the plan. Practice in terms of drills and rehearsals, let alone, for example, trainings for individuals so that they can be prepared to provide excellent communication in a high-stress, high-concern situation. If you'd like more information about planning, again, laying out the various elements of a detailed crisis communication plan, again, there's a large number of resources available. Particularly, I would focus your attention on the Drexel University Library of Risk and Crisis Communication. With that, I'd like to thank you. ♪♪♪