Robert Jensen Speaking at the IATA Crisis Communications in the age of Social Media Conference

Two weeks ago I was in Istanbul, at the IATA Crisis Communications in the Social Media Age Conference. I, along with other Kenyon staff, were there to speak on a panel and conduct an interactive exercise. These are great conferences because they provide an opportunity to share lessons learned and further develop best practice guidelines.

What we tried to bring to the conference is the reminder that crisis communications in large-scale incidents or accidents is very different than day-to-day communications. On any given day, a company communications team is likely managing challenges dealing with unhappy customers, business disruptions, and marketing operations. Not easy stuff, but mostly handled between a single or perhaps, two departments and the customer. Not so with crisis communications – it involves multiple departments, companies and governments. To be successful requires preplanning, training, and coordination. At the time of the event, coordination is key.  Successful coordination requires mutual understanding of the problems and the goal.

Part of the purpose of this blog is to help practitioners see the big picture from start to finish. I have put an overview of this into an e-book. It can be easily downloaded here: http://bit.ly/1qFnTbo.

I hope it is helpful.