Upcoming Webinars
From devastating earthquakes in Morocco, Turkey and Syria, wildfires in Greece and Canada, to flooding in Ecuador, Congo and Rwanda, the impact of natural disasters and extreme weather patterns is rarely out of the news.
Well after the media has moved on, it is impossible to forget the haunting images of Hawaii’s charred and shattered landscape. In the first eight months of 2023, the USA experienced 23 separate billion dollar weather and climate disasters, the largest number since records began. Yet of all the countries in the world, the Philippines, Indonesia and India are believed to be at highest risk.
Such events promote unprecedented challenges for crisis leaders, so how can you prepare? Do immediate warnings preserve and save lives? What are the best ways to act decisively and lead effectively through any disaster? What are the best ways for overcoming setbacks, developing teams and serving with integrity? What are the best ways to support and assist victims in the aftermath of natural disasters? How is it possible to comprehend such intense tragedy and loss?
Emergency response is a critical part of crisis management and the Crisis Communication Network is delighted to welcome three international leaders in the field:
Amanda Coleman is one of the UK’s leading crisis communication experts. She is the author of
Crisis Communication Strategies: Prepare, Respond and Recover Effectively in Unpredictable and Urgent Situations and Everyday Communication Strategies: Manage Common Issues to Prevent a Crisis and Protect Your Brand and is currently working on a third book.
Amanda runs a crisis communication consultancy and supports a range of clients internationally with incident management, planning and training. She is the Chair of the UK Emergency Planning Society Communication Professional Working Group.
Ed Conley is one of the world’s most experienced disaster responders. He spent the early part of his career as an emergency medical technician in the US Ski Patrol before moving to NATO to advise on emergency management. During the 27 years he spent subsequently as a disaster responder at the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), he has helped to guide more than 200 emergency response operations worldwide. He was closely involved in the Haitian earthquake in 2010, which is still one of the worst natural disasters in world history, killing more than 300,000 people. Drawing upon his extensive experience he will share proven principles for acting decisively and leading dynamically and empathetically throughout any disaster. He is the author of Promote the Dog Sitter: and Other Principles for Leading During Disasters.
Dan Stoneking is the CEO of Stoneking Strategic Communications consultancy. He is also the Founder and Vice President of the Emergency Management External Affairs Association, having enjoyed careers in both the US Army and FEMA. Dan was lead spokesperson for the US National Guard in Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina where he represented 54 states and territories; helped establish the first-ever international joint information centre during the earthquake in Haiti; and was US lead spokesperson in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria in 2017, which devastated the northwest Caribbean. His first book, Cultivate Your Garden, Crisis Communications from 30,000 Feet to Three Feet will be published in Feb 2024.
Chaired by Katherine Sykes and Sara Naylor of the Crisis Communications Network, the event will take place online on Tuesday 28 May from 13.00-14.15 BST. Do join us for what will undoubtedly be an exceptional event.
Academic thinking and research have helped us to better understand crisis communication and has reprioritised it as a strategic requirement for all organisations. One of the individuals who has contributed greatly to this process has been Dr Timothy Coombs. Perhaps you feel you are not familiar with his work, but it is more than likely it will have influenced your crisis communication practice, either through case studies or articles you will have read.
Dr Coombs’ most famous work to create Situational Crisis Communication Theory helps us predict the level of reputational threat facing an organisation during a specific crisis and how stakeholders will likely respond, which is invaluable when it comes to planning our own crisis communication strategy.
Dr Coombs is a professor at the University of Central Florida’s Nicholson School of Communication and is on the Advisory Board of the Centre for Crisis and Risk Communication. A crisis communication specialist, he has published more than 40 research articles, contributed to more than 30 book chapters, and collaborated on six books related to crisis management. He also counsels governments and businesses around the world and regularly speaks at conventions.
Dr Coombs will join CIPR Crisis Communications Network Co-Chair, Chris Tucker and the Network’s Special Advisor, Rod Cartwright, on Monday, July 1st 2024 from 9.00am to 9.45am to discuss his latest work and thinking and how it applies to the changing context around crisis communication, particularly the role of AI.
The event will be held online and is free of charge for everyone. 5 CPD points are available for CIPR members.
Past Webinars
Open House will return again on Monday 29 April at 1.00pm BST, hosted by the Network’s Co-Chairs Chris Tucker and Katherine Sykes and Special Advisor Rod Cartwright.
As usual, we will be opening the floor to our members and we’re keen to discuss any crisis topics that take your interest. This is an informal session where we encourage you to come along and discuss whatever matters to you, so do feel free to come along with your thoughts, comments, points of view, own experience and any questions you may have.
The CIPR Crisis Communications Network kicks off 2024 with a new type of event: “Crisis Communications in Conversation with Professor Lucy Easthope”.
The purpose of this new format is to bring to the attention of our members and the wider crisis communication community high profile individuals who work in the sector and whose insights and views can help shape our practice. These new events will be held at the start of the day – 9.00am to 9.30am – and will feature one individual being interviewed by a member of the CIPR Crisis Communications Network.
We are delighted to announce that our first guest will be the UK’s leading authority on recovering from disasters and best-selling author of “When the dust settles”, Professor Lucy Easthope. Lucy has been an advisor for nearly every major disaster of the past two decades, including the 2004 tsunami, 9/11, the Salisbury poisonings, Grenfell, the Covid-19 pandemic and most recently the war in Ukraine. Lucy has a degree in Law, a PhD in medicine and a Masters in risk, crisis and disaster management. She is a Professor in Practice of Risk and Hazard at Durham University, Fellow in Mass Fatalities and Pandemics at the University of Bath, and a Research Associate at the Joint Centre for Disaster Research, Massey University, New Zealand. Lucy’s book and her work is characterised by the compassion and respect we should all strive for in our crisis communication practice. We have much to learn from her.
CIPR Crisis Communications Network, Co-Chair, Chris Tucker, will be interviewing Professor Easthope.
The event is free of charge for everyone. 5 CPD points are available for attendance.
During 2023, the culture of an organisation has come under the spotlight like never before. Numerous crises, such as those impacting Westminster, McDonalds, the Metropolitan Police, CBI, ITV’s This Morning and the BBC, have all been attributed to “toxic culture.” But what do we mean by this term? How can a sub-optimal corporate culture be dealt with before it becomes a crisis? And what responsibility does the board have in identifying the risks and rewards posed by people and culture? In its eighth event of the year, the CIPR Crisis Communications Network has brought together a panel of experts to give their insights into the links and dynamic between corporate culture, politics, workplace engagement and crisis.
David Ferrabee is the Managing Director of Change, Culture and Engagement at Teneo. He advises clients on how to measure and manage their organisational cultures. In his experience culture can be the key to competitive advantage. However, most organisations pay too little attention to it, or only look seriously at it when it goes wrong. David has 30 years of experience working with leading companies around the world. He is a native Montrealer, based in London, but educated in France and Africa as well.
Fiona Hathorn is the CEO and Founder of Women on Boards, a purpose-led business launched in the UK in 2012 that works to increase diversity in executive and non-executive leadership. From an initial focus on supporting women into non-exec and board roles, WOB has evolved to work extensively with corporate partners on building inclusive cultures which are gender neutral and fully intersectional. WOB’s recent research Hidden Talent 2023 reveals the importance that an organisation’s people and culture have on its reputation and prosperity.
Dr Hannah White OBE is the Director of the Institute for Government and author of Held in Contempt: What’s Wrong with the House of Commons?. She has extensive knowledge of Whitehall and Westminster, based on over a decade’s experience of Parliament and the civil service.
This session will undoubtedly be one of our most interesting events to date and will be chaired by Chris Tucker and Katherine Sykes, Co-Chairs of the CIPR Crisis Communications Network.
Your people are your greatest asset, but if you employ people, you also have insider risk. The rising cost of living, organisational distrust and increasing levels of online organised crime are all making the incidence of insider events like leaks, sabotage or even staff-based violence, more commonplace. And yet 60% of organisations do not have a plan to manage insider risk appropriately.
In the 7th event in the CIPR Crisis Communications Network’s 2023 event series, we will bring together communication and security specialists, to explore how organisations can build their resilience by adopting a truly integrated approach to managing insider risk. The session will also be informed by a new guidance report from the National Protective Security Authority (to be shared with participants after the event), examining the crucial role of communications in preparing for, managing and recovering from insider events.
The term ‘Insider’ does not suggest ill-intent. In fact, NPSA defines an insider as: “any person, who has, or previously had, authorised access to or knowledge of the organisation’s resources, including personnel, facilities, information, equipment, networks, and systems”. Whether insider events are intentional or unintentional, they should be identified within risk assessments and managed accordingly.
Insider events are distinct from other crises, and can strike at the heart of how an organisation operates and manages it people. They can tear teams apart, have a lasting impact on culture and destroy trust from within the organisation. The good news is that an engaged workforce can help reduce the likelihood and impact of an insider event.
Chaired by Rod Cartwright, the Network’s Special Advisor and Network Co-Chair, Katherine Sykes, the panel will incorporate:
- HM Government Security Expert, National Protective Security Authority
- Fiona Walters, Regional CEO, UK and Ireland, G4S
- Jenni Field, Founder and Director, Redefining Communications and Past President, CIPR
They will explore how insider events require a different approach from generic crisis communication, discussing how breaking down organisational siloes, working with cross-functional teams to create a safe and open culture, great leadership and regular communication can help organisations prevent, manage and recover from insider events.
We are also delighted to be collaborating with the CIPR Inside group on this exciting event, reflecting the critical role of internal communication, employee engagement and organisational culture in this ever-growing area of corporate risk. We hope you can join us for this important and far-reaching discussion.
Open House will return again on Wednesday, September 20th at 1.00pm BST. As usual, we will be opening the floor to our members and we’re keen to discuss any crisis topics that take your interest. Perhaps you’d like to talk about the recent Coutts/NatWest crisis?
Or perhaps you’re more interested in the cyber-attack at the Electoral Commission, which some people have attributed to the Russian state? Or maybe you’re more concerned about the inadvertent loss by the Northern Ireland police force of a significant quantity of data about their personnel? We are interested in whatever matters to you, so do feel free to come along with your points of view, own experience and any questions you may have.
Also at Open House we will be launching our first publication – How to Write a Crisis Communications Plan. This skills guide covers eight steps to writing a crisis communications plan, some general dos and don’ts, and concludes with a useful checklist for use in a crisis. It also includes recommendations for further reading plus links to the excellent CIPR Crisis Communications training and qualifications that are available.
Do join the Network’s Co-Chairs Chris Tucker and Katherine Sykes and Special Advisor Rod Cartwright to discuss both the new guide and any crises of the day. Worth 5 CPD points.
If there is one thing that reputational crises consistently teach us, it is that there’s actually no such thing as a ‘PR crisis’.
In reality, so-called PR crises are invariably the result of some combination of operational, structural, leadership, governance, decision-making and cultural factors – many of which sit well beyond the communications function. And yet, crisis communicators all too often risk conducting crisis preparedness in splendid isolation from the other corporate functions central to these dynamics – be it Legal, Marketing, Human Resources, Operations, Strategy or Risk.
In this fourth event in the CIPR Crisis Communications Network’s 2023 event series, we will bring together crisis communications and resilience specialists, to explore how organisations can build their resilience by adopting a truly integrated approach to crisis preparedness.
Chaired by Rod Cartwright, the Network’s Special Advisor and Sara Naylor, Network Steering Committee member, the panel will incorporate:
- Charlie McLean-Bristol, Founder and Director of Plan B Consulting
- Elmarie Marais, CEO of GoCrisis
- Rina Singh, host of the RESILIENCEPOD podcast.
They will explore how best to integrate fully communications and operational factors, including systematic risk identification and prioritisation, scenario planning and stress-testing.
As we near 500 members, we are as keen as ever to give you all a chance to get involved and use the Network as a forum to exchange ideas and share challenges. To that end we regularly have Open House sessions where our members determine the agenda.
Hosted by the Network’s Co-Chairs Katherine Sykes and Chris Tucker the session is designed to be member-led so if you have questions or topics you would like us to address during the session, you can email them to us in advance and give us a chance to put in some thinking ahead of the day. The email to use is: ciprccrisiscom@gmail.com. Or just come along on the day and put us to the test!
Unless you’ve been living under a stone, the end of 2022 and start of 2023 has probably involved a relentless social media carpet bombing of ChatGPT experiments and generative AI discussions.
But if 2023 is seeing the apparent coming-of-age of generative AI – somehow crystalised by OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT – what does this quantum leap in commstech mean for issues management and crisis communications.
Is it a threat, an opportunity or both? How do we balance discussions about tactical implementation and strategic adaptation? What are our ethical and moral responsibilities as leaders in deploying generative AI? And what are the implications for existing practice models – whether agency or in-house.
These are just some of the crucial debates we will be discussing with a panel of crisis communication and technology experts, encompassing:
1. Paul Quigley, CEO of NewsWhip
2. Ed O’Brien, Head of Issues & Media Management at KPMG
3. Philippe Borremans, Vice-President of the International Association of Risk and Crisis Communication and author of the recent ebook “Mastering Crisis Communication with ChatGPT: A Practical Guide”
4. Varun Puri, Co-founder, Yoodli.
The session will be Co-Chaired by the Network’s Special Advisor and Visiting Fellow to Cardiff University’s Centre for Journalism and Public Communication, Rod Cartwright, and Chris Tucker, the Network’s Co-Chair.
It was said recently that PR people will not be made redundant by ChatGPT, but by another PR person who knows how to use it! To avoid falling into that potential trap, register and join us to discuss this fast-moving and critical issue.
This event is free for all and worth 5 CPD points for CIPR members.
Any good crisis communicator will tell you that their job is to safeguard and enhance their organisation’s reputation, right? Well, to an extent. Because even if reputational protection is your north star, getting there hinges fundamentally on one critical factor in every crisis – human beings and human outcomes.
For our second event of the year, we have assembled a panel of specialists in caregiving, psychology and human performance to explore the critical importance of safeguarding your team’s human wellbeing during a crisis.
Intan Darlina Muhammad, former Caregiver Manager at Malaysia Airlines, will explore next-of-kin caregiving and team wellbeing under intense pressure. Darlina led Malaysia Airlines’ teams of hundreds of caregivers in Beijing, Amsterdam and Kota Kinabalu, following the disappearance of flight MH370 in March 2014 and the tragic shooting down of flight MH17, just four months later.
She will be joined by Nick Propper, long-standing PR agency leader and now CEO of Impact Human Performance – an agency which helps organisations to replace uncertainty with purpose, fatigue with energy and fear with resilience. Nick will examine how best to ensure war room and dispersed colleagues manage their stress and energy during a protracted crisis.
Finally, Rob Stewart, a business psychologist specialising in leadership and organisational culture, will explore how group identity, psychological safety and a growth mindset are the ultimate triad for ensuring the wellbeing of people during a crisis.
The session will be Co-Chaired by the Network’s Special Advisor, Rod Cartwright (who worked with Darlina on MH370) and steering committee member, Sara Naylor, Founder of Ravenhill Media.
If you’ve ever worried about your organisation’s human preparedness – alongside your other systems and processes, this is the event for you. Join us to discuss these crucial issues.
It is free of charge to all and worth 5 CPD points for CIPR members.