Crisis Communications

The continuity of your entire organization could depend on whether or not you have a communications plan… and how good it is. If you don't have a strategy and plan for communicating to your employees, the public and any other stakeholders, you may find yourself behind the eight ball. This week's articles could help you stay in the game.

What are you doing to connect, protect and account for your people in a crisis? (Item #1)   Analysts Frost & Sullivan: a well designed plan for crisis communications is a must. (Item #2)   The author of this piece offers a free downloadable communications template you can use. (Item #3)  

Behavior precedes communication, sometimes resulting in spin. (Item #4)   Would you be able to use your email right after a disruption? (Item #5)   Here's what you can take away from John Edwards' career suicide. (Item #6)  

As always, we look forward to hearing your comments & insights regarding business continuity. If you have a topic you'd like us to cover, email me at [email protected].

Bob Mellinger, President
Attainium Corp



1. The Seven Steps to Successful Business Continuity Communications

This white paper provides an overview of common steps organizations are taking in order to connect, protect, and account for their people, while enabling response teams and decision makers to coordinate a successful recovery and help protect assets and infrastructure-even such things as supply chain and key customer relationships.
http://www.varolii.com/~/media/71FBB8A009984A9CB0E3BB5CE55D79CB.ashx


2. Critical Communications for Business Continuity: How to Ensure Employees, Partners & Customers Stay Connected

With an increasingly remote workforce, more companies are open to more interruptions to their business-and in a virtual workplace, even if those interruptions hit on a local level, their effects reach far and wide. Analyst firm Frost & Sullivan says that one key way to ensure superior business continuity is to have a clear, well designed plan in place for keeping communications going, not just when an event occurs, but during its duration. Read their white paper that covers a range of business continuity communications.
http://www.polycom.com/global/documents/whitepapers/
critical_communication_for_business_community.pdf


3. Developing an emergency communications plan: A template for business continuity planners

Communicating information during and following a disaster to relevant parties is a key priority. In this guide, the authors examine an emergency communications plan for business continuity planners, and then you can download a template to help you with your emergency communications planning that can be adapted to a variety of incidents.
http://searchdisasterrecovery.techtarget.com/Developing-an-emergency-communications-plan-A-template-for-business-continuity-planners


4. Seven Dimensions of Crisis Communication Management: A Strategic Analysis and Planning Model©

The most challenging part of crisis communication management is reacting - with the right response - quickly. This is because behavior always precedes communication. Non-behavior or inappropriate behavior leads to spin, not communication. In emergencies, it's the non-action and the resulting spin that cause embarrassment, humiliation, prolonged visibility, and unnecessary litigation.
http://www.e911.com/monos/A001.html


5. Email Continuity: Maintaining Communications in Times of Disaster

Yet one of the most fundamental of business applications, email, often gets short shrift from a disaster planning perspective. And given the importance of email for almost every business - both in terms of serving as a critical communication tool and as a de facto information repository - an email continuity plan should be at the top of every IT disaster recovery planning list. But is this truly the case? And is the plan comprehensive enough to maintain continuous email communications?
http://www.infosectoday.com/Articles/EmailContinuity.htm


6. Crisis Communication Gone Wrong: The John Edwards Lesson of Career Implosion - And What You Can Learn From It

Crises are never easy, and it's more difficult to see them clearly the closer you are to them. That's exactly why judgments are so immediate and so harsh when one fails to handle oneself well in a crisis. People think they see a person's real character - or lack of it - when they are under fire. And they just might be right.
http://www.thepincusgroup.com/art21.html


Quote of the Week:

"By the time you hear the thunder, it's too late to build the ark."
-- Anonymous


Contact Us:

Attainium Corp
15110 Gaffney Circle
Gainesville, VA 20155
www.attainium.net