Is it an Issue or a Crisis?
In this first episode of the Whiteboard Wednesday video series, Rob Burton discusses the characteristics of an issue vs. a crisis.
A Crisis Simulation exercise is a great opportunity for a team of professionals to come together and address gaps and issues they may have when it comes to an event. It is a controlled environment for you to understand individual skillsets during a crisis and how the organization can communicate and coordinate during one. As…
A tabletop exercise can test, assess and ultimately improve your crisis plan and your crisis response team’s performance. That is, if it’s done right. To be successful and contribute to your organization’s higher state of crisis readiness, your tabletop exercise has to convincingly simulate a crisis scenario. It has to give participants a taste…
On October 25, 2011, a young American humanitarian aid worker, Jessica Buchanan, was in Somalia teaching children how to avoid landmines when she and her colleague were kidnapped for ransom by Somali bandits. They were held in the desert at gunpoint for 93 days before they were rescued by Seal Team 6. Buchanan will be…
The key asset in crisis management is information. Its effective management is crucial. At some point information should be processed into a form that can be used as a coherent basis for decision-making. This is called Situational Awareness (SA). SA is the concept of developing the ability to observe your environment, orientate to rapid changes,…
What Two Questions Do You Need to be Prepared to Answer After a Cyberattack? In this day and age, it’s prudent to think of a cyberattack as a “when”, not “if” scenario. The truth is, your network is under attack right now and the tools and techniques utilized by your IT and Cybersecurity teams…
During an incident it is imperative that the CMT (Crisis Management Team) has good overall Situational Awareness throughout the whole event. This will allow leaders to better understand the situation enabling them to make well informed and accurate decisions. In this short video clip from the Crisis Coordinator Webinar Series, Rob Burton defines Situational Awareness…
Interesting. Loss of electricity for 16 hours and a broken water main involving over 500 residential homes can become a crisis easily. We had increased crime and many of us had to arm ourselves to fend off would-be petty thieves because there were hardly any police squad cars in the area the entire time. There was no way to contact fire department. Apparently cellular phones were inoperative at the time. Amateur radio was useless in this area as well. I could go on and on. Fortunately, no conflagrations occurred and I do not know why not but I am glad for it. A little help with a police or fire vehicle using driving down the main cross street could have told us something that was going on. An extra addition to a patrol route would also have been nice. But no. No one really cares. So, if you have no electricity, our local history says you are on your own and good luck.