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Mass Communication Technology
7 Best Practices for Emergency Notification
8/1/2007
His most essential advice to other CIOs: "Right now, carefully inventory all the modes of communication you may be able to use. Think deeply about which is the right mode for various emergency scenarios that may arise." At the height of an emergency, he warns, you may have to choose something you had not expected to use, because of the circumstance. "But at least you've thought about it [beforehand] and have some idea of what you want to look for—not only in terms of the notification, but in terms of the continued communication with your constituents, parents, students, and employees."
2) Internalize the Plan via Practice
Prior to entering the higher ed field, Cindy Lawson (no relation to WWU's Lawson) had worked for 14 years with Ohio Electric, where she'd been trained extensively to handle crisis communication— a common practice particularly inside utilities that own nuclear facilities. In 1999, not long after Lawson became the public information officer for Texas A&M University, a four-story bonfire structure collapsed in the wee hours of the morning during a campus rally, killing 12 students and injuring 27. Coming onto the scene about 30 minutes after receiving news of the accident, recalls Lawson, "I remember thinking, ‘Oh, my gosh, what am I going to do?'" Almost instantly, she reverted to training from her previous position with the utility company. "A&M didn't have a crisis communication plan," she says. "But I did; I knew the plan from the electric company." Her ability to stick to the plan—even a plan from a totally different organization—made Lawson an effective leader in the emergency, and she went on to lecture and train others based on that experience.
Lawson, who has since joined the University of North Carolina as assistant to the chancellor for marketing and communications, says she's conducted hundreds of emergency communication drills in her lifetime, and they can be eyeopeners. "I don't think I've ever observed a drill where I didn't go back and revise a plan for my institution because I learned something [from the drill itself]. When you practice the plan, the drill shows you things you didn't anticipate, and may even reveal flaws in the system."
For Lawson, part of that preparation includes development of the communiqués her campus might expect to send out in a given type of emergency. "Typically, what happens at most institutions of higher learning is that communications are created throughout the event," she says.
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