Crisis Designer Podcast

In this episode of the Crisis Designer Podcast, Adam Barrett, Resilience Director at dentsu, shares insights into designing and executing impactful crisis exercises. With over 15 years of experience in business continuity and resilience, Adam emphasizes the importance of identifying critical activities, mitigating risks, and fostering team collaboration. Adam explains how crisis exercises help organizations validate processes, enhance communication, and build resilience. He highlights best practices for scenario creation, including using risk analysis, incorporating realistic elements, and balancing participant roles. He also discusses maintaining immersion through in-world facilitation and leveraging personas to enrich scenarios. Finally, Adam underscores the importance of relationships in resilience planning, advising practitioners to prioritize relationship-building over technical expertise for long-term success.

In this episode of the Crisis Designer Podcast, Steve Hather, Chief Risk Officer at Coca-Cola Hellenic, shares his insights on building business resilience. Drawing from over 35 years of experience, Steve discusses Coca-Cola Hellenic’s integrated approach to resilience, encompassing strategic, financial, operational, and reputational aspects. Steve emphasizes the importance of crisis simulations for preparing teams, highlighting realistic scenarios, leadership buy-in, and proactive communication. He stresses the need to share information promptly during crises to maintain trust and counter misinformation. Looking ahead, Steve advocates for evolving the risk management role into a "Chief Resilience Officer" mindset, focusing on leveraging opportunities alongside managing risks to drive long-term organizational growth.

In this episode, Bennett Golder, Managing Director, UK Digital Crisis Lead, and Head of Social at FGS Global, discusses the importance of his field and the value of crisis simulations for preparing companies. Golder explains how these simulations help companies test their protocols and responses, build resilience, and ultimately improve their crisis management skills. Our conversation explores the challenges and best practices of crafting these scenarios, including incorporating realistic elements, managing emotions, and fostering internal buy-in. Finally, Golder shares some advice, emphasizing the need to stay informed about global affairs and understand the wider context in which companies operate.

In this episode, Niall Duffy, Managing Director at Forestall Risk Management, shares insights from his work. He discusses the unpredictability of modern scenarios and the importance of using real-world sources for realistic content. He emphasizes the need to research and understand stakeholders and the challenges in gaining clear insights. Niall highlights strategies for maintaining engagement in exercises, including prepping key groups and engaging clients quickly. He notes that simple content often gets the best engagement and stresses the importance of managing noisy content and keeping content short.

In this episode, Vitaly Glushnev, Head of Global Security Center, and Quentin Fauveau, Regional Security Manager at AXA Partners, share their expertise on the rollout of a new security strategy in 2021. They discuss the objectives of ensuring that all local leadership teams (crisis cells) are sufficiently trained and tested in crisis management Since then, they have conducted 13 full-scale simulations globally, from ransomware scenario to terrorist attacks, earthquakes, and civil unrest. They discuss the benefits of industrialization, testimonies from participants, setting expectations and how to process results.

Amanda Coleman, a seasoned Crisis Communications Consultant and author, shares her expertise navigating crises with honesty and empathy. She discusses common pitfalls organizations face and the critical need for accurate information. Amanda emphasizes prioritizing people over reputation and highlights strategies for building trust amidst disinformation. With insights from her background in police communications, she advocates for proactive training and transparency, underscoring the importance of learning from past crises to improve future responses.

In this episode, Alan Marsh, Senior Business Resilience Manager at Vodafone Group, discusses the concept of "permacrisis"—a prolonged period of instability due to catastrophic events. Alan explains how organizations can manage frequent crises through effective triage and escalation, a dedicated crisis management team, and rehearsing initial meetings. He also emphasizes the importance of consistent meetings, shared understanding, robust reporting, and centralized information repositories.

In this episode, Gautier Porot, Global Crisis Management Practice Leader at International SOS, shares expert insights on creating effective crisis exercises. He discusses identifying and aligning scenarios with organizational risks, involving business experts for accurate information, and balancing scenario intensity to avoid overwhelming participants. He also shares his thoughts on how to embed skill development into exercises and utilizing the five key crisis response pillars.

In this episode, Robert talks about environmental storytelling and human terrain modelling, while Belén reflects on how to apply proxemics (the relation between distances and communication) when designing a scenario. What caught our eye goes from Russian hybrid warfare, Bioshock movie and video games and Youtube misinformation reports. Give us your feedback: podcast@conducttr.com Check us out: https://www.conducttr.com LINKS https://cepa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/CEPA-Hybrid-Warfare-1.28.21.pdf https://twitter.com/daniel_eckler/status/1493230457865003016 https://blog.youtube/inside-youtube/inside-responsibility-whats-next-on-our-misinfo-efforts/ https://www.ign.com/articles/bioshock-movie-netflix https://spherestandards.org/wp-content/uploads/Sphere-Handbook-2018-EN.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxemics http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://innovacionaudiovisual.com/como-usar-las-distancias-en-el-storytelling-inmersivo/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Say_Nothing_(book)

In this episode, we tap into storyboards as a valuable tool when creating scenarios. Many interesting things caught our eye this week: from real-life complex issues with operational and political implications, cyber-attacks with China links and cool open-source projects and DIY. Give us your feedback: podcast@conducttr.com Check us out: https://www.conducttr.com LINKS https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/08/canada-ottawa-trucker-protest-extremist-qanon-neo-nazi https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220208-canadian-anti-vax-truckers-inspire-copycat-protests https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/business/media/news-corp-email-hack.html https://color.museum/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8LNj4el3k4&t=2562s https://symantec-enterprise-blogs.security.com/blogs/threat-intelligence/china-apt-antlion-taiwan-financial-attacks https://www.hackster.io/news/mutantw-is-an-esp32-powered-open-source-smartwatch-4bc6fc5018b1?mc_cid=366f7c4b72&mc_eid=dcf0586cf8  & https://shop.espruino.com/banglejs2 https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/light-up-valentine-cards https://daysofpunk.com/book-gallery/punk-rock-book