Crisis Comms conference a success

I'm back at the desk this morning having been out and about down in London for the past two days. Yesterday, we (we being those of us on the CIPR Education & Skills Sector Group) hosted our crisis communications and new media conference. From previous blog posts, you will know that I was pretty stoked about this conference anyway. However, it exceeded my expectations. Peter Reader, a colleague and friend from the University of Portsmouth, set the conference up excellently with his introduction to crisis communications. Mike Dame from Virginia Tech followed with a presentation of how they handled communications (particularly online) during the shootings on their campus in April 2007 in which 33 people died. I don't think I have ever seen a more focused, engaged audience. We broke for coffee after this session and everyone was very choked and blown-away by the presentation. Alison Arnott followed after coffee. Alison was one of the first media officers on the ground working for BAA when the terrorist attack on Glasgow Airport occurred last year. I learned at dinner the night before that this was Alison's first presentation to such an audience. You wouldn't have known it! She was engaging, and her presentation was so personable and well presented that, yet again, we had a room full of focused delegates. Our committee Chair, Emma Leech, followed on by sharing experiences from MMU of a mix-up over exam venues last year, then Tom Abbott took the reigns for a while talking about the tools of the trade. We then ran four scenario sessions for the delegates to explore. Held in the graveyard slot when everybody must have been getting tired and ready to go home, I was amazed at just how animated our delegates still were. I'm really looking forward to seeing the feedback now and will be posting the slides online shortly as promised.