3 Questions Your Organization Needs to Ask Before a Crisis Strikes

How do you manage a crisis in the digital era? It’s a question facing many government organization today.

Take, for instance, the Department of Homeland Security’s Incident Command Watch Office. As the hub for situational awareness, it’s charged with communicating critical information information to the public—often under urgent conditions and with little room for error.

Because of that, they’ve built a secure system that allows them to send out templated emergency communications in under one minute. And thanks to their use of Granicus solutions, every message can be monitored for success in real time, is mobile friendly and accessible, and has a high rate of deliverability.

DHS will share more about how it manages communications during a crisis during our webinar next week. After you sign up to attend, here are three questions to chew over in the meantime:

Does your organization have a continuity of operations plan?

In other words, is your agency able to continue to perform essential functions under a broad range of circumstances?

During a crisis, what’s your current plan to communicate with stakeholders?

When disaster strikes, your organization may need to let people know where they can find resources, call upon certain people to take action or simply reassure the public. Is this possible under crisis plan?

What channels are you most likely to use in a crisis?

In the digital era, it’s possible to get information into the hands of people in seconds. But choosing the right channel at the right time to reach the right audience can be tricky. Does your organization send out emergency emails, text messages, or social media posts? When does it do so, and under what circumstances? When your organization sends something out, do they target it based on an audience’s demographics, locations or other data?

Want to learn more about how DHS is using digital solutions to communicate efficiently during a crisis? Need a fresh idea on how to develop your own plan? Sign up for our webinar taking place next Wednesday, September 19, from 2 – 3 p.m. EST.