By Charlie Warzel, writing for the New York Times: You can’t see much in the haunting video of Tuesday’s shooting at the STEM School in Highlands Ranch, Colo. — just darkness and an eerie voice repeating a prerecorded warning over a loudspeaker. “Attention please. Lockdown. Lock, lights, out of sight.” Two videos with a combined runtime of 82 seconds […]
[By Nora Jacobs, Hennes Communications] One of the questions we frequently debate with clients when they are about to make a public announcement is the question of attribution: Who’s going to speak on behalf of the organization? After explaining all the reasons why having members of our crisis team fill that role is a bad […]
Thanks to our friend and colleague, Linda Bluso, Founder & CEO of the Adaptive Knowledge Institute®, for the lead to this article from the Harvard Business Review: Having your employer get caught in a public scandal is an agonizing professional experience. Even if your company comes out okay financially, it’s likely to have a tarnished reputation. How do […]
If you’ve ever attended any of our training seminars, you know we often talk about how reporters are often storytellers, often using familiar tropes and archetypes, accompanied by all their embedded values. On that subject, here’s writer Jeff Jarvis, writing for BuzzMachine on this topic: In journalism, we think our job is to “get the […]
From a colleague of ours, Michael Maslansky: A crisis hits and the internal kabuki dance begins. The CEO. The lawyers. The communicators. And as if scripted in advance, the drama frequently plays out in a predictable way. The CEO wants to fight back against the unfair criticism. The lawyer, preparing for coming litigation, doesn’t want […]
The Ohio School Boards Association (OSBA) has entered into a strategic partnership with Hennes Communications to provide crisis management and communications services to public school systems throughout the state of Ohio facing sudden challenges to their organizations’ reputations and operations. With this partnership, OSBA member school leaders have access 365 days a year to expert […]
By Thom Fladung/Hennes Communications The crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 and subsequent focus on the Boeing 737Max airliner brought with it the usual analysis and reaction from crisis communications consultants. Some of our crisis communications peers provided insight into how Boeing was dealing with its crisis. And some reaction, unfortunately, we found lacking in […]
By Bruce Hennes, CEO, Hennes Communications On September 11, 2001, the world changed. The terrorist attack on the U.S. altered American politics and propelled us into a foreign war, changing government surveillance, our travel habits and even the architecture of our buildings. On a micro-level, it also changed Hennes Communications. For the previous 12 years, […]
Hear Thom Fladung, managing partner of Hennes Communications, talk to the Portage County Safety Council about crisis management here. Hope you agree it’s worth the listen.
Since our founding thirty years ago, Hennes Communications has been involved in a number of high-profile, national stories. Our crisis management consultants have first-hand and direct second-hand experience being on the receiving end of calls from nationally-known reporters, morning show guest bookers, field producers, bloggers and freelancers (most legit; some not) asking/demanding information, access, interviews […]