Want A Good Answer Amid A Crisis? Know The Question Before It’s Asked
By Thom Fladung/Hennes Communications The Q&A session is a staple of leadership, whether those questions come at you in employee meetings, community forums or in an interview with a journalist. It can be challenging in any setting. But doing a Q&A amid a crisis or serious issue your company or organization is facing ratchets up […]
President Trump, the Russian Connection & Crisis Communications
By Bruce Hennes, Hennes Communications Some believe President Trump and his closest advisers committed illegal acts by conspiring with Russian officials on a wide variety of political and financial activities. Some believe President Trump and his closest advisers indeed had contacts with Russian officials, but that those contacts were benign or perhaps even stupid, but […]
If Your Company Is Going Through a Public Scandal, Should You Leave?
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 […]
New ‘Morning Edition’ Theme Aspires to be ‘Inclusive and Inviting’
From Adam Ragusea, Journalist in Residence and Visiting Assistant Professor, Mercer University Center for Collaborative Journalism: The new Morning Edition music debuted Monday. As a composer-turned-pubradio-guy-turned-journalism-prof who still sometimes writes music for shows, here is my take on it, along with reactions I’ve gathered from other people and some perspective from the person who oversaw its production. […]
Sometimes It’s Best to Shut Up – Inside Lori Loughlin’s Crisis PR Strategy
From Rose Minutaglio writing in Elle: A slew of nameless sources claiming to be “close to” Lori Loughlin and “familiar with her case” have been feeding what seems like endless fodder to tabloids since news of the college admissions scandal broke in March. “It’s killing her that her squeaky-clean reputation has done a total 180. […]
Issues Management in the Dark: Game of Thrones Messes Up, Won’t Fess Up
[by Howard Fencl, Hennes Communications] Our blog posts typically deal with heavy-going crisis fare. I’m lightening up just this once because of an audacious filmmaker’s response to a Sunday evening tsunami of social media angst washing over the third episode in this, the final season of Game of Thrones. Did you see it? Probably not. […]
This 1 Word Makes Others Think Less of You, and You Probably Say It at Least 8 Times a Day
From Inc.: How many times a day do you use the word “sorry”? Statistics on Americans are hard to find, but the BBC reports British people say it at least eight times a day, and some say it as often as 20 times a day. And informal research supports what many people have observed: Women say “sorry” much more […]
Journalism & Storytelling
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 […]
Why the Lawyers Always Win
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 […]
Ohio School Boards Association Selects Hennes Communications to Provide Crisis Management and Communications Services to Ohio’s Public Schools
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 […]