CommCore Blog and News

Bureaucratic Jargon Doesn’t Help in a Crisis or Risk Situation

When Centers for Disease Control (CDC) chief Dr. Thomas Frieden told reporters after the first Texas hospital nurse contracted Ebola, “I think the fact that we don’t know of a breach in protocol is concerning because clearly there was a breach in protocol,” he violated a cardinal rule of crisis and risk communications – bureaucratic jargon and doublespeak tend to confuse the public and raise tension. Read more

The 2014 World Cup: World Class Communications Challenges

FIFA (the federation that governs international soccer ) couldn’t have asked for a worse buildup to the largest sporting event in the world – its signature quadrennial World Cup, just underway in Brazil:

  • Facility and infrastructure completion problems right up to the start of the games
  • Massive, violent local protests against the lack of the promised economic World Cup “trickle-down” to Brazil’s poor
  • News coverage of alleged international match “fixing” by a sophisticated syndicate managing crooked referees
  • The prospect of the 2022 World Cup being taken away from Qatar after revelations of $5 million in alleged bribes paid to FIFA officials to sway the selection

Question: How does an organization counter this type of spiraling bad publicity happening in real-time around a major event? Read more

The “R”s of CEO Crisis Communications

Even though she’s only been CEO for 5 months, GM’s Mary Barra probably thinks she’s been through 10 years of learnings and experience managing the current recall issues. Among other jobs, she has been the primary face of GM in Congressional testimony, employee videos and customer dealer communications. Read more

When Your Data Is Breached, Will You Be Ready?

Data security breaches are becoming regular headlines:

  • The highly-publicized Target breach that involved sensitive information on more than 40 million credit and debit cards resulted in the resignation of the company’s CIO after it was revealed the hack was a relatively low-tech invasion.
Read more

Why is the Cruise Industry Close to Bullet Proof?

Take a look at what’s happened to the cruise industry over the last couple of years:

  • Two “poop” cruises
  • Costa Concordia capsizes in Italy
  • Norovirus sickening passengers
  • Two separate drowning incidents involving small children in a ship’s swimming pool

That’s just a partial list. Read more