PIER Resources
Take advantage of our expertise. Let our years of experience serve you.
Case Studies
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Case Study: Hurricane Ike
Best Practices in Stakeholder Communication Management -
Case Study: Spreading Like a Wildfire
Coordinating Regional Information in a Major Incident—Lessons Learned from the Northern California Wildfires -
Case Study: University of Houston
Managing Emergency Communications in the Face of Hurricane Humberto -
Case Study: Kitsap County Department of Emergency Management
Kitsap County Disaster Reporting Forms Available on PIER -
Case Study: Refinery Fire
PIER in Use During a Refinery Fire Incident -
Case Study: Marine Safety Office (MSO)
Use of PIER reduces Puget Sound MARSEC Notification and Response Time to a Fraction -
Case Study: United States Coast Guard, 8th District
Effectively Handling Communications During Hurricane Katrina -
Case Study: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
Answering the Call of the Media and Millions of Residents -
Case Study: Office of Homeland Security Georgia Emergency Management Association (GEMA)
PIER at Core of Successful Public Affairs Management for G8 Summit Events -
Case Study: Astoria Call Center
Small City First to Adopt Public Communications Technology -
Case Study: Selendang Ayu Grounding
Meeting Public Information Demands in a Major Response Effort -
Case Study: Houston Metro
Information Crucial for Success of Transit Expansion -
Case Study: Puget Sound Energy
Communication is Key to Success for Hopkins Ridge Wind Farm Project -
Case Study: Bellingham School District
Optimizing Communications with Families and Staff -
Case Study: BP Texas City Refinery
“When our communications team looked at the lessons we could learn from this terrible incident, the PIER system was seen as an extremely valuable success in helping us provide consistent, timely messages." -
Case Study: Hurricane Ivan
Communicating in a Crisis
White Papers
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Quick Guide for Effective Flu Communications
A PIER Systems, Inc. White Paper -
Coordinating Effective Action Through PIER
Using PIER to Enhance Relationships and Coordinate Collective Action -
The Four P's
Policy, People, Plan and Platform -
The Impacts of Catastrophes on Shareholder Value
An Oxford Executive Research Briefing sponsored by Sedgwick Group -
Instant Team Communication With PIER
Why information gathering and sharing is vital to organizational management -
Notification Is Not Communication:
Why Building and Maintaining Trust Requires Far More Than Mere Notification -
Multi-Jurisdiction Communication Management
NIMS Compliant Regional Implementation -
Keep on Talking -- And Other Lessons Learned from Crisis Web Sites
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The Virtual Joint Information Center:
Why Anything Less May Be Too Late -
“Welcome to the Post-Media World”
A PIER System, Inc. White Paper -
Communicating the Crisis
Technological solutions to environmental disasters -
When Bad Things Happen to Good Companies
Responding to Crises in the New Media Environment
Webinars
Hurricane Ike: Best Practices in Stakeholder Communication
Helpful Articles
Crisis Management: Fighting Fire with Fire
Crisisblogger - For crisis managers and communicators
The Biggest Mistakes in Crisis Communications
It's an Inside Job: Internal Crisis Communications
Respond to Crises Before They Arise
Integrating Public Relations and Legal Strategy: Trial by Media
The PR and Legal Aspects of Protecting Confidential Information
Organizations and Associations
NEMA - National Emergency Management Association
IABC - International Association of Business Communicators
IAEM - International Association of Emergency Managers
Emergency Preparedness and Response References
NIMS - Department of Homeland Security Fact Sheet
NIMCAST - National Incident Management Capability Assessment
Glossary
JIC - Joint Information Center - Protocols established by the ICS around the time of the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in the early 80's and constantly improved to streamline public information and notification.
ICS - Incident Command System - Accepted protocols for managing emergency response operations. These protocols are being enhanced and standardized in the US, under NIMS.
NIMS - National Incident Management System - Federally mandated system for all emergency responders in the United States. "Under the NIMS ICS, the incident commander has flexibility in where to assign the intelligence and information function, e.g., command staff or operations." NIMS is not only the standardization of the ICS and the JIC, but a set of fifteen (15) exercisable scenarios and Homeland Security and "All Hazards" assessments, as listed below:
- Command and Management, including ICS
- Preparedness
- Resource Management
- Communications and Information Management
- Supporting Technologies
- NIMS Management and Maintenance
CERT - "The Community Emergency Response Team concept was developed and implemented by the Los Angeles City Fire Department (LAFD) in 1985."


