Let our years of experience serve you

As part of our continuous effort to provide you with the most valuable communications industry information, we have listed links to resources that may helpful to you, as well as a link to upcoming events where you can walk through a live demonstration of the PIER System.

Case Studies

• The Impacts of Catastrophes on Shareholder Value
  An Oxford Executive Research Briefing sponsored by Sedgwick Group
• Case Study: University of Houston
  Managing Emergency Communications in the Face of Hurricane Humberto
• Case Study: Refinery Fire
  PIER in Use During a Refinery Fire Incident
• Case Study: Kitsap County Department of Emergency Management
  Kitsap County Disaster Reporting Forms Available on PIER
• Case Study: Marine Safety Office (MSO)
  Use of PIER reduces Puget Sound MARSEC Notification and Response Time to a Fraction
• Case Study: Office of Homeland Security
  PIER at core of successful public affairs management for G8 Summit Events
• Case Study: Colin County, TX
  Becoming the authoritative source for local emergency information
• Case Study: Los Angeles Dept of Water and Power
  Answering the Call of the Media and Millions of Residents
• Case Study: United States Coast Guard, 8th District
  Effectively handling communications during Hurricane Katrina
• Case Study: Selendang Ayu
  Meeting Public Information Demands in a Major Response Effort
• Case Study: 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
• Case Study: Astoria
  Small City First to Adopt Public Communications Technology
• 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: Houston Metro
  Access and Information Crucial for Success of Transit Expansion
• Case Study: Communicating in a Crisis
  PIER Deployment During Hurricane Ivan (Nov. 2004)

White Papers

• 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
• The Four P's white paper.pdf
  Policy, People, Plan and Platform
• Keep on Talking -- And Other Lessons Learned from Crisis Web Sites
• 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

Communications 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."