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Leeds Business Week faces crisis

For the first time as part of Leeds Business Week (17th – 21st October), a team of crisis communications specialists will be delivering a ‘live’ crisis event to put senior management and communications professionals through their paces.

Emergency! Communicating in a crisis is a real-time, crisis communications workshop that will allow participants to experience what it’s like to be at the centre of a media and social media storm.

The event, which takes place on Thursday 20th October between 10:00am-12:00pm at 6 Queen Street, is being delivered by Aberfield Communications, whose crisis experience includes the Hatfield and Selby Rail crashes and for brands including Asda, the BBC and Butterkist.

The hands-on training exercise will test how prepared attendees are to handle communications in the digital age by creating an immersive crisis scenario that will take them from the moment a story breaks, to crisis resolution and recovery in just two hours.

Covering areas including initial response behaviour and best practice in media and social media handling, the workshop aims to help develop the operational and procedural skills necessary to successfully navigate the toughest of communications challenges.

Tim Downs, director at Aberfield Communications, said: “We’ve managed crisis situations from major accidents and incidents to consumer product recalls and cases of employee dishonesty, across a broad range of industries. With the proliferation of technology and social media in recent years, the nature and speed at which a crisis can build momentum is frightening.

“The aim of our session is to help businesses prepare for situations like this by giving people the tools and skills to recognise and resolve crises as they happen, rather than after the fact. This is the first time we’ll be bringing people from different organisations, industries and backgrounds together for a workshop of this nature, and we’re promising a hands-on experience that above all will be fun, but with a serious underlying message.”

The event will be taking place on Thursday 20th October from 10:00am until 12:00pm at 6 Queen Street, Leeds, LS1 2TW.

You can register for the event here http://leedsbizweek.com/events/view/91

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Aberfield Communications .