Sandy Skees, Principal Consultant at BSI, spoke about risk communications at EHSSENTIALS 2017 UCLA. In her talk she touched upon the use of appealing to emotion (e.g., familiarity, empathy) when communicating time-sensitive crisis information, as this can help one commit the information to memory and react in a positive manner. She also stressed the importance of preparing communications in advance, be it text messages, emails, tweets, etc., so that one can quickly respond to questions that come in during an incident. Another important point of emphasis was the need for consistent feedback loops: making sure you receive feedback whenever you release a communication to ensure that the right message comes across.

Skees' overall guiding principles of crisis & risk communications:

o   Be first

o   Be right

o   Be credible

o   Express sympathy

o   Promote action

o   Show respect