Client stories

How do you test the critical and strategic decision-making skills of warfighters and other national security leaders?

The U.S. National Defense University (NDU) commissioned us to help them test the critical and strategic decision-making skills of their students.  NDU educates joint warfighters and other national security leaders in critical thinking and the creative application of military power to inform national strategy and globally integrated operations, under conditions of disruptive change, to prevail in war, peace, and competition. 

This crisis response exercise was different because:

• It lasted a month – a first for Social Simulator.
• There were eight possible endings to the exercise depending on the decisions each team made. This demanded maximum flexibility from our content and the platform.
• The exercise tested sound decision-making ahead of the full crisis response scenario.

Summary

• Working with national security leaders and joint warfighters.
• Month-long simulation with news media, social media, and stakeholder injects adapted to directly reflect the decisions made by participants.
• Choose-your-own-adventure exercise with multiple possible outcomes.

The City of Redmond (Washington, USA) asked us to support in the delivery of the Cascadia Rising emergency planning exercise to enable Public Information Officers (PIOs) to rehearse how they would handle social media channels in the event of a high-impact earthquake impacting the region.

Our role in the exercise was to put the PIOs through their paces, with a specific focus on:

• The speed with which PIOs were able to engage with a range of audiences using social media
• The consistency with which Joint Information Center (JIC) members were able to communicate and coordinate their efforts amongst multiple PIO teams
• The information sharing capabilities of social media responders and wider incident decision-makers to inform interactions with the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and the wider humanitarian response effort (e.g. triaging casualties and directing on-the ground medical teams)

Chicago O’Hare and Midway airports wanted to test their ability to harness social and traditional media channels as part of their emergency public information response to a high-impact incident impacting both airports simultaneously.

We were enlisted to take part in their triennial full-scale exercise in order to test Public Information Officers (PIOs) spread across two Joint Information Centers (JICs), including:

• Examining how two JICs coordinated their public information response by sharing information and harmonising messaging
• Testing how PIOs handled a high volume of passenger and other stakeholder queries across real-time social media feeds
• Testing how PIOs handled a high volume of phone queries from reporters

Rolls-Royce approached us to test its global corporate affairs teams as part of a wider exercise testing its global crisis management structure and processes in response to a serious product issue.

Given the real-time nature of the modern media landscape, integrating social media into the wider communications response enables companies to:

• Receive early warning of any issues impacting their products via proactive monitoring
• Issue instant posts and updates to reassure investors and staff
• Provide executives with flexibility in terms of how they communicate with key stakeholders

An international oil company recognised that regional teams needed bespoke training to build their digital confidence before incident response exercises.

Sometimes these exercises take place outside a particular team’s own country or region. So regional knowledge becomes even more important.

Social media has a vital role to play in an oil-spill response. It can:

• Keep people informed of the facts
• Prevent the spread of misinformation
• Help to keep people safe
• Help to mobilise volunteers

Terrorism is a real and serious threat that governments and companies alike must prepare for.

And as well as the operational angles, emergency responders are having to get to grips with new challenges posed by social media. These include how to effectively:

• reassure and give advice to the public
• provide situational awareness
• counter misinformation
• gather intelligence

Working with the UK Home Office, the Metropolitan Police Service and a host of other emergency agencies, we help teams rehearse and test their operational and communications response to terror attacks.