The PR Pressure Chamber And Real Time Crisis Decisions

Rapid Fire Questions And Setup

Peter C Woolfolk 1:20

Now let me begin with the question. How well do you perform on the project? Can you make sound decisions when information is incomplete? The clock is running and the stakes are high? Well, my guest today has created an immersive crisis communications experience designed to find out. It's called the PR Project Chamber. A live simulation for public relations instincts. Strategic gesture and decision making are tested in real time. There are no lectures, no legal study discussions, and no time to retreat and craft the perfect response. This is not a traditional three or four-hour private communications and a hotel conference room. Instead, participants face fast-moving realistic communications crises that demand action. So joining me today from Charlotte, North Carolina, is Cheron Porter, APR. Sharon, welcome to the podcast.

Cheron Porter 2:10

Thank you for having me, Peter. I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 3 2:14

Well, thank you for coming on. So, you know, when I ran into this information, I said, wow, this sounds like something different. Uh, I really need to have you on the podcast. So once again, thank you for coming on.

Speaker 1 2:24

It's my pleasure. I'm hat I'm excited to talk about the pressure chamber.

Speaker 3 2:28

Well, now let's do that. Just what caused you? I mean, what uh what was your motivation for creating this this uh pressure chamber?

Why Build A Pressure Chamber

Speaker 1 2:36

Well, there was a couple of things. I am the vice president of our local public relations chapter, our PRSA chapter, Charlotte. And one of the things that I noticed is that as we get more and more tangent professionals, some of the workshops that we offer aren't necessarily as necessary. But what I did know for myself, as I become more and more seasoned myself, is that what always struck my attention and the conferences that I would always go to are the ones on crisis, because crisis and the world dynamics that we live in today are always changing. And seeing best practices I thought would be good. And so giving people an opportunity to do it here on a local level, and and by local I mean Zoom, uh giving them that opportunity just to stretch those muscles, and also an opportunity to engage in network in a way that they don't necessarily get to engage because we break out into teams. So that was the need that I saw, which was just giving offering different things to our members or any member of PRS, and actually it's open to anybody who wants to to participate, and then also just creating an opportunity for people to engage more.

Speaker 3 3:54

So, how how well was was it received and how much participation? Well, first of all, how long have you been doing it and how well was it received?

Speaker 1 4:01

It has we started this year in 2026. Okay, as a matter of fact, and it's been extremely well received. And we did our interesting, we have we held a fall symposium and we hosted our first live one yesterday. And so the live one was also very well received. So it's it's gaining traction, and we're going to do more.

Speaker 3 4:24

Well, with that understanding, let's talk then about the content. You know, just how does it work when you so when we talked about, you know, you don't have time to think about it, there's something happening, you need to respond in 10 minutes. Let's talk about how you handle all of those kind of kind of things, and how do people uh make the adjustments needed to respond?

unknown 4:44

Sure.

How The Live Simulation Works

Speaker 1 4:44

First off, I think we all have a communication plan and a crisis communication plan, and it sits on a document, whether on our desktop or in a book on our shelf. The reality is that sometimes it's the crisis you just can't even plan for. You gotta have some muscle memory. You have to be able to know what to do instinctually. And the only way that you can do that is using that muscle more often than not. And so how our simulation works is that when you sign up, we will give you a scenario and we'll send you a scenario the night before. Because as a crisis, you don't always know it's you might have some ideas that something could happen, right? Right? Because but you don't know until it hits. And so we get very creative, yet plausible based on things that have happened here in either current events or we may have experienced ourselves, and then we in our Zoom meeting, we deliver the challenge, and then we create, depending on how many people on, probably about four or five teams of people, and we give them assignments, and inevitably there's a curveball that they didn't expect. And it's our teams are are working through it live as if it were real, and we've gotten nothing but honestly, we've gotten nothing but five-star responses back.

Speaker 3 6:14

Well, let's talk about some of the specific crises that uh or situations that you give them. And give us an example of exactly what it is that they have to respond

Final Four Scandal Crisis Scenario

Speaker 3 6:24

to.

Speaker 1 6:24

So around the final four time, we thought it would be great to have a women's basketball team. Now, women's basketball was getting a lot of news, and so it was just perfect time. Not now, not for the scenario that we created, but we just took it as timely. So, an ex crisis that we gave is that there was a school who women's team who was headed into the final four, and we had just found out, or buzz had been going online, that the athletic director was having a consensual relationship with the assistant coach. Oh boy, the assistant, right, the assistant coach, right? Exactly, right? These things are all plausible. The assistant coach is about to be promoted. Some people, employees, thinking that she's getting favoritism. The AD does not feel like his personal life should be up for discussion, and that's what he's telling the school leadership, and the AD is also responsible for like bringing in 20 million dollars to the school, right? Now we're going into the final four, it's already growing on social media. The coach is going to be going in front of cameras. What is going to be said? What are you going to do? What are you going to advise your board, your president, your coach, and your AD? And then also what's at stake is you've got college kids, college girls, women, young women, who are going to play in the final four for the first time, and it's being clouded by this scenario. See, that's when it's we just make it fun. Like that's just fun. Like what? And let me say that it's fun if you don't have to deal with it in real life. Right.

Speaker 3 8:33

Well, so what sort of act so you put people through these kinds of paces? Tell me how they respond to it, how they go about uh coming up with a game plan once the once the uh the scenario has been put out there out there to them.

Speaker 1 8:47

Well, once the scenario has been put out to them and they're over the shock of what they're about to deal with, uh uh then I give them

Stakeholders Holding Statements Curveballs

Speaker 1 8:56

an assignment. And the assignment might be what are what are you going to say to each stakeholder and how are you going to prioritize it? What laws do you need to be aware of? Right? Tell us that. What's your holding statement? What are you going to say to your employees? Right? Because employees, we can't forget our employees are our major, our first audience. What do you say to the girls? What do you say to the so we go through? I want a statement. What are you going to say? How are you going to act? What do you need to consider? And then what we do is we break people out into teams. And together, people who've not met each other before are now in the foxhole, so to speak, working out how they're going to respond to this crisis. And then inevitably, while they're working on it, I come in with another item that they weren't expecting, because that's how a crisis works, that they have to account for.

Speaker 3 9:54

Now, how long is uh let's say one of your sessions, once you uh they're all there and they get their assignments and uh they're often doing what they need to do to try to come up with some sort of response, how long do these uh

One Hour Format And What People Learn

Speaker 3 10:06

uh sessions last?

Speaker 1 10:08

One hour. One hour. So you're doing this at your lunchtime. Okay, which is actually and if I if I would be honest, that's the one complaint that we had that people want to do this for longer. And so we're gonna look at how we can get it done in an hour, but maybe keep the conversation going for another 30 minutes.

Speaker 3 10:26

Okay.

Speaker 1 10:27

But the reality is that we know that if we say, hey, join us for an hour and a half in the middle of the day, nobody's gonna sign up. But but if I tell you an hour, you're gonna sign up because you can do an hour.

Speaker 2 10:40

Right.

Speaker 1 10:40

But then they get in there and they want to stay longer. So that that's a good thing. That's a good problem for us to have.

Speaker 3 10:45

So looking back over some of the sessions you've had, how have uh people actually performed in terms of coming up with uh solutions that are I would say that you know that are workable and reasonable and and make a lot of sense as compared to something has hazard just to just to do it quickly?

Speaker 1 11:04

Oh, I think they've been they've done a great job. It's interesting. We had a team, again, we're I'm based in Charlotte, like I said, it's open to everyone. I had a team, a whole entire team, I think in Philadelphia join. And so it was great as a team building, not a team building, but a team strengthening exercise, a team skills exercise for that team. And I think once they're in their groups, they're really kind of getting that muscle. I can I can't say it enough, getting that muscle moving and really having a great conversation. Again, we did one live yesterday, and what was great about it, because I actually participated in it as well, is that there's just information you learn that maybe you weren't aware of that you should consider. And I think that's probably the most impactful thing. There might be things that you should consider that you hadn't even thought to consider had it not been the conversation. I'll give an example.

Cyber Ransom Attack And Continuity Planning

Speaker 1 12:02

Yesterday we did one, we did it in partnership with UNC Charlotte Emergency Management System. So we let them give the scenario. And the scenario was there had been a cyber ransom attack on a county, on a county organization, like the county. And matter of fact, no, it was the school. And so what we're learning is that it's December 1st, just after November 30th, when everyone had been doing their Black Friday sale, and we were not going to be able to make payroll because of a cybersecurity ransom. That was like a two million dollar ransom that was put on the county. But I learned yesterday. Right. So we sh that you and you gotta think about the timing, December 1. What do you do? How do you but what I learned yesterday is that what I didn't know is that if you have cybersecurity insurance, that one, they have the money to pay the ransom if that's what they choose to do, but they also offer public relations help and support and a number of other things that you could leverage on how you get navigate through the crisis. Had I not had those conversations, I I would not have known that. And that those tidbits, those little nuggets of information could be game-changing when the real deal hits.

Speaker 3 13:29

You know, what I find interesting, what you just said, was that uh something that most people really don't think about, and that is cyber attacks. You know, we hear about them, but you know, most of the time we're thinking fires, police uh and whatever, accidents and so forth. But that is one that, you know, really just didn't cross my mind, and it's very interesting that that you use that as an example, and that people had to uh come to grips with it and come to uh some sort of resolution.

Speaker 1 13:56

Yeah. I mean, we have seen, and I know in cities like Baltimore where I used to work, they held the that absolutely did happen. They held the city hostage and nothing could get done. What do you do? That conversation led me yesterday, or today actually, to have a a talk with my team. Should there be a situation, God forbid, say, like we had here in North Carolina, hurricane Hurricane Helene came through and you had people without water for two weeks, you had phone lines down, you didn't have Wi-Fi, you had nothing. If that happened here, how are we going to communicate with everyone? Do we have Starlink? Do we have FirstNet? What do we have to make sure that we can and what are we going to do? Because the reason I hate to say cause, but I'm going to say cuz, because it's just that's just how it takes you into a very real moment. While it might be say this the county's problem, it's ultimately your problem too. If you have any service outside your four walls, and immediately, and so I I am the leader as well as the student, and I had to my team today, leadership today, guess what we'll be doing? I need to get with our IT team. I need to know. Like I can assume that they have stuff in place, but I don't know that they have stuff in place. So it really gets you thinking, as best I can say.

Who Joins How It Spreads And Sign Up

Speaker 3 15:29

Now, the people that are that attend these workshops, how much uh emergency uh circumstances have they could been confronted with in real life? And can they bring some of that uh to the table? Or is there a combination of people who've never had any sort of emergencies that they've had to deal with? What does the audience look like when uh when these take place?

Speaker 1 15:50

It's a combination. There are some people who say, you know what, I haven't had one yet, but I need to be prepared. And that's the beautiful that's the beautiful thing about the pressure chamber. It doesn't matter where you are in your career. If no matter where you because the reality is in today's day, crisis can happen and it's gonna happen very differently for for everyone and anyone, depending on where you are, depending on social media, depending on the size of your organization, depending on the impact. And so we do have a number of people who aren't even in communications, but just say, I just need to be aware. We had two people yesterday. They're not in communications. One was, I think, a CEO and maybe one a COO, and they just needed to know what they didn't know about preparation. So it's really great for anyone, no matter no matter where you sit around the table.

Speaker 3 16:42

So, how do you, outside of you know, this within the peer public relations circle, how was the alert people that this is happening and uh that they have an opportunity to uh at least hone these particular skills that you know you never know when you might need them?

Speaker 1 16:58

Uh our first audience is always TRSA members. And so I put them on the forum so people can see them. We do it from our website to our members, obviously. And interestingly enough, we're just now starting to boost them, boost our events on social media. So if you happen to see it and you or you think you're interested in it, we'd love to have you. Our next one is October 14th.

Speaker 3 17:28

Now, who decides? I mean, do you or do you or do you have a team that decides what the emergency is going to be, or when uh when do you come up with it, and how do you decide what what are you going to talk about in these emergencies that you present?

Speaker 1 17:43

Oh, that's all that's all me.

Speaker 3 17:45

Okay.

Speaker 1 17:45

So whether I've been watching something in the news, I went to a shoe store one one day, and someone told me about an experience she had. She had to walk away from her company. She walked, she worked for an energy company, and they were an energy company, but they're really not doing the best by people, and someone died and they didn't want to tell uh it was a message she told me while I was going there buying shoes. That a version of that showed up as one of our as one of our scenarios. So it can come from anywhere, but they all come from me.

Speaker 3 18:22

So now how long did you say you said these uh programs go for one hour during lunchtime?

Speaker 2 18:29

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3 18:30

So have you had a call for uh maybe to reach out and have have these and let's say more people come in to it because hey, say this sounds good, I like this, I need to get involved. That maybe you need to have a a room full of people. Now uh maybe that's a different question. How many people can you accommodate in one of these sessions? And is there room for a larger amount? How do you decide that?

Speaker 1 18:54

So we put a cap at around 20 people.

Speaker 3 18:56

Okay.

Speaker 1 18:57

So because it's only an hour. And we break people up, which is also why we give you the scenario the day before, because we don't want to spend a whole lot of time with doing background. So we are you so most we probably want to do virtually online is four groups of five people. That gives everyone an opportunity to kind of get to know somebody, work with people, and engage, and then come back and we can still talk about it. We will actually, after our live one yesterday, we are going to take the show on the road, so to speak. And so go to other areas where they don't have necessarily a PRSA chapter or the chapter disbanded, and we know that people in the PR community would still like a place in space, we're going to do that. We're going to actually start that next month.

Speaker 3 19:53

Well, you know, it's it actually sounds like a good idea because there's I'm sure a lot of people have not actually been in a situation where they had to make decisions about how to resolve this particular emergency issue. So those things I think is a very well eye-opening, very well needed because a lot unfortunately a lot of times the PR person might be one of the youngest people in the on the staff there.

Speaker 1 20:15

That's right. And listen, the young person may understand something better and differently than the more seasoned professional. And so you need wisdom and skill at the same table.

Speaker 3 20:30

And so that that makes me think because some emergencies could be things that you really don't see, such as, you know, people hacking into your computer systems. You won't recognize somebody's not gonna recognize that until it's in the computer on and see that something that's right here or a lot of stuff is missing. Now, what do we do?

Speaker 1 20:48

That's right. Absolutely. Also, it could be something growing on social media that maybe a more seasoned professional is not tuned into because maybe they're not doing the social listening, but maybe a younger member on their team is doing social listening. And just because that's just their world and how they communicate, it just depends on your experience, your exposure, your responsibilities, your team, size, your bandwidth, all of these things impact how you might address a crisis, which is why attending something like the pressure chamber is really good because it helps you to think about things that you hadn't you may not have thought about before.

Speaker 3 21:31

And and that's what my next thing was. I'm thinking that, you know, maybe organizations should have a planning session about where could catastrophes come from. You know, fine, if uh we have a PR firm, fine, you know, we can maybe look things up online, but where else could that come from? What that that we're involved with. Could it be some shenanigans uh with staff? You know, could it be that somebody had done some things with the clients that eventually came out to be that that that should not have been done that way and caused some damage to both the client and the company?

Speaker 1 22:04

Absolutely. Uh larger organizations probably conduct tabletop exercises, crisis communication simulations, but smaller organizations probably likely often overlook it. And I'm going to tell you, in my own organization that I work for, it's probably been well over a decade, maybe since some sort of crisis simulation has. Been done, and I've already told them we'll be doing two next year, right? We will be doing two next year because one also I think you have to keep in mind when you have fast that changes, right? Everyone doesn't always know what to do. Some of that historical knowledge walks out the door with them. And so you have to make sure that your team remains nimble no matter where they are in their journey with you as an organization.

Speaker 3 23:04

What would you suggest has been one of your most serious or uh how would I put it, maybe not serious, but most impactful projects or or challenges that you presented to uh to your groups there?

Speaker 1 23:18

Uh let's see. I think I think the basketball, the final four one was a good one, simply because there were so many elements involved. There are young women who are kind of, as you can see, just the energy around women in basketball is growing and increasing, and here they are, they're getting their opportunity, but now you have something that's dark kind of putting a shadow over. So that brings one element. There's an emotional element, right? There is a woman's rights or a women's spotlight on women in a positive way being taken away, right? And so there's a sensitivity to that. There's also something, well, there's someone who's had something going on in his private life. Should he have to answer questions that are going on in his private life? That's a that's a fair question. That also goes back to your policy. So that so that one spoke on the emotion as well as policy. And then, of course, you have the social social media element that's going on, and then you have the money. He's bringing in 20 million dollars to the school. What's the school going to do? And the in the in that scenario, the AD refused to answer any questions. He wasn't going to not so he wasn't going to verify or deny. So the truth is, in the scenario, we don't even know if it's true. He wasn't going to speak on his personal life at all. So then that becomes when and why should I speak about my personal life if I don't have to? So it gave you so that was just a fun one because it had so many elements in it. And what will you do? But all very plausible. All very plausible.

Speaker 3 25:07

Yeah, when I listen to that, I think about uh, I'm not sure, some months ago that um couple were on uh had gone to some uh sporting event or outdoor event, and uh they were shown together on TV on the uh, you know, the camera that catches people's game.

Speaker 1 25:21

Yeah, on the jumbotron. That's right, that's right.

Speaker 3 25:24

And they weren't married to each other.

Speaker 1 25:26

Exactly. Uh-huh.

Speaker 3 25:29

So that was a real tricky one, I'm sure, because now you had two companies, uh, no, the same company involved with with two people.

Speaker 1 25:36

The head of HR, that's right. The head of HR and the CEO. And the reality is she was, well, it was just it was bad form, no question about it. But she was going through a divorce. She was already separated, and as she would say in her interview, he told me he was separated. Come to find out maybe he wasn't, he wasn't being forthcoming. He wasn't actual major. So exactly. That was a fire source. But then you also have that company who got more attention than it's ever gotten before.

Speaker 3 26:13

For the wrong reason.

Speaker 1 26:15

For the wrong reason. But you know, they still got a lot more attention and brought it so for the wrong reason, and how they would manage that and use that to their benefit, that's also something to consider.

Speaker 3 26:30

So how do you uh or do you have an opportunity to advise companies that they all need to have some sort of emergency plan for a wide variety of emergencies that may or may not happen, but at least being prepared for them?

Speaker 1 26:46

I don't advise companies. I I, you know, I provide this service for communications professionals or anyone who wants to participate. And this is my offer that I find, you know, it's a need. I think it's important. It's important to me, and I felt like it would be important to others.

Speaker 3 27:05

Have you reached out to other uh PRSA chapters around the country to let them know, hey, this is something you might want to consider and maybe, you know, have it on a maybe presented at a PRSA annual meeting to let people see what it is and that you know here's something that they can do.

Speaker 1 27:22

I was actually invited to lead one at Icon. It just so happens that I was going to be out of I'm gonna be out of the country. Or I would have done it. I would have loved to have done it. That would have been, ooh. I can you imagine how much fun that would be? Man. It would have been, it just and I, you know what I again, I started this this year. I hadn't thought about how it would ripple and other people. So I've been it's been great when other people from other states join in. Right? Like that's been wasn't even in my imagination when I created this. It wasn't. Or so being invited to I I I could have moved my plans or I wouldn't have scheduled something during that week if I thought that that was even a possibility that someone would even do that. But I'll know next year.

Speaker 3 28:19

Well I'll know next year. You know, the other thing that I think about as uh as I talk about this is that public relations students, you know, need to hear about things like this as well, because yes, I mean they've got you know PR classes that they have to take. But you know, as a side portion of it, uh, you know, how about emergency issues? How do you handle that? And you know, maybe I don't know how it would would be presented to students, but maybe it's some something that they should be able to consider and be aware of.

Speaker 1 28:46

And it was it was actually PRSSA that invited me because they wanted me to do it at Icon for them.

Speaker 2 28:53

Uh-huh.

Speaker 1 28:53

So they are thinking about it. They have seen it, they saw it on the uh in the forums, and they had, you know, they said as soon as they saw it, they wanted it to be a part of. So maybe I'll come back and do it another time.

Speaker 3 29:07

Well, Sharon, you've uh given us a lot of information here about this. Uh sounds a little exciting thing that you put together there and people are beginning to catch on to it. Do you have any other closing words that you'd like the audience to know?

Speaker 1 29:20

First off, I want to thank you again for having me on. And anyone who is listening, I'd like to invite you to come to our next or any other of our future pressure chambers. Our next one will be Wednesday, October 14th. To sign up, you can go to PRSA Charlotte.org forward slash events, and you can just sign up there. It doesn't matter where you are, as long as you've got a camera. We do like people to be on camera. Because if you're going to go through a crisis, and this is also just about networking, engaging, and getting to know someone. So cameras on, but anywhere you are in the country, anywhere you are in the world, you can join us October 14th, 12 noon, Eastern Standard Time.

Speaker 3 30:06

Well, I think that's some good news for them because I'm sure there are a lot of chapters around that uh see this could be a very, very valuable part of their uh something for the uh their members to uh participate in.

Speaker 1 30:16

Yeah, I hope so. I really hope so.

Speaker 3 30:19

Okay. Well, any closing words for our audience before we uh call this uh to an end.

Speaker 1 30:24

And I'm just gonna say thank you again for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure, and good luck to you and this podcast. I think it's great.

Speaker 3 30:32

Well, thank you so much. My guest today has been Sharon Porter, APR. She's down in Charlotte, North Carolina, and who talked about uh their uh program that she has to help people uh get out of uh tight squeezes when uh they least expect it. And uh obviously it's growing, so some good things are going there. So uh follow up with Sharon Porter if that uh is of interest to you. And also if you're listening to Public Relations Review Podcast, and we'd love to hear from you. And we look forward to having you as a guest and listen to our next public relations review podcast.