Pushing aside the tears to get the job done.

Those of you with very good memories might recognise the title of this post - I've written about the second speaker before. In October 2008 I heard Larry Hincker from Virginia Tech University deliver this talk at EDUCAUSE, and was knocked out by it. It's about how he, as Head of University Relations, had to deal with the aftermath and crisis communications during the dreadful events of April 2007 when one student killed 32 students and shot more in just 9 minutes. We had no hesitation in asking him to came to UCISA to talk to us - there were lessons to be learned for all of us

In a powerful, moving and dignified talk Larry covered how the tragedy unfolded, and how the world's media descended on them. My last post covers most of the points so I'm not going to list them again - but there were many lessons for those of us who might be involved in any emergency or crisis - not necessarily as tragic or on such a scale. Where would be park 140 satellite trucks? How would we give access to the internet to every journalist who turned up? Could we increase the capacity of our web server to cope with a 15 fold increase in hits, in a matter of hours? Could we set up an information centre for our own staff and other agencies with PCs, telephones, TVs, wireless access, in hours? What are our notification systems like?

Larry's talk is on the EDUCAUSE web site, and will be on the UCISA one soon - I suggest you watch it - it could be a very profitable hour. It will also make you hope that you never have to deal with anything like this. Ever.

EDIT: The talk is now on the UCISA website here.