Okay.
Good afternoon everyone,
and good morning for those of you on the West Coast.
Uh, I'm Howard Gibner.
I'm gonna be your host for most or part of today's webinar.
Um, some of you may have known me in my ELI days.
Uh, I was the founder of the Event Leadership Institute,
which was acquired by PCMA in January of 2023.
My role in PCMA is to continue
to lead all the professional development products,
particular courses, webinars, round tables, uh, research,
write papers, events, all kinds of things
that help event professionals get ahead
and get to the next level.
I'm super excited to, uh, get this going.
This is a topic that, um, I'm always very, uh,
interested about, and so many different things are going on
that could have an impact on our events
that we can can't control,
but we can't control how we prepare for those scenarios,
and we can control how we respond to it.
So this webinar is gonna be, uh, fantastic.
Um, I'll give you a quick overview of
what we're gonna cover today.
Uh, we're gonna start, I'm gonna bring on,
um, Juliet in a moment.
Um, she's, uh, the instructor for a crisis management
and risk mitigation course that is starting next month.
Um, we'll share her phenomenal background,
and then we're gonna talk a little bit about, um,
what it's like being on cnn.
She's CNN's National Security Advisor or Analyst,
and she's always brought in on moments' notice
to talk about any possible disaster scenario.
Uh, we'll talk about, uh, the RNC
and the DNC, which is concluding tonight, what worked,
what didn't work, what special, uh,
protocols were put in place following the
Trump assassination attempt.
We'll bring on our second speaker, Jonathan Wacker,
who has a phenomenal background
and comes from our industry and events.
Um, and, uh,
did a stint in the US Secret Service on the Obama, uh,
presidential Protection detail.
And so he'll talk about what that end is involved.
Um, and we'll go through good
and bad crisis management plans and practices.
Um, what are some key things that, uh,
the end professionals need to think about?
Uh, and, you know, Jonathan in particular
with his role at Teneo advises, uh, CEOs boards
and management teams on risk
and security on a regular basis.
And so we'll ask him, what keeps CEOs and boards
and management teams up at night when it comes to risk?
What are the common things he tells them?
And what are some surprising things that you would,
you would think people have better handle on that?
Maybe they don't. And then finally, we are gonna end
with what'll I think is gonna be a lot of fun.
It's called the Lightning Round.
And so we're gonna have 10 minutes,
we're gonna countdown timer on.
I'm gonna ask both Jonathan and Juliet.
We're gonna go through 10 scenarios.
Some of them are based on actual events,
some are hypotheticals.
And we're gonna see how many
of those we can tackle in 10 minutes.
So, very exciting. Um, this webinar will be recorded.
It'll be available afterwards.
Um, but without further ado, I'd like to bring on our first,
uh, rockstar speaker, Juliet Caan. Hi,
Juliet. Yes. So Rockstar.
I couldn't find the, uh, the, the right,
the right, uh, uh, button, but hello everyone. Thank you.
So I met Juliet, uh, in, in April
of 2020 in Peak Covid.
We did a webinar, ELI, on the state
of the industry, where are things going?
And I had always seen her on CNN, whatever's going on,
whether it's a hurricane or an oil spill,
or a shooter or something.
She's always the go-to expert.
She has a phenomenal background.
And she was, she completely stole the webinar.
We had two other speakers.
No one remembers who they are or who they were,
but Juliette was phenomenal. Well, tell them,
Tell them why I stole it though.
'cause I, well,
There was a lot going on with, uh, with Covid
and you, you know, you shared some insight on, you know,
what we need to do, where we are in the cycle
and all that. So I,
I, I think Howard's being nice.
I think I told the audience of, of, of hundreds
of mega event planners,
you are not getting back together this year.
And they had been hearing two weeks. Two weeks.
And I think you could, you could hear
through the webinar a shoe drop, but yes.
And I wasn't wrong. Yeah,
We had 2000 plus people there,
and I, I was of the same belief
because there was a lot of,
you know, are we getting back quickly? We still
Thinking Yeah. That quickly.
Yeah.
But, you know, at the end of the day, our mission is to, is
to give people the straight truth
that on our best understanding of the facts on the ground.
Um, and so, you know, I've been really interested in working
with Juliet on a course.
We finally are excited to, um, get one off the ground.
We'll, we'll touch on that briefly shortly for a little bit.
But, um, Juliet's background is, is so incredible.
I'll just give some highlights and I'll ask her
to just share like a little bit of insight into
what her, her life is like.
Um, she's, uh, a national security analyst
for CNN as I mentioned.
She teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
She teaches crisis management.
She did a stint, uh, in the Department of Homeland Security
as an assistant secretary there.
Um, she's written a couple of books.
The most recent is The Devil Never Sleeps.
Learning to Live in an age of is also an avid, uh, surfer.
And I found out on Twitter when somebody posted,
why do the women Beach volleyball players wear bikinis?
Is it just, you know, for sex appeal, she said, um, well,
I'll let you answer that question
and then tell us a little bit,
bit more about your background.
That is some intro. Hi everyone.
I'm so thrilled to be here. And we're gonna be bringing
Jonathan Wack Row, who's someone who I work with in soon,
also A CNN Go-to person.
Uh, the answer to that question, I mean,
obviously each country is gonna have its sensitivities,
which we should respect.
Uh, but, um, uh, uh, two things is sand.
I I used to play beach volleyball. I am still a surfer.
I I've been in New England for most of my adult life,
and, uh, and yet I hold onto the California girl and me,
and, uh, uh,
but beach volleyball, um, uh, sand, sand can chafe.
Uh, and so women like to wear as little as possible.
Uh, and also, uh, you don't wanna get called on a net
because of errand clothing.
So, uh, but obviously there's a range.
So I, I, I, there is a, obviously there's a,
there's also a looky looky here.
Um, and, and we can have our fun and,
and not be too judgmental.
I, I enjoy looking at a good figure like the next person.
But it that, it was fun. I was in Paris actually
to my, to my career.
Um, uh, which, you know, involves, uh, the, uh, uh,
I'm a professor at the Kennedy School.
I do a lot of consulting with, with Jonathan
and his team at Teneo.
Um, I'm CNN, senior National Security Analyst.
We're gonna talk about that. And, um,
and write for the Atlantic in books and,
and have a public, you know, public advising role
with mayors and governors as well.
And it's a nice combination of things,
but it, it wasn't always like this.
I started off in counter-terrorism, um, as a lawyer, uh,
really focus on what we call left a boom.
So people will begin to understand the course with this.
But just basically, you know,
how do you stop bad things from happening?
And I think part of it was just the way the world was.
Hurricane Katrina really started me rethinking how I wanted
to contribute and spend my time.
And I would do additional stents in government,
in state government, and then DHS, um,
really thinking about, you know, uh, you know, the
society and how it works, right?
And you can't, you can't all hide in a basement.
And, and, and how do you minimize the harm given
not just terrorism, but really in all hazards approach?
And, we'll, we'll talk about that.
Um, and that got into obviously Meg event planning.
Uh, I was, I had a client
that was a co-sponsor of the Olympics.
So I was out there. I, I returned from my, my summer,
you asked me what my life is like.
I'm in, I was in Oklahoma 'cause of the, i, the tornadoes.
I, I had to, to, uh, Las Vegas for,
uh, formula One.
And so, you know, I mean, it's, it's, it's fun
and interesting and, and I surf and, and have three kids,
and it's all, uh, manageable somehow.
But I'm really thrilled to be here, uh, uh, uh,
to talk about managing the, the chaos
of mega event planning.
That's fantastic. Um, and great, great, uh, intro.
I always find you that having a background like that with,
when you think of people who are enmeshed in security
and risk, you, you think of a wonky bureaucrat who is,
is very dry and Yeah.
You know, very, very straightforward.
And, you know, you kind of have, um,
that other side as well, which is great.
Um, I wanna just, just to give people a window into this.
Yeah. So when you're on, so you're on CNN as their on,
on-call Disaster Woman, right?
Disaster. Yeah. So what is, what's that process like?
'cause you could be called in for, uh, you know, a,
a bombing at a marathon or,
or a shooting at the Super Bowl parade glass January.
Or it could be, uh, you know, the people dying
of heat in the Hodge in Saudi Arabia.
It could be anything. How, what, what is the process like
for you when you get the call from a producer
and it's like, Hey, X, Y, Z happened, we need you on ASAP.
Yeah. How do you know
to brush up on all these different types of things?
Like what, what's your process like?
Yeah. Jonathan has the
same phenomenon where we'll both be sitting.
I mean, you know, I mean, at 10% of the, of the calls
and remember, you know, CNN is, uh, is, is interesting.
I mean, 'cause it is still the network
that when there are these incidents that everyone turns to,
so everyone's in their camps, you know, during conventions.
But, um, uh, but, you know, we look at the ratings and, and,
and see like when, when the disasters happen,
when the crisis happen, about 10%, you could say are sort
of like pre-planned.
You know, you like, either I'm on call
for if something happened at the D NNC or whatever.
So I have a little bit of notice, but 90% are, you know,
I'm on the Peloton.
And, um, and so, I mean, there's, there's the,
there's the issue that men sometimes don't have,
which is like, yeah, I got, like, I'm sitting in people
who will see me on cnn.
I'm, I'm sitting here, I've got, uh, hair stuff
and makeup stuff, right?
Right in the bathroom right there.
And, and you, I mean, you, you, you have
to look serious and presentable.
Uh, so that's the silly part,
but it's relevant 'cause it is tv.
Um, and then the, the sort of process part, you know,
generally there's a little bit of lead time
because they're trying to figure out what is happening.
CNN like most networks,
and like most major corporations will have some in some, um,
internal, um, uh, uh, intelligence capacity.
I, I think, uh, CNN gets a lot of false positives.
You know, they'll hear some, you know, someone will, they,
they, the, the company that they use will hear
that there's a active shooter at a, at a high school.
Everyone gets ready and then, you know, you,
you wanna give it five or 10 minutes.
No, it wasn't, it wasn't true.
Um, what I try to do, and,
and we, we will talk about John, like Jonathan,
'cause we have different roles, is, is I, I, you know, we,
we, I think we both try to do the sort of
what is happening, right?
Like, so what are you looking at?
And I think based on our expertise, we can give insights
that may not be based on our own reporting.
And I try to be super careful on my own reporting.
I don't do it. I only do, I only utilize
what CNN's willing to do.
'cause if I get that wrong, I'm screwed.
Like, I mean, you know, my authoritative voice is not,
'cause I know how many people died in the
supermarket, my authoritative.
So you sort of knowing my lane, right? Sorry about that.
I've had this new Mac that does this stuff.
Um, the, the second is, um, I, so, so what's happening?
And, and as I said, like there are insights
that I can feel confident on.
I I put them as caveats, right?
So, you know, based on my experience, I don't wanna,
I don't want getting it wrong is
really bad in these instances.
And in social media will kill you.
But the, you know, you owe it to CNN
and the people watching not to get it wrong.
You know, you know, if there's only two ambulances,
I know this sounds Moreau, okay,
that's gonna tell me something that they don't have,
you know, a, a a a a, a massive incident.
The second part is, and this is
where maybe I differ from law enforcement analyst, is,
is the, so the, the mega event, the, the, the sort of what,
what's, you know, what should people be worried about?
What should, you know, how should we be thinking about this?
Not as, as cops or emergency managers, but as, as leaders
or, or citizens or whatever else.
And, and maybe my,
my diverse background does help in that regard.
I think, you know, you know,
mothers wanna hear from maybe a mother, like whatever.
And so, um, but I, I, I sometimes have, you know, I,
I think, I think I, I think my fastest one was, uh, uh,
uh, I was on in two minutes and 12 seconds.
I mean, that is, that is fast. And you're getting inputs.
And then my job is just, you know,
1, 2, 3, here's what's happening.
Authoritative voice. And also try not trying
to be helpful to people.
That's the most important thing.
And then I guess the third thing is then calling it out.
I mean, I think, um, you know, like Valdi secret service
with the assassination, you know, is, is, is from the looks
of it, this looks like a major, you know, screw up.
You know? Um, so that's sort of, that's sort of it.
But, uh, that's the behind the scenes,
say various producers are calling you.
Um, and then, and then, and then I'll let,
and with the laugh of, Jonathan
and I are often called, they call, they have, you know,
a group of us that, you know, and,
and each of us has a different sort of lane.
So that's helpful. So John, people saw Jonathan a lot
during Secret Service 'cause he's from there, um, is, is,
um, is what we call the,
people will know this, don't quote me.
Well, I guess gonna be called like the
analyst, sorry for the French.
But it is literally, they'll call like eight of us.
And we're all just sitting around
because they have the senator and they have the victim,
and they have the, but that, I mean, that's what,
that's why we, when you
Say you're sitting around you,
meaning you're sitting in front micd up,
and you have a producer in your ear, right?
Producer are my ear, but I'm not on air.
And so when you say, what do I have ready?
I actually grab a novel or, or a book, or I do my emails.
I am, I'm pointing here. 'cause this is
where I put the book, and I'll just like, you know,
it's like I'm, I'm outside, you know, by the pool.
Like, you know, except for I'm made up.
So that's basically how it works.
And, and our job is our,
and you know, our job is also to, you know,
I think like a lot of people remember me with COD, um,
but also like the Chinese balloon thing, where to a to a
non-expert audience that can look really crazy.
And then I think to a more expert audience, we can say,
okay, look, you know, when when you're looking
for more things in the sky,
you're gonna find lots of stuff in the sky.
So,
Interesting. Yeah.
One quick note on the covid.
I, I learned the phrase, um, flatten the curve from you.
Yeah. You were one of the early
advocates of that during Covid.
And I, I had no idea about it,
but you know, that whole concept.
Yeah. You also shared another insight.
And during Covid, which I thought was interesting,
and then we'll turn to national special security events in a
second where you said, compared to like, uh, fires
or floods or natural disasters,
or even shootings where, um,
local authorities can pull fire departments
or others from other places.
When we had a national, uh, pandemic, you know, uh,
EMTs have to stay local.
Yeah. So there wasn't the ability to share
and shore up, which No, I
Thought you had no, you
and this, that would be different than say probably
what the au this audience experience.
It's, although co covid impacted, probably, right. But Yeah.
But, but that you would probably have a localized event
that would have to draw mutual aid from,
or from, from other communities, or commun, um, or,
or, uh, the federal government in terms of planning.
We're gonna talk about that. The NSSE.
Um, but just thinking about, um, uh, uh, the,
I I called it the, the country's first
50 state disaster.
And so I didn't mean national disaster,
I meant literally all,
it was the first time in the US history that all 50 states
had activated their emergency operations.
Oh, wow. Oh, interesting.
Because the four, it was different during nine 11.
'cause most states weren't actually under threat. Right.
Right, right, right.
So let's turn to, um, uh, national special security event.
Yeah. So I learned about this when, um, I did an interview
with Frank Ovitz,
who at the time was heading up the events at the NFL.
Wow. And after nine 11, they created, uh,
the Super Bowl qualified
as a national special security event.
It's basically, um,
high level events like the UN General Assembly
or State of the unions or convention political conventions.
But it involves a whole change of security
and risk management protocol.
Yeah. Can you explain what it, what it is,
and what happens logistically?
And if I'm a meeting planner of a large event,
and I'm going into a city where
that might be taking place, right?
So if I've got an event in Chicago,
it may not be within the perimeter Yeah.
Of the, uh, you know, the United Center where everything is,
but I need to be impacted on what an NSSE is.
So tell us what that is. And do
You have, do you have the slide I put together for this?
Can you, can someone put that up? Because I wanted to, yeah.
I think it might be helpful for people to see, like,
how does someone like me think about
it? Okay. Because you, okay.
Because most people, so the slide the slides up.
Yeah. This is great. So, so,
and the devil never sleeps is about sort of, you know,
managing the expectation of the disaster.
I, I, you know, I, I hope the people who prevent disasters
and crises work and function and succeed.
I'm gonna assume that they don't.
And so, um, I, it may help,
it helped me formulate ways in which someone like me,
you know, I'm not on the ground.
I'm not a first responder.
I don't work for a specific entity
that might be holding an event.
I don't work for the NFL. I'll come in and do two things.
One is, you know, do, do, do,
do what's essentially due diligence, right?
Are you, are you, are you ready?
Um, and the second, you know, I think as importantly is, is
I, and I'm sure a lot
of people are gonna express this frustration.
I give voice to the need to take this seriously
when everyone's focused on the party, right?
And I, and I, we hear, we get that all the time, that safety
and security and preparedness are in, in, in event planning.
In, in the tech companies.
In, in, in, in the, in the cruise lines, everything.
You know, this piece doesn't have a voice.
And, and the statistic that I'll give people is, uh,
of public companies, if you look at their boards,
top 500 public companies, you look at their boards only 6%.
This is cybersecurity only.
Only 6% of board members of public companies, um,
uh, um, have, uh, uh, you could call them
as cybersecurity experts.
It's even less for, for just safety and security.
That, that even the large public companies don't have a
voice on the board
that's saying, what the heck are you doing?
Now, this changes a little bit,
depending on the environment,
but just so that, so that you get a sense of, I recognize
that often we're put at the little kids table.
So part of this is, so just very quickly, this is
how I think about it, right?
So one is minimizing all risks.
So this is, and I,
and I use my language very, very carefully.
So all is all right.
You can get very focused on,
I'm worried about cyber, I'm worried about active shooter.
I'm worried about people like me,
and people like Jonathan think in terms of all hazards.
'cause I, I, I, I don't trust risk assessments.
Now, obviously at a concert, I'm gonna be, you know,
you know, Taylor Swift in Europe,
I'm gonna be now more attuned to ISIS or the insider threat.
But, but I'm,
but I can't, my obligation is to, is
to assess all risks, right?
And do you have mechanisms that are assessing them?
The second part is you wanna maximize what I call,
what we call unified defenses.
So this is gonna get to the NSSE, which is,
it's not just your responsibility.
There's gonna be a whole bunch of people, a lot
of them are not in chain of command.
But are you, are you assessing
and accessing all the entities
that can both help you prepare, help you defend
and be ready when the devil arrives?
Right? In terms of minimizing losses, our, our standard
of success and
what the course is about is learning to fail safer.
We are going to assume that you are going
to have a disruption.
And my standard of success is, you know, the,
my bumper sticker in life is fail safer, right?
Because I can't, I can't make success.
I can't make good unicorns and rainbows
and all that world, um, all the time.
But the third, and this is where I think we need to,
you know, I need to be, and people in safety
and security need to be more cognizant,
is there is a mission, right?
That the entity has, wants to throw a concert,
wants to have a mega event.
And that mission also has to be respected.
'cause I know how to have a safe Boston marathon, right?
I don't have it. Well, that's,
I mean, that's ridiculous, right?
Or I could, I could not allow spectators. That's ridiculous.
That's what safe is, right?
No, we're, our, our goal is safer
while maintaining the mission.
So think about sub urban subways, right?
I always love, like a local
news reporter trying to make their name.
We'll always be like, oh, I had a backpack
with fake grenades, and I got on the subway.
I'm like, yeah, you know what?
Because if we checked every backpack,
or if we patted down everyone, or,
or had airline security, you wouldn't have cities, right?
And so you're just, you're trying to maintain the mission
while also, uh, reducing the risk and vulnerability.
So that's just the, that triangle is what I live by.
Is, is I always have to remember the safety
and security people will come in and,
and they have to balance that mission.
Uh, people don't go to Disneyland for the security, right?
I mean, we know that. Okay.
So you could take that slide off.
So, uh, and then I'll, I can turn
to Jonathan now, I think too. NSSE, well,
Before doing that, just if you can walk us, so an SS e.
So, okay, so let me just tell you, what does that mean?
Happens, right? So the tiers is,
most events are just local events,
and they can be managed 200 person conference by the hotel
or the, or the entity.
And you're, you know, maybe you have local police.
And that's, that's happening a hundred times a day, uh, in,
in every ho, you know, in every downtown hotel in
Chicago and wherever else.
Okay? So that's your one in which you're gonna have no, uh,
federal integration.
Okay? Then the next level, um, is called the SR level.
And people will recognize SEAR. It's a special event.
Uh, you know what? It's hilarious. I don't even remember.
We just call them the SR rating.
Um, uh, and that is five through one.
And that is basically the federal government assesses based
on, you know, requirements and inputs
and whatever else, what level, uh, your event will be.
And so some of you will be involved with events
that get some sort of seer rating.
C3 is sort of normal, like, you know, sort
of a larger event, like maybe a, a like a large state fair
or something where federal assets may be needed.
Uh, but they don't need to take control of it.
Like, you know, they're sort of a C two, you know, might be,
um, you know, uh, the,
might be like actually the Boston Marathon
after the terror attacks, you sort of like,
you have an elevated threat,
but you know, the, the, the local
and state people know how to do it.
C one is, is, is, for example, formula One doesn't get NSSE
because, um, I'll get to that in a second,
because it doesn't have the national significance.
In other words, if something happened
that would have national significance, so then
that's your SEER process, right?
So you have normal Sears is when the federal government
steps in, and then your top line is the NSSE
that is run essentially, or that is by DHS.
Uh, they d or they,
and normally run, run by the Secret Service.
That is a national special security event
that is limited in numbers.
Uh, maybe a dozen.
Uh, it's the conventions, the inauguration, um, uh, uh,
um, maybe July 4th.
But Super Bowl is, is one of the few private events
that gets that status.
And that is that thing refl it is reflecting a,
if something happened at that thing, right?
It would have national security implications.
So most people are not, are not living in that world.
Like, that is like serious.
And it, it includes a conventions that, that went on
that are going on now and went on, um, earlier, uh,
for the, for the GOP.
So that's basically,
and so what the NSSE does is it literally creates
a federal incident commander who's now essentially, I,
I mean, I think it'd be safe to say sort of the owns
the safety and security apparatus for the event.
So that's, and people will, will, will remember this
with the assassination attempt is, is, you know, is, is, is,
is who's in charge of what
is totally clear in an NSSE.
'cause the answer is the secret service, right?
I mean, it is absolutely the secret service.
Um, uh, in other, in sea, in lower tier things,
you can have a federal coordinating officer from the Coast
Guard or ICE or some other entity.
But the NSSC is, this is who's in charge.
They set the security perimeter, they work
with local SIT states.
They control the waters, they control the air drones,
people access everything.
So, so most of us,
Everything comes under their command, the local police,
Everything. So, but, but,
but exactly. Whatever. And
FEMA is, um, they could bring in FEMA
or the FBI if they need to, right? Right.
You remember, federal assets are often limited.
I mean, are, are, I don't wanna say federal assets are not,
like there's, we don't have like a special
event agency, right?
It is, it is.
The NSSE serves as I often call it, like, serves
as the one 800 number.
In other words, once you have the NSC, that person,
depending on the threat environment,
is gonna deploy counter drone cap capabilities,
border controls, you know,
security zones, uh, whatever else.
Uh, so most events, for example,
with a presidential candidate, um, um, like what we,
what we saw with Trump, with, with, uh, uh,
Donald Trump in Pennsylvania,
most campaign events are not even
getting to that level. Right?
Right. Saw
All good to know. I think
that, I think maybe we'll do like an article on nses
and sst, and I think
that would just be an interesting fact sheet.
Yeah. You know? Yeah. With
A grid. What are the differences
Most, I would assume most people on this webinar are
dealing in this, if at all.
C one, C two, um, or not. Yeah.
Or fed or no federal designation.
There might be federal support,
but you know, they're working with local
and state law enforcement, emergency management.
Yeah. Um, fire, um, uh, and,
and it doesn't get elevated to that extent.
Okay. But, but we in this world. Alright, sorry.
So yes, someone gave me what SR means.
Jonathan is gonna answer my question, but, but, uh, uh,
but, um, and NSSC is a national special security event,
and we're under one right now in Chicago.
That, I mean, that, that works.
You're, you're, you're seeing that, um, in terms
of protests and stuff like that.
Okay. So I'm gonna bow out for this segment,
and I'm gonna turn the mic over to you.
And just as a preview for anyone who's,
who's interested in the course, uh, in addition
to the content, um, there will be three, uh,
what are called like live classes
where Julia will bring on a guest speaker.
Our guest speakers are pretty cool, Jonathan, may, may,
may will be one of them.
Um, but I'm gonna go off camera
and you guys will talk about the RNC, the DNC, you know,
what's working, what's not.
And you know what it's like
being in the secret service Yeah.
Protecting the president. That's so great.
You know, talk about pressure, right?
I know. Well, thank you so much. And I,
Alright, I'll, I'll come back on in a little while.
You guys, you guys, uh, take a away and I,
I should say I'm so thrilled to work with Howard
and the team because, um, you know, the, my, our world,
Jonathan and mine's world, te you know, we, we, we, it tends
to be not very transparent, although he
and I try to be transparent in, in our, in our media roles.
But, you know, part of this is to, uh, to,
to provide a security, you know,
we'll go much slower in the class.
Like, you know, a a sort of what does it mean to prepare
for a mega event on the safety and security side?
And how, how can you
and without being a first responder, right?
I wa I wasn't, I've always overseen first responder
agencies, um, um, uh, or, or work with them.
But, you know, you don't have
to be a police officer to understand this.
In fact, for planners, the more you know right,
the more questions you can ask.
And, and you know, my urge to you
before I, uh, I introduced Jonathan,
is you can't delegate this.
Like, who's ever watching here?
And I saw some of the entities is, you know,
we have this tendency to go like, oh, he's former FBI,
he knows what he's doing, right?
No, well, I don't mean that,
but I mean, it's your obligation as the event planner
or working for the entity holding the, the event
to actually pierce the veil that's often put over these.
So this is what Jonathan does too.
I'm so thrilled, Jonathan. I've been friends forever.
I don't wanna admit how long, um,
and, um, uh, overlapped in, in government.
Jonathan has an interesting stint
and, you know, we all get our little funny moments,
but I, we learned in this process that Jonathan spent a part
of his career working for, which chain was it?
So, uh, the old ITT Sheridan, that,
that transformed into Starwood.
So yeah, yeah. I got my roots in in
meeting planning, uh, yeah. In New York City.
That's amazing. Um,
and then, um, of course, uh, uh, went to the Secret Service
and was on presidential detail.
So, so understands, um, president Obama understands
that has now, uh, is now, um, uh, at Teneo,
uh, leading, uh, their preparedness, uh,
and risk planning entities.
Um, and Teneo is a consulting firm and, um, and has,
and like me, works with the government on a lot
of this mega event planning.
So, uh, I thought I would brought him in, bring him in so
that, so that people, I mean, what, you know,
Jonathan is at a level, uh, uh, you know, in terms
of NS ses,
but also what, what can we learn from that process, um,
uh, uh, as, as we go forward?
So the, you know, the first, uh, uh,
question I wanna ask is, people are watching it is,
you know, the DNC and RNC are a big deal.
They're, they're ha they're always a big deal.
Uh, they're happening after, uh, uh, you know, you know,
but for a turn of the head, which could have been a, a a, an
as a political assassination, um, here in the United States.
And so I'm sort of reflecting on this, you know, um,
what are you seeing in particular
with the protest in Chicago?
What can people learn from the breach of one of the gates
and other aspects as they think about, uh, uh, you know,
perhaps, uh, events that might cause attention
because of the entities politics
or involvement in the Middle East, or investments in, in gas
and oil or whatever it is
that gets people on the streets these days?
Yeah, no, and, uh, let me first, uh, get
to your original question was what is a s event, uh, event?
What does that, It's, uh,
so it's a special event assessment criteria.
Yeah, that's it. So, uh,
and then it has the, it has the rankings,
but it's all under the chapeau of
National special security event.
Yeah. And we, and you know, your, your, uh,
your description there was spot on.
I just wanted to add one thing,
because it's relevant to your question about some
of the things we're seeing in Chicago right now is
that from a Secret service as a coordinating entity, one
of the things that they focus on is
consequence management, right?
So having, uh, you know, you know,
an NSSE doesn't just happen overnight.
They spend years.
I mean, I think that the, the DNC
and the RNC both were about three
and a half years in the planning process.
And it's a whole of government approach on how to address
all of the threats, vulnerabilities, natural hazards, uh,
understanding everything that is out there, right?
So when you think about your, your pyramid, uh,
that top thing is, you know, all, you know, all risk, right?
So they spend a lot of time doing a lot of mapping
exercises, understanding what could, uh, impact that event,
uh, not just at the locality, but across the entire region.
Because the reason why an NSSE is so complicated is
that it's not just focused on a singular event.
Yes, it's, uh, uh, uh, the region at, at large.
So not only do they have to focus on the safety
and security of a, uh, the event, the event attendees, uh,
all of the adjacent events,
but it's also, you know,
maintaining civil order throughout an entire region
and addressing the criminal elements.
So you don't want this to be a zero sum game
where you're taking away from a region to focus on an event,
but then you, you, you leave other parts more vulnerable.
So an NSSE has to look at all of that,
and that it takes a lot of time.
So when we get to what is happening on the ground right now
in Chicago, we are seeing,
and you, you expect these things to happen.
Uh, you incidents that occur, we saw a, a breach of a,
um, one of the fence lines.
Okay? So what is the consequence of that?
Well, they, they had a quick reactionary force that was able
to come in, uh, address that, that, uh, that breach.
Not only they put the fence up,
but now they said, okay, now we know that this is happening.
We have the agility built into our plan
to now build a second fence line.
So now they create a, a buffer zone between the two fences.
That was, that was probably work through
scenario planning about two years ago on
what are we going to do with it?
I experienced this, I was the NSSE coordinator for the, um,
for biden's second, uh, inaugural parade.
And one of the things we had, that was the very first time
that we really use those large fences.
Those were, they're, they're temporary, right?
They're not permanent fences.
We knew that there was a, a, a a likelihood
that in some areas they could come down,
but we thought about that,
and we had a quick reactionary force that could go in
and put the, you know, the fences back up
and resolve that issue.
So, again, when you're thinking about that event planning,
whether it's at that national NSSE level
or at a localized level where, where you're not dealing
with, you know, uh, the, the threat of foreign terrorism
and, and, and, uh, you know, regional conflict,
but you are focused on just that event, you have
to think about what are those, uh, um, you know,
what is the likelihood that X could happen to this event?
And if this could happen, how, how should I prepare?
How should I think about putting in those control measures,
whether it's working more with the venue, um, you know, the,
the venue security team, uh, working more with local pd,
making sure that I have the right plans in place to address
what I feel are the likely, uh, um, cons
or events that could impact my event.
Yeah. So, I mean,
and what's important, I think here, just, you know,
to amplify what Jonathan is saying is,
and I I, I experienced this just this summer, is, you know,
on the Olympic planning, you know, you, you, you, you know,
you, you, you, it was, you know what,
they got the bid eight years ago,
but as they're entering the summer, right?
You're very focused on Hamas and Israel Mm-Hmm.
Um, and the worry about, you know, sort
of amplified terror violence around the war.
And then as you're getting closer,
and this is why we do all ha all, all hazards planning
is heat became an issue.
And a lot of this people will know, this is a, a lot
of this is, is, um, cultural.
So a lot of you are working in open carry states, right?
It's like, you know, so the idea of I'm in Massachusetts,
the idea of seeing someone with a
gun, it doesn't happen here.
Like, you know, I'm like in, you know,
the bluest of blue states.
Many of you live in communities in which
that's totally normal.
Well, how do you know who that person is, right?
And that, so having that cultural, so,
so thinking about the Paralympics, like 90%
of homes in France don't have air conditioners.
So that's, that's an issue, right?
I mean, if you have a heat wave
and you have a hundred millions
of 27 million people visiting or wherever it was,
and so these, these risks and changes.
So what you wanna do is set up a system that is, that is,
that is, um, uh, has, has awareness of
what is happening in real time.
And then you've done the scenario planning around, you know,
when would you say no spectators,
or when would you have alerts?
Or when would you put out watering facilities or whatever.
And that's what, when, when we talk about scenario planning,
it is not getting too stuck on one thing.
But that agility, I, John,
and I wanted to ask you, when you advise CEOs, I mean,
as I do, and, and you know, part
of this is just giving a insight into our world, um,
management teams and boards
or event planners on risk management and crisis response.
What do you find, um, one they are most concerned about?
And two, what is their biggest gap?
I'm sure you and I have had experiences where, you know,
you're like, you, you cannot believe that a CEO
of a major company, you know? Yeah.
Like, Yeah. You know, and I think is
uninterested at best.
You know, like,
Um, I, I think that the, the, the challenge with, uh,
that we face with, you know, corporate leadership, uh,
and then in the, in the realm
of events is they think in the micro sense, right?
They're thinking like, okay,
I'm having this event at either a convention center
or, uh, let's say it's a, you know, at a, at a hotel in,
in the ballroom, uh, they're thinking in the micro sense,
what happens if, if something happens in this building,
what they're not thinking about is the, that the order
of consequence that radiates out from that event site
that really could have the a, a material impact.
So, uh, you're thinking about, um, like in New York City,
one of the biggest things that impacted me when I was doing
meetings was a citywide sanitation strike.
While there's nothing more off putting than trying
to climb over a mound of trash on seventh Avenue
to get into, uh, an event,
and that actually, you know, caused, you know, uh, uh, a lot
of meetings and, and, and events to, to cancel.
So what you're thinking about is, you know,
when you're thinking about, uh, uh, event security planning,
yes, you're thinking about the site itself,
but what are the things that happened beyond the walls of
that site that could impact it, you know,
transportation issues, uh, mass, you know, you know,
civil unrest, protests that are not happening next
to your site, but maybe three
or four blocks away
that could impact attendees getting there, uh, their safety,
traveling from other locations.
So thinking more from a macro sense when you're,
when you're planning, I think is, is critically important.
And then drill down into the micro site and,
and understanding the, you know, the basic blocking
and tackling around event security. Yeah.
Yeah. That's, I mean, that's right.
You, I actually quote you in my book, uh, you,
you call them the, the gates, the, the
Gates, guns, gates and guards, guns and gates,
Guards, guns and gates theory of security, right?
That, that's, that is very micro, right? Yes.
I mean, anyone can tell you, you know,
do you want an eight foot wall or a 10 foot wall?
You know, do you wanna have this, you know,
this metal detector or that one?
And what the job is of, of planners is to,
to look at the macro and be able to pivot.
Okay, we're running out of time. You can, and
Just one more thing on that, 'cause you actually brought
up something really, uh, interesting.
So when we're thinking about that, when we're thinking about
that macro, and we, we put something into place,
you said like, uh, we have an eight foot fence, right?
People think, oh, we have an eight foot fence.
We're, we're, we're really great. Yeah.
If someone has a nine foot ladder, right? Yeah.
So you have to think about what, what if this fails, right?
I don't wanna have a single point of failure.
Uh, if this doesn't work, what's the backup plan?
So the, the, the thought here is you wanna make sure
that you have overlapping security measures.
So that should one issue break down.
You're, you're not, you know, left vulnerable.
You have other things that can supplement that. Yeah.
So now, so let me end with my, with my, uh,
rapid fire question to you, but it is,
and then I'll answer my question, which is, um, as you know,
we, we have, uh, uh, uh, uh, toolbox,
we have rule books, all the things that we think about.
If there were one thing that you,
looking at all the disasters
and crisis, you said like, you know, you know,
my book has eight things,
but I'm gonna tell you which is the most
important of in my mind, Mm-Hmm.
But if there's one thing that you think, God,
if they had only, you know, you know, focused on, you know,
is it, is it, is it communications?
Is it situational awareness? Is it,
is it single point of failure?
What would be your advice in terms of the sort
of most consistent gap, uh,
that you see in mega event planning, which is
In, in, in mega event planning? You
know, I think it comes down to communication, right?
And I think it's communication across all three phases of,
of like crisis management.
Uh, you know, assuming you think about the preparedness,
the response and the recovery, I think
that the communication side
of it is the most lacking, right?
On the front end. It's, you know, communicating
to the broadest stake stakeholder group, uh, available.
What is the plan?
How are we going to enact this security plan that is not,
uh, detractive from the, from the event,
but actually, uh, is, is additive to the safety
and security of all event attendees, making sure
that everyone is aware of the plan,
that they're all bought in, they all agree to this plan,
and then should something happen,
and hopefully that's the, the unlikely
event that ha something happens.
You're communicating exactly, uh, what needs
to be done when, and who is the, the various stakeholders,
the roles and responsibilities that they need, uh,
to undertake, to respond to that type of critical event.
And then on the back end is how are you communicating
to your broader stakeholder group the recovery?
What do we do next? Right?
So it's the, so what, the, now what we have
to communicate out to everybody, uh,
and I know I'm distilling this down
like, to, to its simplest.
Yeah, no, But,
but this is where we, we always see
that there's a breakdown, because if there's a critical
event, we know that the first responders know
what they need to do in that moment.
Um, but, you know, everybody else needs
to be well coordinated.
And that starts on the preparedness side in communications.
And that you can you, I mean, I think that the lesson
that, that hopefully people get here
and just sort of a hint, but also as we build out, uh, and,
and, and talk about the course next is,
is these things are knowable now.
Mm-Hmm. Like, you don't have to wait.
Like, I, I always think like, there, there are,
there are you, I, Jonathan, I said, we can get you 80%
of the way there, and we don't even
know what the threat is, right?
Like, and so, and for me, I'll just add,
and there was some, some communication.
You know, look, you, you can already set up your
crisis comm strategy, right?
Mm-Hmm. And, and your first statement is, you know,
we are monitoring or we are aware, or whatever.
You just gotta buy yourself time.
And that's where, where people will see sort of, my,
my take on this is, is, um, I, people know my analogy,
which is, you know, the crash.
I live in the world where the crash landings happening.
I wish it weren't, but it isn't.
So you only have two options when that's the case.
You're either ready for the crash landing, there's the dog,
um, or you extend the runway, you buy yourself time.
And, and, and those two,
if you just think of it that way, am I ready?
And if and when something happens, can I buy myself time?
Those are essential. And so how do you do that?
There's lots of different ways,
and we'll be talking about them.
But for me, the biggest gap is real
time situational awareness.
Again, you can build this now from the private sector
Meg event planning perspective, which is,
do I know what's happening in real time at that moment?
And from JetBlue, I don't know if JetBlue's you from the CEO
of JetBlue getting a phone call from a pilot,
'cause he seems to have no awareness of
what the pilot's experiencing, which is, you know,
a couple dozen JetBlue airplanes, right?
That are, that are stuck in a, in a winter storm
to even Michael turnoff during Hurricane Katrina who mm-hmm.
Seemed to be the last to know
that the levies had been, had been breached.
Um, that sort of in time.
And you, and the empowering thing is you
can build that now, right?
What would, what would you or your CEO
or your leader wanna know in real time, uh, to buy your,
essentially to buy yourself time so
that you're not the last one to, to know?
Okay, I'm gonna turn it back to, to Howard.
We, we, we did a lot of wonky talk.
You, you guys, you could just say things like, single points
of failure, and you'll sound like an expert now.
But, um, Howard, I'm gonna turn it back to you.
I know we went a little bit over.
Thank you, Jonathan. Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, no, no worries. You guys stay on.
So this has been great
and clearly, um, we,
we were thinking making this along a webinar
and we tried to keep it shorter.
People are so busy, but thi this could definitely keep going
on for, for a while.
Um, so in interest of time,
we've gotten a lot of interesting questions.
Okay. I'm gonna go right to the lightning round. Okay.
Oh, actually before that we have to,
we have to plug the course. Sorry. Oh,
Okay. Lizzie,
can we throw up the slide for the course?
So, Julie, fun
Instructor, and Jonathan is a guest lecturer.
Jonathan's gonna be a guest lecturer.
So this is a, a, a version of a course
that Julia teaches at the Harvard University
Kenney School of Government.
Uh, so you're, you're getting a, a modified version of that
with specific examples to the event industry.
One of the things that you're gonna get out of this,
this course if you want to take it, is you will build a,
a crisis management plan for your event and for your team.
And Juliette's expertise will weigh in on that
and will give feedback as a result of
that level of interaction.
We're limiting this first cohort to 25 people so that, um,
we can get her input and her attention on it
and not completely overwhelm her from her gazillion other
things that she does for, for working for fun.
So there's a skew, there's a QR code.
You can also go to event leadership institute.com,
look it up, or just email any
of us afterwards and we'll find it.
Okay. Uh, so I am gonna share my, um,
my screen here.
Uh, just bear with me one second. Okay.
The lightning round, bouncing in and out of
Here.
Okay. So the goal is to get through as
many of these ads. Oh my
God, this is hilarious.
Possible. Are you guys seeing the lightning
round slide? Mm-Hmm.
Uh, yes. With the clock. Yes. Okay.
So we are gonna start the first one, monkeypox.
What should we know about monkeypox? Is it a problem?
What do you guys think?
Uh, so me is, uh, uh, uh, uh, don't take it lightly,
but don't take it too seriously.
It is impacting, uh, certain communities.
Uh, check for, uh, basically it is, is, is, uh,
if you are experiencing symptoms, which the range is online,
it's a lot of different symptoms than talk to public health.
But I'm not, I'm not at all, uh, worried about this.
It is, man, this is a manageable problem. Yep,
Absolutely. If you look at like what the WHO
has said, you know, it,
you cannot compare a monkeypox to covid.
Um, it is not a global pandemic.
It is something that they can control, they can contain.
Uh, so yes, I mean, I don't want
to diminish the impact of it.
It is serious and it does need attention,
but it is, it, it is, uh, not a, uh,
it's not a game end here, right?
Yeah. Like it, this can, it can be managed in, you know,
it should have min from the,
for the event planner standpoint,
it should have minimal impact to their future planning.
Okay, good. We like that one. Optimistic. Okay.
Number two, going back a couple years,
will Smith goes on stage and smacks Chris Rock.
Now, I, I use that as one example.
The most, well-known one, but there have been others, uh,
Salm, Rushdi was, was attacked
with a knife when he was on stage.
There are other examples.
You are in a then organizers in a room.
And, and this comes from, you know,
the calls coming from within the house.
This is not a random person that crashes the event.
This is an invited person who belongs there,
who rushes on stage.
Yeah. What should, what,
what should the academy have done in that scenario?
Oh my God. This was, to me, this was so obvi,
I literally sat with my jaw down, especially
'cause they had dealt with it a different kind of problem
with Warren Beatty than the envelope, which we'll get into.
But this was, this is, this is 1 0 1 is just what
are you protecting the event space.
I mean, in other words, the, the VIP, the keynote, the, the,
the panel, even even in a friendly environment,
someone rush, remember when, when, uh,
vice President Harris was, was on it?
So what are the access points?
And then, and then quick response.
That was the other thing that I couldn't believe is,
you see, will Smith come right?
There's, there's time. Mm-Hmm.
And no one, you know, you know, no one takes him out.
'cause he is Will Smith, I meant,
you know, sort of stops him.
Uh, so you have to be able to be, uh, uh, to step
outside your sort of comfort zone,
but you always protect, uh, that space, period. Mm-Hmm.
Yeah. No, a a, absolutely.
And we, we think about things into the three Ps you protect
against, and you separate your, your principle.
In this case, it was, uh, Chris Rock, you know, press
and, uh, the public,
and you have to keep the three separated somehow
and not let them interact.
And again, that, that not having a security element that was
by the stage that could have stopped that,
that was problem number one.
The problem number two is that a crime was committed.
And so then you have this big reputational impact for, uh,
the academy is that they allowed him to go back to his seat.
And, you know, you, if he did that on the sidewalk
outside in front of a police officer,
he would've been in cuffs immediately.
But then they allowed him to come down.
They should have broke, broke for commercial.
They should have cleared out. They should have got him outta
the room and addressed that privately.
Meanwhile, it, the, the tone of that event,
it was a reputational issue for, for the broadcast.
The tone of the event completely changed.
They should have removed him.
Perfect. We're cruising along.
CrowdStrike, I don't know what else
to call this other than a glitch,
but CrowdStrike shuts down, you know, half the world.
Yeah. What did they do wrong? What did they do? Right.
Jonathan, I'm going to you first. I have a str
Well, well, you know, I think it just, you know,
what it highlights is that we have a dependency upon
certain control measures.
I mean, when you think about, you know, the, the,
the large percentage of global industry
that's use utilizing the, you know,
the CrowdStrike technology
and the impact that one element,
like one update really took the aviation industry,
the transportation industry, manufacturing, everything,
you know, came to a grinding halt
for a few days in the recovery,
the economic impact was significant.
It just thinks that, you just have to think more about from,
you know, if we're dependent on one thing,
what is the backup plan?
How do we build greater resiliency into our systems,
our critical infrastructure to ensure that these types
of things don't happen again? Yeah.
So I mean, this is, and I apologize
for the noise across the street if people can hear it,
but, um, uh, two things.
One is, this goes to this notion
of the single point of failure.
We, we come into companies and, and,
and look at that single point of failure, go,
there're a little bit too much pressure on that single point
and try to distribute it or create redundancies.
The second is thinking about your downstream harms, right?
So, so Jonathan just mentioned one,
the reputational harm to the academy.
Uh, you know, the slap happens, that's a crime,
and then you, but you, then you have an event
that's essentially ruined, right?
And, and, um,
and so thinking about, you know, my, my ggl,
what happens at this conference in Austin, Texas?
What are its downstream, um, implications.
So there's, there's more technical concerns, obviously
with upgrades and, and stuff like that.
But that's how we, that's how we would analyze it.
Okay. Moving on. Threat of protestors at your event.
Um, now a lot of companies
or events are gonna say, well, we don't get protestors.
But if that's a possibility, what are the,
what are the scenarios that you should be coordinating with?
Now? It just, in my experience, a lot of cities, you have
to apply for a permit Yes.
From the police department to be able to protest.
And they typically create a pen with the bicycle rack things
and everything, any quick.
Um, you know, because I wanna leave time
for the other Academy Award thing.
Yeah. Quick responses on protesters.
I, I have, I, I've been dealing with
colleges and universities.
I'm at one.
Uh, so this may ha uh, impact public institutions
or institutions that may draw on in terms of, uh, uh,
the protests, obviously the Hamas, um, uh,
the Israel and Hamas war.
Um, uh, so I, I call it the three Os I think about.
And part of it is you have to work within the city rules,
but, but one is out, uh, outlets.
So depending on what your population is,
if it's an unticked event, if it's an event
with young people or whatever, you know, you, you, we are,
we are a country that expresses itself express,
but you've gotta give outlets for that.
The, the binary, you can't do this.
It, it doesn't release the pressure.
The second is off ramps.
Um, so those of you in colleges,
universities are thinking about that is if you're dealing
with a population that might be protesting you, you,
you can't go to DEFCON one immediately.
It's just, you know, we saw this at,
at, at some universities.
All of a sudden the police are there.
Like, and that, that did not work in most instances,
is you've gotta give off ramps to that population.
Look, you, you can do this. You can't do that.
And give an opportunity for those off ramps.
And then three out, uh, what, what I would say, uh, what,
what I call outcomes, which is, okay, now that you're at
that moment, then what sort of resources do you have
to either isolate them, get them away from the facility,
utilize law enforcement, do not start with law enforcement.
I mean that, you know, you know, work within the rules,
but the idea that it's either everything's great
or everyone's arrested, like we don't live, that,
that world does not, is is not as, the,
the world is too fluid for that.
Now this is, you know, this is how we thought about it
for something like the Olympics.
But even, you know, other things,
I think two things real quick
to just talk about the protesters.
Uh, event planners need to have two things in their pocket.
One, a heckler plan. What are they gonna do if someone just
a single person just starts, you know, yelling at the day?
What is that? What are they going to do?
Are they gonna rely upon, uh, the, you know,
is it the host committee issue?
Is it, uh, the event, um, the event site issue?
Like, who's gonna remove that person, have that, you know,
planning, uh, in, in, in place beforehand?
Two, the protestors, right?
Uh, protestors oftentimes will, you know, let's,
let's think about like, environmental protestors will be
right outside of a venue, right?
So you want to be able to make sure
that you have alternate ways to enter your site, uh,
that you can circumvent those protestors, right?
So you have to think about that in advance.
Um, and then again, everything that, you know,
Juliette has said, if you're, you're dealing with a,
a large scale protest working with, uh, you know,
local government agencies in, in terms of giving, you know,
those three os, making sure that you're really diverting
that to, to minimize the impact to the, to the event. Yeah.
And can I, I just wanna add something.
Look, there are, there are, there are,
there are little hacks that people do in this, you know,
some, you know, some of it is is, you know,
where are the microphones
and, you know, how, how can you ask this?
So, so just, uh, there there are are ways to
design areas that would minimize the heckler.
Um, but the other is,
and this will be for larger institutions,
is people do get trained in deescalation.
So I know a lot of colleges
and universities, um, have deescalation teams.
You just, you know, just given that pool,
everyone's gonna have a different pool
of potential heckler or whoever else.
You know, I'm dealing with 18 to 22 year olds here.
That pool, you want a deescalation plan.
Okay, I'm gonna skip this one. Uh, okay.
Just quick note that.
So about a year last fall, Patty Cosgrave Yeah.
Who's the founder and CEO of Web Summit,
which is a very large event, was forced to resign
because of comments that he made.
And the, and the threats came from exhibitors pulling out.
So yeah, this is, I'm not gonna ask you guys
to comment on this so we can keep going,
but this is something that I think we're gonna see more
and more of as, as more people tend to be speaking out.
Um, I'm gonna skip over the cyber hack also.
Just if we can, you know, just in the interest
of time, 'cause these answers are great.
Uh, active shooter in the vicinity.
So this came up a couple of times. This is in our own world.
Rims, the risk, uh, information Management Society,
the largest risk conference in the country.
Their event was at the Georgia World Congress Center
the last year, the year before.
And there was an active shooter in Atlanta,
uh, probably two miles away.
Yeah. Uh, in the middle of the conference.
So what do they do?
I think they canceled, uh, some portion of the program.
But it's an interesting thing.
You think of an active shooter,
you think, okay, is it in our building?
Is it not in our building? But it's nearby.
And this person, I think was on the loose for a little bit
quick 32nd, you know, soundbite comments on active shooters.
Yeah. Yeah. Um, so don't overreact.
'cause a lot, most of these instances tend to be, uh, very,
very rare of the, an anonymous, you know,
person walking into an event or, or school.
I mean, they're, they're happening too often.
Um, so you don't do, do not go to closure immediately, uh,
but do communicate to, to people that you are in touch
with law enforcement and you will continue, you know,
if there's a lockdown at your,
at your convention site or whatever.
So the most important thing in that instance, if it's,
if it's vicinity related, if it, if it's where you are,
that's very different, is, is to have a communication plan
that acknowledges and then is consistently given advice.
Don't get to closure immediately.
Most of these instances are, as we saw
with the super roll parade, uh, to people
who knew each other, who
because of guns decided to resolve it that way.
Okay? And, and These are questions you should be asking
as you're doing your initial, uh, site surveys.
You're, you're, you're going out to, you know, source
where you're gonna have these events.
Those are the questions that you should raise, uh,
during those, uh, uh, those site inspections
because, um, you know, facilities have plans now, um,
like convention centers have plans, uh, every like, major,
um, event, venue that I know has active shooter,
hostile intruder plans, make sure their plans
and your plan are marry up and that they are in sync.
Mm-Hmm. So that you are not giving your attendees
a one set of instruction.
Yeah. And, you know, hotel or convention staff
or announcing something else.
So making sure that you're deconflict, uh, any type
of instruction, uh, that you're giving in the event
that there, you, you have to relocate, uh, people
because of an active shooter.
Okay? And there are some good articles
and, um, uh, presentations from the folks from rims, uh,
in our industry, uh, convene as an article on it.
And we had them speak at a couple of events.
So we can dig into that more separately.
Um, we're gonna just go do two more,
and then, uh, we're gonna go to q and a
and we're gonna send everybody home
by two 15. So we have 12 more minutes.
Thanks, John. Are you good? Thank you.
And thanks for all the nice comments, Jonathan.
You're, you're definitely I guest, uh, speaking.
Yeah. That's so nice.
Okay, so this, this happened in 2004 in the middle
of the McDonald's franchise convention,
which had 5,000 people, I think now it's up to 10,000.
So all franchise owners from all of the fly in the CEO dies,
I think the night before he was supposed
to speak at this convention, random stuff
that something like this is probably far more likely
to happen than a terrorist attack
or an earthquake or whatever.
What, what do you think is the appropriate thing to do?
You can't really cancel the event.
You got all these people flying in.
The business continues real quick. You think about that.
I think that's important. I think
that's important to start with that.
So I, you know, in, in,
and the way I define, you know, what is a,
what is a crisis, right?
So I want people to remember this
because not every bad thing that happens is a crisis.
It is a, uh, it is a unanticipated in time.
You might be able to protect that something bad would
happen, unanticipated, uh, uh, in time, uh, uh,
uh, uh, disruption.
That's number one. Two to the core capabilities
of the institution.
So it's not, you know, some CEOs, I am
so sorry about these bullet.
I think it's great. I got, I got the new Mac,
and apparently it has a default that
for whatever reason celebrates at various moments.
But, um, so, uh, uh, uh, core capabilities
of the institutions.
So in McDonald's cases, to keep the franchises going,
it is not to stop because Jim has passed away, right?
It is, you've got a fundamental goal of this convention.
And it is not to highlight, you know, Jim, if,
if it had been his 20th year celebration as CEO,
very different recommendation there, right?
This is a franchise event.
And then the third is, remember all these,
your response capabilities, this is my runway,
are limited in time, right?
So this is not just a problem, this is a problem with that.
Is that, is, that is acute, right?
That you need, you need people to do something,
say something, deploys something, whatever else.
That is what makes a crisis different.
I teach in a school of public policy from, you know,
housing, right?
There's a housing crisis. Don't use the word crisis.
It's a housing po public policy problem, right?
There's a, there's a fentanyl, you know,
public policy problem, right?
Okay. So, um, so in this instance, I'm looking at the core
capabilities or core, core reason for the event.
And I'm saying, you're not canceling,
you're acknowledging it, you're honoring him
and you move forward.
'cause those franchises better be happy when they leave,
Right? But maybe you dial
down if there's a massive
celebratory opening. Yes, yes.
If there's a casino night
Yeah. Hone that down
or something like that. Right? Right.
Um, I'm gonna just,
what someone asked a really good question about a, someone
that we, that might have had a,
lemme see if we can do these quickly.
So I'm gonna really cut you guys off after 30 seconds. Okay.
I'm okay. Go back to the first one
because this was posted in the
chat and I thought it was really interesting.
A meeting attendee tells you that they think they saw one
of the attendees with a handgun under their shirt.
And the event is in a state that allows concealed carry.
What do you do?
I can, I can jump on this real, I can jump on Jonathan.
Yeah. Real fast. I mean, I thought
You didn't say you jump on the guy real fast.
No, no. I jump on the, the, the, the que uh, the,
my response real fast is, you know, again, you have to a,
you know, um, you have to deconflict this
as you're building out your site security plan so that the,
the, the onus there is, it falls back to,
uh, the facility, right?
Do they allow, they're a pri if they're a private entity,
are they allowing, uh, even though, uh, you can have you,
you conceal carry in the state,
are they allowing it in their building?
Do they have it posted that weapons are not allowed?
You should deconflict that in advance.
If the answer is no, they don't allow it, then it is a,
it's, it's not the host committee, it's not the organization
that's putting on the event.
It's the facilities issue to address that very quickly.
Uh, again, because that, that person, you know,
is not authorized to have that there,
but that those questions should come up in the planning
phases, not exactly, you know,
hit you over the head in the middle of the event, right?
And especially some, uh, convention centers
or government owned buildings that do, do allow, uh, carry.
But within the space, if you rent it,
you can have your space have a, you know, firearms.
This is a, this, this is a huge debate right now.
Be prepared for it,
because obviously the politics of the time,
but like the Texas State Fair has a,
has has an instituted a no gun rule.
We now have the politics playing
now that it's taking, that's
What they're changing that, right?
Yeah. Here's, yeah. So here's the one thing I'd say.
Guess who's gonna govern this for you?
Your insurance company.
So you better talk to them as, as well. Great idea.
Um, they're gonna have strong feelings.
My hope is that their strong feelings are
to the extent possible for these intense events.
You have no carry, uh,
exception if you are in an open carry state.
Okay. Alright. Last one.
Uh, I thought this was fascinating.
I heard you on a podcast talk about this, Juliet.
So going back to the 2017 Academy Awards,
if everyone remembers, they announced the winner
as Moonlight Moonlight Executives come on stage,
they celebrate, and in the middle of it, one
of the Moonlight guys looks at the card
and says, wait a minute, LA la Land won.
And to his credit, he goes to the mic
and says, it's La la Land.
And they're looking and saying hi.
And they, they've already had like 10 seconds
of utter dejection.
And he says, no, no, really, it's, you guys, come on stage.
There, there's a process with the envelopes backstage
that I found fascinating.
Juliet, can you, yeah, can you share that a little bit?
And I think, not, not
to correct your Academy Award know knowledge,
but Moonlight was the winner.
That's okay. So Academy Awards,
because they're so high profile, and
So I I messed it up. Okay. My
No, no, that's okay. But,
but, um, but because I say my bad,
because there's also, you know, we deal in a world of, of,
of race and that this was a African American, uh,
production team and actors
and actresses who seem
to be denied their moment because of the mistakes.
So we have to be cognizant
that people are interpreting these things as well.
You may just view it as, oh, we made a mistake. Right?
So think about gender dynamics, right?
If you have a panel and three men are first,
and they take 25 min, you know, 20 minutes each,
and then you're the moderator, this happens to me
and you say, oh, Juliette, can you be quick?
I'm kind of like you. Right?
So you have to be sensitive to, to, to
how audiences are perceiving this thing.
So very quickly, just always remember Galileo's rule, right?
Which is the more levels of you may think that complication
and complexity and safety and security is good, right?
And Galileo's rule was systems
of overlay can complicate a very simple thing, which is,
I'm getting this envelope to Warren Beatty.
In that instance, in the
after actions, uh, we learned
that they had a complicated system of two envelopes, two,
um, uh, uh, price Waterhouse people.
Um, and, and,
and, uh, no, no, um, uh, what do you wanna call it?
Like, sort of accountability. So things are just being
Sort of, there's one on each side of the stage,
there's one on stage left backstage, one on stage, right?
The, so the same
And yeah, same, same exact thing.
So the, so instead of having one envelope, one person,
very easy, okay?
You know, you're doing, you've got two people,
two envelopes, who's coming.
They, they look, they could, they knew
what the ro routine was already,
they know who's coming from which, which side.
This should not be a surprise, right?
And in terms of I envelope one goes to this person,
envelope two goes to that person,
they're planning this thing for months.
So what happened is they thought they were being queued,
and that's the wrong word.
They were like, well, we need
to keep this quiet and blah, blah, blah.
So, so they, they had this totally complex system.
So one thing to remember is, you know, we use our,
not our goal, uh, commercial,
but our, our goal here is that these are knowable things.
Don't make them too complicated, but don't ignore them.
Right? I, I know how to, you know, I,
I know be before my event.
I, it's easy to find out what are the open carry rules.
And it's easy to find out what the venues open carry rules
are, and are they consistent
with my institution's belief in, in
how they wanna conduct something.
I can't make that judgment for you. So that's what happened.
Everyone blamed Warren Beatie.
Warren Beatie was handed the wrong envelope.
He was handed the, the second
of the best actress's envelope, which had the other,
Mo had the actress from the other movie.
That's why he was confused. He sees,
So his pausing was a, was a logical
Response to, but why am I seeing Bes actress here?
But then the movie that she was in, um, Moonlight, um, uh,
uh, is there, so he says that right?
Not knowing he's holding the best, he's holding,
he's literally, he didn't misread, he,
he was handed the wrong envelope.
This is my, my crusade is
to defend Warren Beatty to his dying day.
It was not his fault. I mean,
he could have not said anything, but
He didn't, he didn't fake, didn't Faye
Dunaway take it from him?
Yeah. And just said he didn't Yes.
Enough wine, like it's la la Land, right?
He didn't wanna read the envelope.
She then picks up quickly
and the only thing she sees is
she doesn't see the actress name.
She sees Lala Land, right?
Because who would've thought gonna
hand them the wrong envelope?
But it was 'cause they had two of each.
Do you do, you know, real Quick, thank you.
That's my crusade
Moving forward.
Did they, did they get rid of the two,
uh, duplicate versions? Yes.
And they have, they have only one hander.
You know, part of this was, honestly, part
of this was Price Waterhouse wanting to, you know,
have two vice presidents.
I'll dress like, whatever, like, my, my is,
is you want one person that looks like me or Jonathan.
And in fact, I have a friend who works at Price Waterhouse
and I said, I'll do it.
I'll do it. I'll stand there.
Um, I know how to pick an envelope.
And, um, and yeah,
they have a thing they have in a weird way that, you know,
you could call it a single point of failure,
but actually what it is, is it's a simplified system.
Mm-Hmm. That gets to where you need to get,
which is Warren Beatty is reading only one card.
Okay. Um, before we wrap up,
can we throw up a quick poll just
to get people's feedback on this, uh, on this webinar?
Um, this is basically an NPS question.
You're asked how likely you to recommend this, this webinar
to a friend or a colleague?
Zero is absolutely under no circumstances.
This is horrible. 10, oh, sorry,
I don't wanna see the results in real time.
10 is a hundred percent.
And, um, and we create a, there's a score
that comes outta this, and if you like, there's an NP box
that says, you know, what,
what did you like, what did you not like?
What influenced your, uh, your rating?
So, um, we'll leave that up for, um,
maybe another 30 seconds or so,
or Lizzie just feel free
to take it down when you feel like
you've got enough responses.
Um, I am gonna stick to the original timing, which is
two 15, uh, you know, 75 minutes.
There were a lot of questions we did not get to. Yeah.
So here's what we're gonna do.
I am going to email those all the questions
and maybe some from the chat
that didn't make it into the q and a.
I'm going to email them to Jonathan and to Juliette.
And if you guys don't mind,
if you could just type in your answers
and then we will post this
and send this out to everybody on the webinar.
Because in order to do justice to those questions
and the really good ones, we're gonna end up going along
and people have to get back to work.
So, um, thank you both of you. Thank you.
This was, uh, outstanding watch for, um, Julia
and Jonathan went, whenever disaster strikes,
like superhero movie, go to C Nnn,
you'll see one of us Happy day.
Yeah. But they also, um, I know Juliet has a,
a very active Twitter feed
where she has some very interesting insights.
Jonathan, are you on Twitter as well, or?
Yes, ma'am. Yes. Okay.
And just share what your Twitter,
what your Twitter handles are real quick
At Juliet Caem.
Very, very mysterious. Just at Julie Kayam. Yeah.
And mine's at JD Wack Row.
Okay, got it. Okay.
So highly Ra I I, you could take or leave Twitter.
Sometimes it gets a little wonky,
but they have, you know,
Twitter traditionally had been a really good source for, um,
e emergency information and news.
And so now not so much,
but the two of them are, are, are great to follow.
So thank you. With that, I wanna thank everybody.
Uh, thank Jonathan time on your day for this. Hopefully.
Thank you everyone. Was some of you the course?
Uh, Jonathan Juliet, phenomenal work.
Really, really, really appreciate this.
This was just gems dropping left
and right. Thank you both. Yes,
Thank you. Thank you
everyone have a great weekend. Thank you.
We're almost there. We're almost there. Jonathan.
I'll call you later. Yep.