Our experience from this year’s Crisis Stimulation Lab by ADandPRLab
This semester we had the opportunity to work with Ms Mania Xenou, CEO and founder of Reliant Communications, in a very interesting subject: Crisis Management in real life situations. We got to learn about crises multi-national organizations had to deal with and the steps you have to follow to deal with a crisis. The most fun part was that at the end of the semester, when we had the chance to deal with a crisis that was made for us but very much alike with crises that organizations have to manage in an daily basis.
We participated at a week long crisis simulation game based on a dynamic scenario at the backdrop of Brexit, involving a catering company, a Greek Ministry and various print/electronic and digital media. While the last part of the scenario culminated in a TV Media panel and debate.
Our team had to manage the media coverage of this crisis. Being the Media team, we got the chance to ‘play around’ and create our own media stories based on the daily updates on our crisis. Everything went through in real-time, as we worked on this for 3 days, with constant changes and reports from the other teams, which represented the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Catering Company that was in charge of the meals of the UK Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UBS Catering Hellas. This constant communication with the other teams was also very fun and interesting because we all acted like we were really representing the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Catering Company and the Media that were trying to find out the truth behind this incident.
Working on this crisis we represented Media channels such as ΣΚΑΪ for all and ΚΑΘΗΜΕΡΙΝΗ newspaper, creating our own articles and reports. It was really fun and something new to us working as journalists, but there were also some challenges we came across as the days went by. The biggest challenge we had to face was that, at some point, most of the data we had weren’t on our favor and we felt like we were in a stalemate but we managed our way through it and change things around!
The peak of this experience was the last day when we all came together and had to debate with each other in a stimulation of a TV Media panel and debate between the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UBIS Catering Hellas and the journalists who were trying to find the truth in a more aggressive way, which created tensions between the representatives of the teams. This experience was very fun not only for the representatives that took part in the TV Debate, but also for the rest of the team members who were watching the debate behind the cameras.
All in all, it might have been stressful sometimes to deal with a crisis like this in just three days, while communicating with so many people at the same time and debate with the other teams in the last day, but we all agreed that it was such a fun and special experience and most of all, a great way to end this creative semester!
Our team: Sofia Anastasiou, Stavi diakoumakou, Nektaria Ignatiou, Marianna Kantli, Xenia kissa, Martha Skyrianou, Martha Tselemegkou, Vassilis Fragoulis
Thank you Betty Tsakarestou and Mania Xenou!
Our Facebook ΣΚΑΪ channel for all (in Greek): https://bit.ly/2GlWyg1
Our channel’s site (in Greek): https://bit.ly/2GazZeU
