Crisis communication. Lessons from 9/11.

The sheer enormity of last year's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon gave new meaning to the term "crisis management." Suddenly, companies near Ground Zero, as well as those more than a thousand miles away, needed a plan. Because the disasters disrupted established channels not only between businesses and customers but between businesses and employees, internal crisis-communications strategies that could be quickly implemented became a key responsibility of top management.