PROJECT UPDATES

What we’ve been doing, where we’ve been travelling, and what’s next.

Crisis Simulation Exercises

It's been a busy month for crisis simulation exercises. Earlier this month, we designed and delivered a crisis simulation exercise for a global client in Seoul. Right now, we're in the final stages of designing another exercise for a client in Hong Kong. This follows recent exercises in Jakarta and Marrakech.

We've opened bookings for crisis simulation exercises for the September - October period. If your organisation is interested in conducting a crisis simulation during this timeframe, please let us know.

TRAINING

Training workshops and customised training solutions.

Strategic Futures Programme

We recently introduced our Strategic Futures programme. Leveraging more than two decades of experience in crisis management, Strategic Futures is designed to focus executive teams on strategic issues that may affect their organisations in the medium-term.

We offer three unique sessions:

1. Climate Crisis
2. Shifting Powers
3. AI to AGI

These sessions are applicable for all types of organisations, including companies and NGOs. You can learn more here.

If you'd like to have a chat about how our Strategic Futures programme might fit into your organisation's overall approach to risk forecasting and crisis preparation, please get in touch and we can set up a time to talk.

APPLICATIONS

Updates on our applications.

Whistler

Whistler is a simple and secure whistleblowing application that enables organisations to receive and manage confidential reports from whistleblowers. We launched Whistler 9 years ago. This year, we updated the application to version 2.0. We increased the level of encryption and added case management tools, amongst a host of other improvements.

Pricing starts at $19 a month.

If you're looking for a simple and secure whistleblowing solution for your organisation, you can learn more here.

Incident Manager

Incident Manager is the first application that's focused on team performance during a crisis. Crisis events are already inherently challenging. There's no point in adding an additional layer of complexity by forcing teams to use software that increases cognitive load and only serves to make the situation more difficult to manage. Incident Manager doesn't get in the way of teams. Instead, it makes them more effective at managing complex incidents.

Please reach out if you'd like a demo.

Exercise Manager

Exercise Manager is our in-house tool for designing and delivering crisis exercises. It's a unique application that makes it easy to plan and deliver crisis exercises and monitor team performance across your organisation. After using this application for our own exercises, we're going to be making Exercise Manager available to our clients as well.

Please reach out if you'd like a demo.

Tenacio

Tenacio is a project management application designed for people like me who are juggling a diverse range of projects. Tenacio cuts through the myriad of projects and tasks and tells you what you need to work on next. It does this based on the deadlines you set and your preferences for when you like to work on different activities.

I've been using Tenacio to manage my own projects for the last two months and it's already bringing some much needed order to the chaos. As I use the application, I'm still tightening up some of the algorithms. While it's not quite ready for public release, if you'd like to give it a go just get in touch.

STATION XV

Updates on our in-house gear, sharing a behind-the-scenes look at our design and manufacturing processes.

This month, I've been working with a professional photographer to take proper product photos of the bags. The new photos are up on the Station XV website and they look great. I've also made a few improvements to the website. You can check out the updates here.

I've just received the first round of prototypes for some of the new bags under development - the Reversible Street Pack, the Modular Street Pack and the Travel Pack. I'm not sure the Modular Street Pack will move forward. The magnetic attachment points are cool but not sufficiently secure. The Reversible Street Pack, on the other hand, is the best design I've produced so far. It's freaking awesome. Two completely different looks in one bag without compromising functionality. I'll need to head back to the factory in HCMC at some point this year to finalise these designs and make some decisions on the way forward.

I've written a short article on Medium about the launch of Station XV. You can check it out here.

Please help to spread the word about Station XV.

PUBLICATIONS

We’ve published a number of books on crisis management, travel security and security evacuations.

Crisis Management

I've published two books focused on crisis management:

• The Crisis Response Handbook
• The Crisis Simulation Handbook

These books encapsulate over two decades of experience training crisis teams, running crisis simulation exercises, and responding to crisis events.

If you are responsible for your organisation's crisis management programme, or if you're a member of a crisis management team, you'll find these books to be a useful resource.

You can learn more about these books and download free samples here.

Bulk Orders

Several highly regarded organisations (and one prestigious university) have purchased copies of our books for their teams. If your team would benefit from the knowledge and experience contained in our books, please reach out. We can provide discounts for bulk orders.

READING LIST

Links to interesting articles worth your time.

Assessing Russian plans for military regeneration. Modernization and reconstitution challenges for Moscow’s war machine (Chatham House). Read here.

How Disinformation From a Russian AI Spam Farm Ended up on Top of Google Search Results. A fake article about Volodymyr Zelensky’s wife buying a $4.8 million Bugatti with US aid was promoted by bots, Russia state media, and pro-Trump influencers on X. It’s part of a network of websites supercharged by AI. (Wired). Read here.

The New Anarchy. America faces a type of extremist violence it does not know how to stop. (The Atlantic). Read here.

The scariest thing dictators are doing now: Working together. According to Anne Applebaum’s “Autocracy, Inc.,” dictators are less interested in ideological alliances and more interested in helping each other stay powerful. (The Washington Post). Read here.

America’s Asian Partners Are Not Worried Enough About Trump. How His Return Could Destabilize the Region (Foreign Affairs). Read here.

Google is making dark web reports free for everyone. Here’s how they work. Find out faster if your data has been leaked online. (Popular Science). Read here.

How a North Korean Fake IT Worker Tried to Infiltrate Us. KnowBe4 needed a software engineer for our internal IT AI team. We posted the job, received resumes, conducted interviews, performed background checks, verified references, and hired the person. We sent them their Mac workstation, and the moment it was received, it immediately started to load malware... (KnowBe4). Read here.

In Indonesia, social media is a “hunting ground” for religious minorities. Conservative Muslim influencers spread hate speech to their millions of followers on TikTok and YouTube, with little pushback from authorities or platforms. (Rest of World). Read here.

Hackers abused API to verify millions of Authy MFA phone numbers. Twilio has confirmed that an unsecured API endpoint allowed threat actors to verify the phone numbers of millions of Authy multi-factor authentication users, potentially making them vulnerable to SMS phishing and SIM swapping attacks. (Bleeping Computer). Read here.

Independent Thinking: What would a Harris presidency mean for the world? Democratic big hitters have coalesced around Kamala Harris as the party’s new nominee, but what do we know about her world view, especially on Gaza, and the place of US leadership in the world? (Chatham House). Read here.

China ‘under siege’ How the US’s hardening China policy is seen in Beijing (Chatham House). Read here.

A Beginner’s Guide to Identifying Explosive Ordnance in Social Media Imagery. (Bellingcat). Read here.

That’s it for this month, folks.

Thanks for reading and stay safe out there.

Grant Rayner

Spartan9