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You're in the office early, trying to get a start on email� and you have a bunch of messages from board members and others about a blog entry besmirching your organization. Now what? Do you have a reputation management plan in place? In this age of "Internet time," a reputation can be seriously damaged or even destroyed before the week - or the day -- is over. Read on to see how you can be prepared if your organization's reputation or brand is at risk.

At the heart of comprehensive risk management lies the increasingly important art and science of managing reputation. (Item #1) Great crisis management is a critical part of great reputation management. (Item #2) A great brand can take months, if not years, and millions of dollars to build: it can be destroyed in hours by a blogger upset with your company. (Item #3)

In the long run, reputation is the key to a corporation's long-term success. (Item #4) Blogs are changing the rules of reputation management and protection. (Item #5) Too many companies suffer from reputation neglect. (Item #6)

As always, we look forward to hearing about your concerns with regards to business continuity. If you have a topic you'd like to see covered, please email me at bmellinger@attainium.net

Best Regards,

Bob Mellinger
President
Attainium Corp

Quote of the Week

"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.
If you think about that, you'll do things differently."
- Warren Buffett -

Articles

1. Why reputation is a major factor in business continuity management
Reputation risk affects a company's ethos and values and is no longer the role of just the communications department, as it involves the entire boardroom as well. In this context, risk management stretches into culture and values and how employees are rewarded and motivated - old-fashioned boundaries inside the organization are breaking down or need to be surmounted.
http://www.continuitycentral.com/feature0335.htm

2. Reputation Management
Integrity and reputation are the only real assets held by partners in professional services firms; when one is lost, everything else follows, as Andersen fatally discovered with the recent Enron debacle. For that reason, every firm must develop a plan to prepare for the day its corporate integrity-or that of its professionals-is threatened.
http://www.lexisone.com/balancing/articles/110003a.html

3. Free Online Reputation Management Beginner's Guide
Every single day, someone, somewhere is discussing something important to your business; your brand, your executives, your competitors, your industry. Are they hyping-up your company, building buzz for your products? Or, are they criticizing your service, complaining to others about your new product launch?
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2006/03/online-reputation-monitoring-beginners.html

4. Reputation Management Pays Off
In today's news-driven and fast changing business environment, building and maintaining a strong corporate reputation is vital. Business leaders the world over agree that corporate reputation is key to a corporation's success in the long run.
http://www.ameinfo.com/56895.html

5. 'Citizen journalism': an emerging reputation risk
Deon Binneman looks at how Blogs are changing the rules of reputation management and protection.
http://www.continuitycentral.com/feature0248.htm

6. Tending to Your Corporate Reputation
Corporate reputations are rarely examined until after they've been damaged - and that's a big mistake, says The Wall Street Journal's Ron Alsop, author of The 18 Immutable Laws of Corporate Reputation. Companies should tend to their reputations as a matter of course, counsels Alsop; after all, it's every company's most valuable asset. He recently discussed the subject with CFO.com.
http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/3493891?f=advancesearch