On Friday August , HP CEO Mark Hurd was ousted from the top of the monolithic electronics giant. While Wall Street may be treating HP with an optimistic outlook – the small shift is only a sign that HP has released a critical brand target that resonates through-out the corporate ecosystem.

“Investors are clearly nervous. Shares of HP plunged 7% on Monday despite the fact that the company also issued bullish guidance Friday after the bell. Of course, nobody cared because that’s when HP also announced the Hurd mess.”
~ Paul R. La Monica (CNN MONEY)

Mark Hurd has been upheld as a thought-leader and effective business man, but his reason for leaving the throne of HP revolves around indiscretion with a female HP contractor. While we won’t go into the details of that story: we can quickly see that as HP CEO, Mark Hurd has become the overnight talking point for many journalists.

Weekend News Coverage Included:

Wall Street Journal
Mark Hurd Proves Every CEO Is Replaceable
Bloomberg
The Hurd Mentality: HP’s Mark Hurd and the Big Traps in Small Lapses
CNN Money
Hurd Mentality: Is HP no longer a buy?
Washington Post
HP CEO Mark Hurd allowed to resign: No Severance?
Network World
What do Mark Hurd and Tiger Woods have in common?

While chief executive officers like Mark Hurd are in all industries, the details of his leaving with a $28 million cash and stock severance highlights that people can (and will) get rewarded for improper conduct within the executive suite. This is most easily seen by looking at his separation package:

“The board may claim that they were obligated to pay Hurd due to his employment contract, and could not fire him for cause because it was written so narrowly. But employees burned by years of cost-cutting are unlikely to care. HP workers have faced multiple rounds of layoffs in recent years. Their 401(k) contributions have been capped and made discretionary. On top of all that, Hurd exacted 2.5% to 15% salary cuts from all of HP’s employees during the recession, a bold and controversial move in management circles that a few companies have only recently dared to do.” ~ Jena McGregor (The Washington Post)

As the HP CEO, Mark Hurd was a core element that details how executives at large companies are highlighted with unusual rules. One of the most identifying aspects in the digital space is that “Mark Hurd” was a frequent search on Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

In the month of July, the Wikipedia entry for Mark Hurd was viewed 2695 times. That same Wikipedia article generated roughly 50k readers in 2009.

For purposes of rationalizing the ROI of executive reputation and knowing how a CEO name is driving tremendous exposure at the individual level: think about the extremely high percentage of investors, employees, business partners, vendors, and industry journalists who took SEARCH RESULTS about Mark Hurd and made critical business decisions.

Mark Hurd will be an interesting person to watch in the CEO reputation space, as he fumbled the ball and HP and its stockholders are left holding the bill.

In recent reputation management and internet privacy conversations, we are seeing an increased trend in users and corporations going head to head. These recent articles give a good perspective on some recent debate points that CEOs and executives should be reviewing:

Facebook to Simplify Privacy Controls : Facebook is simplifying its privacy controls amid growing unrest from many of its users. Protesters have been organizing campaigns to quit Facebook and privacy groups have complained to regulators after Facebook announced new features last month, including “instant personalization” that tailors other websites to users’ Facebook profiles.

Senate Preps Online Policy for Candidates: Lawmakers voted Tuesday to establish rules for candidates using Facebook, Twitter and other social networking websites, making Maryland one of the first states in the nation to regulate the increasingly popular means of campaigning. Starting two weeks from now, candidates must begin including an authority line — a declaration of approval that lists their campaign treasurer — on the social networking sites run by their campaigns.

Senate Preps Regulation for Online Privacy:  A Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing on online privacy Tuesday will focus on technologies used to collect and use consumer information and could help lay the groundwork for legislation governing those practices.

Facebook Launches User Safety Page: Facebook doesn’t aspire to the status of a nation state. All its users are citizens of other countries with their own governments, police forces and armies. Yet given Facebook’s immense scale, it’s not surprising the social networking site feels it shares responsibility for the safety of its users.

While there are many ways of looking at corporate reputation management, our team is constantly reading industry peers and like-minded professionals across a variety of organizational levels.

As we often see first hand: the main problem with corporate reputation resides from the fact that it has hundreds of different touch points ranging across the company. This includes top level CEO reputation, executives, managers, employees, product issues, marketplace concerns, and industry shifts.

This gives corporate communicators a huge task in the digital world: attempt to maneuver through hundreds of thousands of interconnected personal webs without becoming helplessly caught in the chaos.

To help broaden your perspective on how reputation affects larger organizations, we have to really think outside the standard box and consider these additional touch points. Without giving yourself some breadth to your perspective on corporate reputation management, you mistakenly apply tactical solutions instead of holistic strategy. With a strong education, you can detail your corporate reputation value (click to see a quick example of United Airlines reputation value.)

Take a glance through some of these current reputational issues:

Does Corporate Reputation Matter (FastCompany) – Based on a poll of almost 30,000 people, companies were ranked on a “reputation quotient,” calculated by a variety of public perceptions, including vision and leadership, financial performance, social responsibility, and perceptions of work place environments. I spoke with Robert Fronk, SVP of reputation management at Harris Interactive, to find out the impact of corporate reputation, and whether or not it even matters. Read More…

What Credibility? Boeing’s reputation at risk from another possible 787 delay – Boeing’s vaunted 787 Dreamliner model may fall even farther behind schedule, a Boeing official acknowledged Thursday. The Associated Press reports Scott Fancher, general manager of the 787 program for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, says the first delivery of the already-delayed aircraft model now may slip into early 2011. That’s because of “inspections and instrument changes on the flight test aircraft,” according to AP.

What Apple Needs to Do to Salvage Its Reputation – Today is the big day. After weeks of stubborn denial amid mounting complaints from users, and a class action lawsuit, Apple has a press conference scheduled in just a few hours to publicly respond to concerns related to the iPhone 4. Hopefully, Apple will come armed with more solutions than excuses, but for businesses using–or considering using–the iPhone 4, what Apple says, and how it says it, is more important than what it does. Read more…

Wall Street May Finally Breathe Easier – Wall Street’s summer may have officially started. Goldman Sachs last week settled fraud charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Senate passed sweeping financial reform legislation. Even hapless BP appears to have finally capped its oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. Read more…

Many hotels and destination resorts are being plagued by guest reviews on sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Expedia, and Travelpost – many hoteliers are wondering “what should I do next?”

The answer revolves around two simple points:

• practice good customer service
• search engine optimization is not always your friend

As a business owner or staff member, if you can keep these two points front-of-mind… then you are a lot farther to saving your sanity and protecting your business. 

PART ONE: PRACTICE GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE

Read all reviews online, but respond to negative reviews in-person (either face-to-face or over the phone.)

You may think “but I don’t have the contact information for the reviewer”

SIMPLE STEP: write up a sincere and honest request to have them personally contact your care team. Keep it short and to the point.

Here is an example:

“I work for XYZ. I would love to talk with you about your experience at our hotel and see how we can improve them. Please use the following e-mail to personally contact me.”

WHY SO SHORT?

First thing to remember: humans have hundreds of signals we display when communicating and most of these signals are impossible to detect and respond to when the guest is limited to simple text complaints on a review site. If you can get in front of this person and interact with them, a skilled communicator has a much better chance to resolve the issue and have a mutually beneficial outcome.

By providing a simple and precise response to offer support to a guest, you don’t accidentally throw “more fuel on the fire” and you don’t unknowingly cause SEO damage to yourself. You also gain the benefit of visibly offering good customer service to potential guests trying to figure out if they should stay with you.

PART TWO: SEARCH OPTIMIZATION IS NOT ALWAYS YOUR FRIEND

Review sites have a primary goal of using advanced search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to rank a review thread for the name of your hotel when someone searches online. This is the new method of “digital brand theft” that we detailed as a huge industry problem in Hotel reputations, search brand value under attack.

The main problem with responding to online reviews is that you are providing fresh new content for the review site to use in search optimization. Without really thinking about it, you may even be adding specific keywords to your response that include your location, hotel name, employee title and more. All of these relevant keywords help refresh older content, driving even more exposure to the review on search engines.

As a hotel owner with a brand, you should always minimize the amount of content you give these review sites and discourage lengthy conversations regarding your hotel on someone else’s site. In an ideal world, take ownership of the negative conversation and host it on your own property using a blog or customer service portal.

FOLLOW-UP, the devil is in the details

When posting a method of response for a previous guest, provide them with an actual email and tracking identify. Instead of using “Support@hotelxyz.com” – use an alias like “Sam-ExperienceSupport@hotelxyz.com”

This allows you to maintain you customer service without losing your main support process. If the alias begins receiving tremendous usage, it can be forwarded over to a customer care department at a later date and you don’t lose your employee e-mail account.

IF YOU RESOLVE THE ISSUE, ask the guest to update the review.

Lets face it: people say stupid things when they are angry or feel abused. If your support team can resolve the issue, ask the previous client to either update the review or post an amendment stating what the outcome was. In many cases, working to repair a damaged relationship can earn you a lifetime customer. It can also create an evangelist, as the previously disgruntled consumer now knows you will go above and beyond to provide great customer service.

Based on 24,977 online interviews and asking people about their perceptions of the nation’s largest companies, the Reputation Institute reviewed services, innovation, workplace, governance, citizenship, financial performance and leadership.With all those numbers… it came out with a score of 0 to 100.

The core take away is summed up fairly clearly by Forbes editor Laurie Burkitt, looking why Johnson & Johnson took #1

The secret to Johnson & Johnson’s success rings true for all of this year’s top reputable companies: Each has direct connections to their consumers and their families. Walt Disney Co., the theme park owner and entertainment giant, forms a special connection to children and their parents, who visit Disney World in Florida and Disneyland in California on family vacations. Families watch Disney movies in the comfort of their homes and use Disney as a household name. The entertainment company ranked fourth on this year’s list, up from seventh position last year. Its score was 82.11.

While the report contains a remarkable insight to some very complex problems regarding reputation, the quote above details a very tragic flaw in the report: that companies with massive in-person, family based businesses have an apparently more positive reputation.

The concept of aggregating such variable businesses and comparing them tells me one thing: I am reading a report comparing apples to oranges.

When we see a report ranking that has obvious favoritism to an industry or specific type of business, the concept of equal measurement is thrown out the window.

With that said, I still recommend taking a look at the list and examining some of the details that contain some pretty interesting business trends.

(Story – Report source here)

If you want to look at the “other end of the spectrum” with bad digital reputations and brands, check out there articles:

• Xfinity vs Comcast, No Reputational  Escape
• SuperMedia, Idearc, Verizon, GTE? Reputations Don’t Fade Online
• United Airlines, Brand and Reputation Value