Given the personal tragedies and the court failures, what would drive HP to confirm they would not be dropping their claim against the Mike Lynch estate? A private petition to the presiding English High Court judge would have seemed more appropriate but clearly there is enduring corporate bitterness associated with Lynch and the Autonomy saga.

The fact is that cybersecurity should not be the sole domain of the IT team but is the responsibility of the entire organization, as it is with physical breaches such as when fire doors are propped open or intruders aren’t challenged in the workplace.

Corporate apologies are only as good as the actions that follow them. The fallout was swift from a tech industry cocktail party that featured live models with their heads completely covered with lampshades. Surely 'Booth Bunnies' were retired years ago?

Customers expect resilience from the brands they patronize and have little tolerance for brands that abandon them. What can your organization do to continue to operate in a manual environment while you wait for your digital environment to be fully restored?

It is important to recognize that dissent between board members is not unusual and can be a positive thing if managed professionally. Disagreement does not necessarily equate to division, and indeed presenting different perspectives and opinions is vital to a board effectively discharging its duty.

Effective corporate governance is often invisible to the outside world until an issue arises. Establishing a well-run board of directors that is a great fit for the company reduces the risk of a PR crisis or worse. Board composition, oversight and management are meaty topics and regulatory compliance varies by country and organization type albeit for profit or non-profit.

Technology has created a tsunami of business fraud – accelerating the pace of crime, making it harder for businesses to protect themselves, and even harder to get ahead of the continuously evolving realm of online crime.

It seems that every breakthrough in technology and trade offers new opportunities for certain individuals to create mayhem. The history of fraud, impersonation and extortion is colorful and unrelated to technology as its impetus.

For some corporations, it’s been a five-year hiatus since they held a large customer conference, internal sales kick-off, or some kind of brand activation event or roadshow. Has this break caused a reset in the objectives and style of these events?

The world of sports is perhaps an extreme example of when emotion and the business of performance collide. Yet policy can underpin culture to create an environment of safety for all.

The concept of command and control may feel out of place in today's flatter organizations. However in this article you can learn how important a strong chain of command is to mitigating a business and brand crisis.

When you look at your stakeholder map it's important to understand the role and relative importance of Government or self-governing Regulators. These organizations have the power to curtail your activities or even shut down your operations, whether or not the issue they perceive is credible or fair.

The relationship between awareness, loyalty, risk, and reputation is more complex than simple aphorisms would lead us to believe. Do you understand when your brand can take risks and when it should batten down and consolidate?

Power balance is important and needs to be understood before battle lines are drawn, that didn’t happen here. The communications strategies of organizations should always assert independence, acknowledge the issue but resist commenting or announcing action before a review.

There are few things in life so hard won and yet so easily lost as a good reputation. Let's look at how reputations grow; how they can be sustained and protected; and why you should care.

No matter where you are in your communications planning process one of the key principles that you must consider throughout is with whom you want to communicate. Being able to map the specifics of your stakeholders will make your planning, execution, and measurement success. Here’s a starting point for this mapping process.

There are many situations in business and in our personal lives that invite an immediate decision without reference to their consequences. This is known as a first-order effect where we are responding to events we hadn’t planned for. This blog explores the scope for second and higher order effects.