I spoke recently at a dinner attended by a number of boards of directors of large Canadian corporations. The topic of conversation was digital crisis management. What was interesting, and what carried through the dinner discussion that ensued, was the awareness gap that existed at the executive level; specifically, that the issues we talk about and evangelize on an almost daily basis at the departmental level and in our conversations and blog posts are rarely finding their way into the c-suite despite their increasing signficance to the long-term reputation of the companies these individuals represent.

In recent months, I along with my colleagues have spoken on a number of occasions to senior leadership teams on these issues. Each time, we reiterate the importance of executive-level understanding of the new environment and the necessity to obtain their buy-in on key principles of effective online crisis management. Reputation management in times of crisis is a c-suite issue, and as Clarke Caywood of Northwestern University famously said, "Any assault on the reputation of a company is a crisis... and reputations are built on how management responds to crises."