In the final session at this year's Annual Marketing Partner Forum a panel of experts provided real examples of their experience with reputation management within their firms. 

An interesting story was told by Chris Hinze, Global Head of Communications at Hogan Lovells with regards to their very deliberate strategy to become the leading firm for innovation. 

The team wanted to emphasise innovation to their audiences and to do this they setup an internal innovation award with a leading external expert. This resulted in over 800 of their lawyers submitting ideas. The objective was to flush out innovation and of course to create a conversation and culture as described below. 

Chris highlighted that the core benefits were the creation of an innovative culture, more discussions amongst their clients and all to drive revenue since through a survey they asked whether being innovation was part of a decision for a client to work with them. 

What this expertly demonstrates is the work of Jeremy Heimans who found that to be an effective change agent, the extent to which a person is at the centre in the informal network (new power) is significantly more important than their position in the formal system (old power). In addition, people who are highly connected have twice as much power to influence change as people with hierarchical power. 

I think what this shows is that to drive reputation it needs to be bought in across the firm, not just a mandate from leadership and this is an excellent case of why and how.