If you work in a company where the internet or some kind of online service is not your primary business, chances are that the owners, directors or your boss are of the generation where "online reputation" means very little.
The days of controlling a company's message through a big press agency and brochures, press ads and maybe the front page of the website are, of course, long gone, but top executives are, in my experience, generally behind the times when it come to this truth, simply because in order to have become top execs, they are from the aforementioned generation.
So, whereas your average 15-year-old can research, manipulate and develop their own online rep instinctively (and without knowing that this is what they're doing), companies have a very particular conundrum: They have the business sense, but those who have the reputation management skill tend to be on a different planet to them.
When a company I was working with needed to start to understand online reputation management from a business point of view, we looked around for a guide to help us pull together SEO, buzz generation, forum management, reputation repair and so on, and one simply didn't exist.
We pieced together what we needed from online white papers, blogs, our own experience and a big dose of common sense, and we muddled through, cajoling forum owners, putting out online press release and so on, but how I wish I'd had this book at the time.
With sections on reputation, brand development, buzz generation, multimedia, copywriting and crisis management, I'd go as far as to say that every company that doesn't have a senior web expert should have a copy of this book to help them avoid and manage such issues. Try explaining these things to litigious-happy top execs who are used to silencing their critics the old way, and you'll realise that you need every tool in your box, and there is a LOT of backup material for those who are trying to get their companies to "do the right thing" here.
Its only shortfall would be the fact that precisely because a lot of what it discusses is so new, some techniques will date quickly, and some are by their nature experimental.
But to encourage a deeper understanding of the issues in order to make your own decisions, this is thoroughly recommended, not only for those who work in companies that need to start taking their reputation management seriously, but also if you just want to start filling the Google results page with wonder, not embarrassment, when someone types your name in!