Corporate communications

When being interviewed, it’s OK to admit that there are things you don’t know or need to follow up on. But when you’re the CEO of a company and you’re unaware of the big things happening in your industry, that’s a big ‘ol fail.

Case in point: Time Warner Cable’s CEO Glenn Britt says he has a dream to put the Internets in the TV. “Britt went on to lay out his vision for the future, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it basically reads like a product description for AirPlay, a service that wireless[ly] streams videos from your iPhone, iPod or iPad to your television via the Apple TV box,” Business Insider reports. And also, The New York Times reported it. Zoinks.

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So Scott Thompson is out, adding to the growing list of CEOs who simply couldn’t hang on to their job at Yahoo. Not only did hedge fund Third Point get the ouster it wanted, it’s also getting three board seats. Adding to Thompson’s woes, the now former CEO revealed the awful news to the board that he has thyroid cancer, which is part of the reason he’s resigning. He had been in the job since January.

Ross Levinsohn (left), the company’s head of global media, is taking the CEO seat on an interim basis. Does anyone want this job?!

On the positive side, shares of Yahoo stock rose with the news that Thompson was leaving the company. On the negative side, this latest changing of the guard doesn’t change anything for the company just yet. It’s still behind the curve from a tech standpoint and its still got troubles with an unpopular patent infringement suit against Facebook.

It will take time to turn around business fortunes entirely, but the company needs to start by offering up stability.

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Patti Hart, a Yahoo board director who helped with the decision to hire CEO Scott Thompson, will announce today that she won’t seek re-election following the eruption over Thompson’s resumé shenanigans. The company will also create a three-person committee that will look deeper into the hiring process.

The trouble started last week when activist hedge fund Third Point uncovered an inaccuracy on Thompson’s CV. Since then, they’ve called for his ouster and, when that didn’t happen yesterday, an investigation and greater transparency. Hart’s resumé was also called into question.

Thompson himself has apologized to employees for the brouhaha.

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After first accusing Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson of lying about his educational record, the activist hedge fund investor Third Point is now demanding that the CEO step down by Monday.

Thompson’s claim was that he held a bachelor’s degree in both accounting and computer science from Stonehill College. Actually, he only has the accounting degree. A Yahoo spokesperson called it an “inadvertent error,” but Third Point, which has gone after the Yahoo board in the past for its poor performance, is having none of it. They want Thompson to resign as well as another board member, Patti Hart, who Third Point also accused of having discrepancies in her educational record.

AllThingsD has called Thompson out, saying the “error” goes back years, when he was CTO at PayPal. Business Insider is calling Yahoo’s response “outrageous and insufficient.”

So Yahoo’s latest CEO could be brought down by a resumé scandal. That position should just remain vacant forever.

Facebook just announced that it will acquire photo-sharing site Instagram for $1 billion in cash and Facebook shares. In a statement on his Facebook Timeline, Mark Zuckerberg says that his company has always focused on the ability to share pictures with those closest to you.

“Now, we’ll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests,” he writes. Zuckerberg adds that they will hang on to Instagram’s ability to share with social networks besides than Facebook as well as other features “rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook.”

Finally, according to Zuckerberg, this is the first huge acquisition the company has made and there won’t be many like it, if any at all. The deal will close later in the quarter.

Instagram had 30 million users before it added an Android version. Once that version was made available last Tuesday, The New York Times reported that 2,000 people were signing up per minute. Instagram users upload five million photos per day. Instagram is also set to receive another round of funding, $50 million on a $500 million valuation from Sequoia Capital.

In the face of changing consumer habits and shifts in mobile technology, two business giants — Best Buy and Research in Motion — have announced changes in their business strategies.

After a weak earnings report, Best Buy says it’s going to close 50 stores and cut 400 jobs. The news comes just a couple of months after a Forbes article ran with a headline “Why Best Buy is Going Out of Business… Gradually.” The article pointed to poor and annoying customer service along with some product flops (like 3D TV) and retail’s move online as reasons for Best Buy’s slow demise.

More recently, CNET called Best Buy a showroom for Amazon. Ouch.

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The Arthur W. Page Society today introduced “Building Belief: A New Model for Activating Corporate Character and Authentic Advocacy,” a corporate comms model that builds upon the organization’s 2007 “Authentic Enterprise” report. Back then, the group described the new comms landscape. This new model offers a framework for managing it.

Over the past year, the organization, which is primarily composed of corporate communications execs from international and Fortune 500 businesses, chose 16 companies doing good work in the field, tapped them for insight, and tested the group’s hypothesis a number of times before publishing the model.  It’s built on two parts: “corporate character” and “authentic advocacy.”

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With investors still antsy about the company’s stagnant stock price, PepsiCo named two new execs to its management team.

Brian Cornell, previously the president and CEO of Sam’s Club, a division of Wal-Mart, has rejoined the company as CEO of PepsiCo Americas Foods. He has previously held a number of management positions across PepsiCo, including president of Tropicana and president of PepsiCo beverages in Europe and Africa. He will be responsible for a number of businesses across PepsiCo, including Frito-Lay North America, Quaker Foods & Snacks North America, and PepsiCo Mexico, reporting to chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi.

And PepsiCo Americas Foods CEO, John Compton, has been named to a new position, president of PepsiCo. He’s now managing PepsiCo’s global groups (such as global nutrition), global operations, and global marketing services and corporate strategy.

The moves are being positioned as a “drive to continued growth.” The Wall Street Journal says it also sets up succession possibilities.

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Naveen Selvadurai, co-founder of Foursquare, announced in a blog post this weekend that he will be leaving the company, sticking around only as an adviser and on the company board.

Also this week, the company announced a partnership with TIME for the 2012 Republican and Democratic conventions. The company also has new partnerships with VH1 and Walgreens. And just today, the company said it will be launching a “new function” as this year’s SXSW conference and partnering with a number of concerts that are taking place.

When a company leader leaves, it’s a big deal. Here, Selvadurai seems to be heading out without making too many ripples in the pool. These partnerships indicate that business is continuing, more or less, as usual even if there were some festering behind-the-scenes frustrations.

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PR Newswire has teamed up with with The Poynter Institute for a day-and-a-half-long conference called “Creating Credible Content,” taking place between April 11 and the 13th. The conference will focus on how to use journalism techniques to build trust and strong relationships with target audiences.

The conference targets corporate comms pros and digital content providers and will take place on the Poynter campus in St. Petersburg, FL (which looks like it might not be too far from the beach, hint hint).

Among the speakers are Keith Jenkins, the supervising senior producer at National Public Radio and Anne Marie Borrego, director of media relations for the American Red Cross.

Tuition info and registration forms are here.