Hunter Storm with platinum blonde hair, turquoise blue leather jacket, holding a microphone, smiling, and showcasing achievements with the glowing blue Hunter Storm logo. This image embodies the dynamic entertainer and innovation leader.

This Is How You Do It Right | Real Stories of Course Correction, Algorithmic Integrity, and the People Who Still Remember Why They Built These Systems in the First Place

This award is dedicated to those who do it right. Of course, mistakes happen. No company, technology, or person is perfect. That definitely includes me. To quote a very wise friend, “The last time I walked on water, the lake was frozen over.” However, we don’t have to be perfect to get things right. The ones who recognize and remediate issues deserve praise. So, this award is a celebration of excellence and a recognition of great people and processes. It is also an educational exercise that will hopefully help others correct drift. She hopes it will enable them to find the roadmap to doing it right, too. In an effort to recognize these people, Hunter Storm created the unofficial Doing It Right Award.

 

Who the Heck Is Hunter Storm, and Why Would She Give an Award to Anyone?

You, the casual reader, probably have no idea who Hunter Storm is. You’re probably wondering why she would create an award and a page like this one. That is, unless you work in:

 

Then, if you know, you know (IYKYK). In Hunter Storm’s professional capacity outside of this, her personal website, all companies handle issues just as well as some of the parties listed in the “Winners of the Doing It Right Award” section below did for her.

 

Making a Silk Purse Out of a SOW’s Ear

However, that’s because in her professional capacity, she was interacting with them in very different roles. For example, as a Fortune 100 global enterprise Associate Vice President (AVP) and Information Security Officer (ISO) while conducting due diligence in preparation for creating enterprise information security risk assessments.

To the casual reader, this is word salad. However, people who work in the industries listed above understand that such evaluations are a formal requirement for application, infrastructure, and platform implementations; third-party vendor onboarding; annual security recertifications for all enterprise environments and vendor relationships, and much more.

When Hunter or her counterparts requested changes to an environment, they happened rapidly, inside or outside the enterprise. Of course, this was always within reason, as some changes could not be made without negatively impacting other customers. In those cases, they balanced security with pragmatism and negotiated appropriate mitigating controls.

 

Contacts and Contracts

So, that meant these organizations already knew who Hunter Storm was and what her role was. They already had exceptional enterprise Master Service Agreements (MSAs), Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and Statements of Work (SOWs). These contracts guaranteed response times and actions.

Alternatively, they may have engaged Hunter Storm as an expert network consultant on some new product or emerging technology. Or they may simply have met her at a professional conference or industry organization meeting, where they sometimes mistook her for an administrative assistant or someone’s significant other. That is, until someone clued them in, and they discovered this humble woman was a global thought leader who created foundational cybersecurity and psychological operations models such as Hacking Humans | The Ports and Services Model of Social Engineering.

 

Just An Ordinary Girl Living in an Ordinary World

However, that’s what caught Hunter’s attention in her situation with this domain. There was a stark difference in her experiences here in comparison with her global enterprise experience. In the case of these unofficial awards, she is speaking as a regular person with a website, just like everyone else on the Internet. This gave her a perspective she was lacking outside the protective walls of the multinational corporation she was part of for decades.

 

The Technology Mystery Shopper

Out here wearing her metaphorical “civilian clothes,” she was almost like a mystery shopper in a department store. Now, she’s had the opportunity to see how technology is working for the average person. Granted, the average person doesn’t have decades of experience or a fancy service agreement.

Still, Hunter Storm firmly believe that everyone deserves at least basic respect, and that’s why it caught her attention when she experienced it here in her virtual domain. Clearly, Hunter Storm is not saying that these organizations should provide the same level of service to everyone in the world. That would be impossible. Nevertheless, she does see opportunities for improvement and return to baseline in certain areas.

 

Unofficial Doing It Right Award

The unofficial Doing It Right Award from Hunter Storm is no Nobel Peace Prize, but it is a virtual thumbs-up and acknowledgement of excellence. It is recognition of people who didn’t just set up automation and a chatbot, then do the legendary Ron Popeil, “Set it and forget it.” Instead, they iterate, remediate, and most importantly, really listen to their customers.

 

Human and Machine Collaboration Instead of Machine Control

These great companies don’t just integrate technology and put a workflow application in control of their human workforce. They don’t put machines in charge with an escalation path that never finds a real human to read it and take action. Instead, they set up environments where there is human and machine collaboration. This is how errors are corrected before they are magnified and grow exponentially out of control. This is how good decisions and return on investment (ROI) in technology happen. These winners light the path for others so they can learn from what went wrong and what went right.

Therefore, this award is dedicated to documenting the ways companies and people do things right. Most importantly, it documents the ways they fix things when they went wrong. That last part is a very difficult thing for anyone to do, so it deserves special attention. In some cases, some may really deserve that Nobel Peace Prize, assuming they went the extra mile and acknowledged the error instead of hiding it and then gaslighting people.

Why is this part so important? Because most of us can forgive acknowledged mistakes when they are accompanied by real corrective actions. That’s because we are all smart enough to know that we are not perfect, either. We are all just fragile humans doing the best we can with the information and resources we have at the time. That’s why I focus on my motto, “One percent better every day” instead of rehashing mistakes.

 

Learning Equally from Successes and Failures

Why does Hunter Storm focus on the fixes? Hunter always says she learned more from her mistakes than from her successes. That’s why she pays tribute to that learning path here. The metaphorical School of Hard Knocks is the best education some ever receive. Hunter always says she got a PhD with honors from her metaphorical alma mater.

She hopes this award and the associated articles will help others get the benefits of the education without the pain of the hard knocks. So she took that education to heart and turned it into real-world successes. These successes resulted in Hunter Storm winning multiple awards and honors. She hopes this unofficial honor, the Doing It Right Award, will help others feel at least somewhat as recognized as she felt when she received those accolades.

 

How Hunter Storm Got the Idea for the Unofficial Doing It Right Award

How did Hunter Storm get the idea for the unofficial Doing It Right Award? As stated above, it was born of her personal experiences while developing this website. Hunter went through many issues while rebuilding it after a failed migration.

As the Hunter Storm Official Site home page says, this is her personal and professional digital portfolio, résumé, and communication portal. That meant she needed it to be as perfect as possible, since it is a direct reflection of her credibility, professionalism, visibility in her profession, as well as the official hub and repository of her contributions to her fields.

You can learn more about these contributions on her Athletic Achievements, Artistic Achievements, and Technology Achievements pages.

 

The Imperfect Storm of Unfortunate Events

Unfortunately, while working through challenges with search engine optimization (SEO) for this domain, her web hosting provider, and a digital reputation attack, Hunter Storm experienced major issues across multiple global technologies. This resulted in endless email chains with no resolution, search engine rank and visibility issues, reporting and analytics challenges, and much more. This went on for months, with no transparency or resolution.

You can learn more some of these issues in Hunter Storm’s articles, Positive Online Community | Strategies, Tools, and Partnerships and Protecting Online Reputation | The Ultimate Guide.

 

Sunlight Breaks Through the Clouds

Then, Hunter Storm contacted one company about a new issue with automated content devaluation (i.e., a “low-value” flag) due to a new artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm. To her great surprise, someone at that company corrected the issue the very next day. She had just written an article about the issue, which she immediately updated to praise the company and the person or team responsible for the fix. Thus, the idea for the unofficial Doing It Right Award was born.

 

You’re Doing It Wrong!

Since Hunter experienced all of those global issues, why not create a page about all the epic fails? Something like the humorous memes titled, “You’re Doing It Wrong,” that document all the ways people fail. These are often humorous, but sometimes deeply disturbing. Yet, she knows we could all go on forever about the ways things have been done wrong. It would be easy for her to document every technology failure or “opportunity for improvement,” as the saying goes in corporate lingo.

However, she chooses to focus her attention on what is working, and upon building a positive future for a human-centric collaboration between people and technology. That’s because Hunter Storm does not just view this as a top global AI, cybersecurity, technology expert and strategist. She also applies the lens of an artist, a singer, and a musician, looking to blend things into a harmonious and unique composition that stands the test of time. Future-proofing while honoring the past and navigating the present with style and flair.

 

You’re Doing It Right!

So, instead of using the opportunity to point fingers or poke fun, Hunter Storm thought:

“What if we turned that humorous negativity around and focused on those who are doing things the right way? The unsung moments where someone really listened, took ownership of an issue, acted with integrity, and actually fixed something or did something right? These everyday people are the unsung heroes who set the bar for their organizations. They demonstrate what real, effective service and success look like.”

 

Future of the Unofficial Doing It Right Award by Hunter Storm

Hunter hopes that by recognizing greatness here, she can create a self-replicating ripple effect of real continuous improvement across the technology industry. She aims to lead the way back to a time when errors were few, but they were acknowledged and corrected. Back to a time when users and companies had communication paths and transparency.

This approach resulted in great customer satisfaction, elevated service ratings, and decreased break-fix issues. A return to less money spent on surface fixes, reactive tactical measures, and unnecessary expenditures. A way back to a time when investments were strategic. A well-marked path back to a time when they were designed with a clear view to a balanced future. This future focus led to far greater ROI across every metric.

 

Retiring the Award Someday

When that ripple of recognition and positivity has permeated the industry, Hunter hopes to be able to retire this award. Why? Because when she retires the award, it will be because everyone is doing it right. At that point, there wouldn’t be anything special in giving everyone a gold star. Until that day comes, the following section provides Hunter Storm’s personal and professional recognition for the efforts of these companies and people. Kudos for a job well done!

 

Winners of the Unofficial Doing It Right Award from Hunter Storm

The following is a list of real-world examples of what happens when integrity, listening, real intelligence (RI), and action converge.

 

OpenAI

Members of the human oversight team demonstrated a great deal of discernment and discretion during Hunter Storm’s interactions with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and their advanced AI systems. This took place during her groundbreaking research, The Storm Project | AI, Cybersecurity, Quantum, and the Future of Intelligence.

The team navigated a highly unconventional situation with clarity, discretion, and grace under pressure. They were able to find and maintain the perfect balance between putting the company’s interests first, while still providing a truly exceptional level of guidance and guardianship of all interests.

Although she does not have a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) or any contractual obligation to do so, Hunter decided to withhold certain details here due to the sensitive nature of her research and work with the systems. This is also a trust mark of mutual respect and professional courtesy.

You can explore more about these trust-based relationships in her article, Conversations with a Ghost.

 

Yandex

Hunter has had a few interactions with the Yandex team, and they always responded promptly and clearly. Amazingly enough, every response came from a real human who understood the email and provided actual answers. Despite the previous good experiences, Hunter eventually ran into a more technical SEO issue. Due to some of her experiences with other technology issues outside of Yandex, she didn’t have a high level of confidence this issue would be resolved. However, she was pleasantly surprised.

 

Enterprise Class Response

Yandex responded to Hunter Storm’s email quickly, within just a few hours. It was a real response, with no generic gaslighting. The person took ownership of the issue and got it corrected by the next day. Furthermore, the Yandex team continued to monitor their systems, and proactively discovered and remediated subsequent instances of the original issue. The issue remains remediated.

 

Technological Oversight and Stewardship

Their attention to detail resulted in Hunter’s website having no SEO issues within the Yandex environment. This demonstrated a level of care for the customer; willingness to acknowledge, correct, and proactively monitor issues; teamwork; and technological oversight. These things used to be commonplace. Now, they are rare enough in the real world to warrant this public acknowledgement of a job well done.

Read more about the circumstances surrounding this acknowledgement in Hunter Storm’s article, How Algorithmic Mislabeling Hides Helpful Content and What We Can Do About It. Delve into the second article in the Algorithmic Mislabeling series, How Algorithmic Mislabeling Hides Helpful Content and What We Can Do About It | Part 2 | Google.

Note: If you’ve done something great and don’t see your name here yet, please be patient. We make best effort, but website updates take time.

 

Blueprint for Human-Centered Tech Success | Doing It Right in the Real World

This accolade is well-earned and impossible to ignore. Every post about a winner of this unofficial Doing It Right Award becomes a challenge, a blueprint, and a beacon. Hunter Storm hopes this page will make readers curious, cause professionals to self-reflect, and make watchers sit up straighter. It definitely positions her as a precision chronicler of positive deviation.

 

A Perfect Storm of Wild Cards

Sometimes, deviation can be a good thing. We say we are looking for “outliers,” “disruptors,” “wild cards,” “unicorns,” and “innovators.” We want the “unconventional” person for our team, the “tech maverick.” We want someone like her, although we may expect this tech maverick to look more like a 6’2″ square-jawed miliary veteran than a petite, blonde, smiling cybersecurity veteran like Hunter Storm.

What if instead of looking for one of these to save the day, we transform ourselves and our companies and became what we are looking for? Most importantly, what if we did it with real integrity, not the kind that is simply written in a handbook?

This page and the journal articles aren’t just praise. They are remembrance of greatness, and a map to how the tech industry gets back there. The roadmap to as close to 100% customer satisfaction as we can get without someone “finessing” reviews and comments.

She believes that if we focus on our strengths, and simultaneously control for our weaknesses, we can align our shared vision with reality. Hunter Storm knows firsthand what we can do as an industry. That’s why she wants to take the time to recognize everyone she catches Doing it Right.

 

Discover More from Hunter Storm

Enjoy this article about the unofficial Doing It Right Award from Hunter Storm? Dive into more of her articles, pages, posts, and services below.

 

Need a little help until you turn your team into a well-oiled machine of innovation? Are you looking for a game changer? Contact Hunter Storm for a discrete discussion about a world of possibilities.

 

About the Author | Hunter Storm | Technology Executive | Global Thought Leader | Keynote Speaker

CISO | Advisory Board Member | SOC Black Ops Team | Systems Architect | Strategic Policy Advisor | Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cybersecurity, Quantum Innovator | Cyber-Physical-Psychological Hybrid Threat Expert | Ultimate Asymmetric Advantage

Background

Hunter Storm is a veteran Fortune 100 Chief Information Security Officer (CISO); Advisory Board Member; Security Operations Center (SOC) Black Ops Team Member; Systems Architect; Risk Assessor; Strategic Policy and Intelligence Advisor; Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cybersecurity, Quantum Innovator, and Cyber-Physical-Psychological (Cyber-Phys-Psy) Hybrid Threat Expert; and Keynote Speaker with deep expertise in AI, cybersecurity, and quantum technologies.

Drawing on decades of experience in global Fortune 100 enterprises, including Wells Fargo, Charles Schwab, and American Express; aerospace and high-tech manufacturing leaders such as Alcoa and Special Devices (SDI) / Daicel Safety Systems (DSS); and leading technology services firms such as CompuCom, she guides organizations through complex technical, strategic, and operational challenges.

Hunter Storm combines technical mastery with real-world operational resilience in high-stakes environments.

Global Expert and Subject Matter Expert (SME) | AI, Cybersecurity, Quantum, and Strategic Intelligence

A recognized subject matter expert (SME) with top-tier expert networks including GLG (Top 1%), AlphaSights, and Third Bridge, Hunter Storm advises Board Members, CEOs, CTOs, CISOs, Founders, and Senior Executives across technology, finance, and consulting sectors. Her insights have shaped policy, strategy, and high-risk decision-making at the intersection of AI, cybersecurity, quantum technology, and human-technical threat surfaces.

Projects | Research and Development (R&D) | Frameworks

Hunter Storm is the creator of The Storm Project: AI, Cybersecurity, Quantum, and the Future of Intelligence, the largest AI research initiative in history.

She is the originator of the Hacking Humans: Ports and Services Model of Social Engineering, a foundational framework in psychological operations (PsyOps) and biohacking, adopted by governments, enterprises, and global security communities.

Hunter Storm also pioneered the first global forensic mapping of digital repression architecture, suppression, and censorship through her project Discrimination by Design: First Global Forensic Mapping of Digital Repression Architecture, monitoring platform accountability and digital suppression worldwide.

Achievements and Awards

Hunter Storm is a Mensa member and recipient of the Who’s Who Lifetime Achievement Award, reflecting her enduring influence on AI, cybersecurity, quantum, technology, strategy, and global security.

Hunter Storm | The Ultimate Asymmetric Advantage

Hunter Storm is known for solving problems most won’t touch. She combines technical mastery, operational agility, and strategic foresight to protect critical assets and shape the future at the intersection of technology, strategy, and high-risk decision-making.

Hunter Storm reframes human-technical threat surfaces to expose vulnerabilities others miss, delivering the ultimate asymmetric advantage.

Discover Hunter Storm’s full About the Author biography and career highlights.

Professional headshot of Hunter Storm, a global strategic leader, AI expert, cybersecurity expert, quantum computing expert, strategic research and intelligence, singer, and innovator wearing a confident expression. The image conveys authority, expertise, and forward-thinking leadership in cybersecurity, AI security, and intelligence strategy.

Securing the Future | AI, Cybersecurity, Quantum computing, innovation, risk management, hybrid threats, security. Hunter Storm (“The Fourth Option”) is here. Let’s get to work.

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