I just ran a Google Blogsearch and found about 25,300 results on “kenneth cole” twitter Egypt. The world doesn’t need another post about the fashion designer who stumbled badly with a tweet that hijacked the #Cairo hashtag to promote his Spring collection.

And yet, an elephant lingers in the room.

The posts I’ve read (which, admittedly, doesn’t come close to 25,300) have fallen into a couple clear categories. Some, like Todd Defren’s great post with the provocative headline, offer advice about how to avoid such incidents. “Think before you tweet,” Todd says; “What goes online stays online.” eConsultancy wants readers to avoid jumping on hashtag bandwagons.

There was the usual flurry of posts offering crisis communications counsel. Still otherposts recount the sequence of events (the original tweet, the apology tweet, the inevitable launch of the parody Twitter account, the more formal apology posted to Cole’s Facebook page, the deletion of the original tweet, the blowback).

Some posts are hybrids, like Olivier Blanchard’s post that offers links to additional reading along with a plea to “let the guy dust himself off and carry on.” Some posts settle for simply beating up on Cole. Some lament the political insensitivity. Some highlight the fact that it was Cole himself who tweeted without the guidance or oversight of a social media professional who would havek nown better. Some analyzed the effectiveness of the company’s response. But most, Like Defren’s, focus on how tweets and other kerfuffles like Cole’s could be avoided.

Here’s what’s missing:

You can train. You can teach. You can develop policies and guidelines. You can ensure a social media professional is guiding your efforts. That’s all good and important stuff, but it won’t stop a high-profile employee from running off the rails.

Say all you like about Cole (you probably won’t say anything that hasn’t already been said); the guy’s human, like the rest of us. Fallible. We all screw up from time to time. Shit happens. Cole’s blunder isn’t the first of its kind and it won’t be the last. Whole Foods CEO John Mackey ignited a firestorm when he wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed that took a strident approach to a political position diametrically opposed to his company’s customer base. Habitat, a UK-based furniture outlet, hijacked a hashtag during the post-election unrest in Iran for purposes similar to Cole’s. The list goes on. And on.

You need to be ready for it. It’s going to happen, there’s no reason to believe your organization is immune, and you need to know, in advance, how you’ll handle it. One hopes it won’t be by doing a quick search for all the posts telling you what to do.

Despite what you may have been reading among those 25,000-plus posts, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Your organization’s response will depend on factors including the nature of the gaffe, how the Internet is reacting (outrage? contempt? sarcasm? tangible action like a boycott?), who the aggrieved party is, the amount of goodwill the company and/or the perpetrator have in the bank, the transgressor’s personality, to name just a few.

But in between “Don’t let this happen” and “Oh my God, look what our loose cannon of a CEO has done!” there’s a lot of room to be prepared for that inescapable goof that’s coming your way.

There is one last point to address. Some will be inclined to shrug the whole thing off. After all, despite the uproar that earned coverage from mainstream media, Kenneth Cole shares are trading today just a shade higher than they were before Cole posted the tweet. If it doesn’t affect the company’s profitability, they would argue, it doesn’t matter.

There are, however, adverse consequences beyond the bottom line. How many great people will opt not to apply for jobs at Kenneth Cole? What will the tenor of media coverage be like in the months ahead? For how long will this incident be a prominent part of the mix when someone searches Kenneth Cole? And let’s face it—the fact that shares are relatively flat could mean that the surge in share price that might otherwise have happened was stopped dead in its tracks. You’re always better off without having your reputation dragged through the muck.

Sometime in the next week, sit down and knock out the key elements of your company’s response when somebody you work with pulls a Kenneth Cole. Then start fleshing it out, determining which tactics are appropriate under different circumstances. Be ready.