Before we turn the crystal ball on and look toward 2013, let’s see how I did in predicting what would happen in 2012. After all, if you’re going to go on record about something, you should be held accountable for your words.

1. “We’re going to see a great deal more consolidation in the social services and software space a la Radian6 and Salesforce. This will lead to fewer options, less innovation, but greater adoption by corporate organizations.” Nailed this. From the acquisitions of Buddy Media (SalesForce), Vitrue (Oracle) and Wildfire (Google) to the partnerships between SymphonyIRI and Visible Technologies, the social media software world get very small.
2. “The 3 social platforms I’m doubling down on are Get Glue, Pinterest and Google+. They have the right intersection of features, natural consumer behavior, and simplicity to generate scale and enterprise adoption.” Depending on how you look at it, I was right on 1 or 2 of these. Pinterest became a huge player. No one would question that. The world remains divided on Google+, but I’m taking it as correct prediction, given the linking Google is doing between Google+ and search. Get Glue was a bit of a swing and a miss, though the recent merger between them and Viggle, shows why I was betting hard on social TV. The right prediction would have been Nielsen’s partnership with Twitter.
3. “Conversely, 3 platforms that have gotten a lot of attention, but I’m not bullish on for the enterprise are tumblr, Path (though personally, I love it) and Oink.  They’re all too niche or lack many of the necessary features needed by the enterprise to justify interest, dollars and adoption.” Nailed this. Oink disbanded. Path hasn’t grown. Tumblr, is still not widely adopted, if for not other reason than they don’t seem interested in working with clients to shape the platform for the enterprise.
4. “More and more organizations will hire “heads” or “leaders” of social to help them take advantage of the space. This will be good for the industry. These heads will hopefully bring balance by eliminating hype and keeping people who thrive on hype, honest.  Additionally, I’ve seen other prognosticators indicating an end of the “Social Media Strategist” role and I couldn’t disagree more.  While, that role may eventually change, morph, and probably fold into the “Marketing” or “Digital/Interactive” role, make no mistake companies like buckets and definitions. Social still being new, will lend itself to being put into manageable buckets by organizations. Those manageable buckets require titles and organizational structures that clearly define boundaries.” Nailed this 100%. Everyone is hiring or has hired heads of social, even if companies have no idea what to do with their new hires.
5. “Facebook is going to see serious backlash from marketers. They will no longer be able to simply rely on the fact that they are the biggest social network out there. The lack of data transparency, real analytics and their constantly changing platform that’s skewed toward making your purchase ads to create visibility, will lead marketers to consider, “what is my Facebook exit strategy?”” Total homerun on this. It wasn’t just marketers though. When Facebook went public they street even offered some backlash.
6. “We’re going to see a large number of companies launch in the social insights space. Our problem isn’t having enough data. If anything we have too much data.  What we lack are insights from the data.  Companies like Crimson Hexagon are in a great position to take advantage of this trend.” Nailed it, though I wish I had used the word “big data” since, that’s basically what these companies are claiming to solve for.
7. “There will be an unfortunate amount of companies trying to socialize everything. This will lead to poor user experiences, bad marketing and jump the shark moments like GM/Chevy crowd sourcing their Super Bowl spot.” Yep, predicted very accurately. From Wal-Marts Black Friday partnership with Facebook to McDonald’s using Hashtags in commercials, we have seen the socialization of just about all areas of marketing communications.
8. “There will be a backlash similar to what we observed in 2001, where companies will no longer accept half-baked and poorly thought out strategies.  If you will, we’ll see serious curbing of of social ideas for social sake…or to check a box. There will be great rigor being applied to the evaluation of ideas.  Those companies speaking in a language of likes, followers and impressions are destined to earn raised eyebrows and clenched pocketbooks.” Tough to judge this one. There isn’t an official scorecard/evaluation of this prediction, but given the number of agencies like Victor and Spoils that couldn’t make it as standalone buzzword throwers, and were either acquired (like V&S) or simply folded up shop, I feel good about this prediction and I’m calling it a correct prediction.
9. “The social media “old boys club” will finally see real cracks. It will no longer be acceptable for social media thought leaders to simply pat one another on the back. As competition increases in this space, it will become counter productive to not call BS and hold others accountable for what they say, think and write.” We saw this one come out in full fashion, especially as companies hired heads of social and digital, who were very seasoned. There were more questions about social media “gurus” than there were compliments. What did this lead to? Well, MANY, of these folks who were part of the old boys club, ended up joining larger companies. Speculation would be they plateaued and/or realized they were not going to be successful on their own.
10. “We will see a major class action lawsuit or congressional inquiry into the privacy, or rather, the lack their of of social networks. Facebook will draw the lion’s share of attention, but companies like foursquare, Google, twitter and others will also come under fire.  People…the customers…the members will take back their privacy.” Happened. Happened. Happened again. The most recent version of this was the lawsuit brought upon Instagram after Instagram chained their TOS.

Last year, I predicted 10 things I thought would happen in Social Media. Given my success rate was 90%+, I’m not pushing my luck in looking toward 2013, so I’m going with 5 predictions. Here’s the 5 things I think I think about digital in 2013:

1. We’re going to see less emphasis on hiring heads of social and digital and more emphasis on hiring heads of analytics and insights. Now, let me clarify this one. Many companies have a Chief Information Officer or a SVP of Insights. Few companies have a head/lead who is focused on taking structured and unstructured data and turning it into meaningful insights. We’ve heard the word “Data Scientist” thrown around in the last year. We’ve also heard “big data.” These two phrases are generally linked. Unfortunately, usually the role of understanding the data is ignored, outsourced or left to software. Companies who really want to know if what they’re doing is working and who want to invest smarter, will start looking for their own Jonah Hill character from the story Moneyball. Get ready to see lots of active recruiting for Chief/Lead/Principle Data Scientist.
2. We will see a run of acquisitions by older/established organizations on startups or young organizations. What do I mean? We’re going to see something like Nielsen buying Viggle/Get Glue or Wal-Mart pulling another Kosmix purchase. You’ll see this also in the product space. For example, I think you’ll see someone like Gillette purchase Dollar Shave Club or Pepsi purchase Soda Stream or USA Today purchase Pulse.
3. There will be too many companies trying to solve the “social TV” question. They will all offer different metrics. The lack of standardization will cause a big problem and set us back. At the end of 2013 or the start of 2014 we’ll see one clear winner.
4. Twitter will file for IPO. Simple as that.
5. Facebook will become less friend and more frenemy. To soften their transition toward frenemy, they will offer a tiered structure/classification that will essentially become a pay for access/feature model. Lots of words, I know. Here’s a good example of what I think might happen. Facebook will offer a premium Page Analytics platform that’s only available to brands/companies that have pages with X number of “Likes” or who pay Y dollars a month. In the case of needing X Likes, this is in essence pay for access, because many brands will need to launch Like acquisition campaigns to get the requisite number of Likes needed. You may see something like a fee for API calls to for Facebook Connect or paying X dollars a month will net you premium account management support.

While not a prediction, something I would like to see happen is Apple buy Sprint, create their own cellular network, stop offering iPhones on Verizon and AT&T and then really take it to Samsung. It’s doubtful, but it would be awesome to see happen. If 2012 was a predictor of my own prognostication, I’ll nail at least 4 out of 5 of these predictions. We’ll see how I did, come next December.

Amid all of the “advertising” discussion related to the first ever Facebook Marketing Conference in New York, there was another conversation taking place that didn’t quite get the attention it should have. That conversation was about the great digital/social talent war being waged right now.

For the past few years, in corners, bars and in places we don’t talk about, organizational leaders have been discussing the conundrum they are facing with respect to the exceptional digital talent they need, but don’t understand how to hire, leverage or retain. I’ve watched this up close from both the client side and the agency side for the past 15 years. I’ve watched companies trick themselves into believing they don’t NEED the talent, that the talent can be outsourced or that the talent could simply come the same places they’d been recruiting talent. I once worked in an organization that had more than 20 VPs of Marketing, but the highest ranking digital person was Director.

In perhaps one of the most important presentations I ever saw, an unnamed Global VP of Digital at a large CPG company showed a slide that had the logos of companies that had leaders of digital at the VP level and above vs. those with Director and below. On the left you had companies like Nike, Coke, P&G and on the right you had companies like Adidas, Pepsi, Kraft. She asked the question, which side would you want to work on? This was a presentation in 2004. She got it.

Well fast forward to 2012 to the Facebook Marketing Conference (aka fMC), on a very large stage, we heard progressive executives acknowledging that to succeed your organization will need digital talent. Not just any type of digital talent…EXCEPTIONAL digital talent.

Throughout fMC we heard several one-offs from executives like Nigel Morris (Aegis), Chris McCann (1-800 Flowers) and Ken Chenault (CEO of American Express). A powerful exchange happened early in the afternoon when Nigel shared:

The ad industry needs an “absolutely radical transformational change”, in terms of talent and organizational design. “We had to rip down all the silos.” Organizations need to be more collaborative, allowing specialists to work across different disciplines. “It’s really tough, it’s difficult, but unless our industry grapples that,” we’re not going to be able to satisfy clients.

That was followed up by Chris saying “Well, you can do all that, or you can just hire everyone under the age of 30.”

Agencies and clients are finally on the same page when it comes to what’s needed to continuing being relevant to their customers. It was a big “WOW” moment for me. In the hallways and breakout session areas, I found myself talking openly with people from agencies, retailers, CPG companies, research firms and Facebook proper about this talent issue. There was universal agreement that this will be the year we all look back and see there was a change…a true shift in how companies are thinking about digital talent.

Just so you don’t think I was full of it or cherry picking quotes to support my point of view, you should watch and listen to Ken Chenault’s fireside chat with Sheryl Sandberg. It’s nearly 30 minutes long, but it’s something you really should make the time for. In this conversation, you get a peak into how a very savvy organizational leader is embracing digital. The most telling statement from Ken during the “lightening round” portion of the chat, comes at the 24minute mark. When asked by Sheryl, “learn in the classroom or on the job” Ken makes no hesitation in saying, “on the job.”

Think about that. The CEO of American Express, fundamentally values real world experience more than books and degrees. That’s a big statement. And frankly, it something companies need to start understanding. The talent war in digital will be won, by those organizations willing to find the exceptional digital talent and be comfortable with the fact, that talent doesn’t neccessarily come from a “B” school. No, it comes from garages, agencies, start-ups, improv schools and many other non-traditional “learning centers.”

Have you heard the phrase, if you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got. Well, I ask you, how is it that genuinely smart people at the heads of companies fail to understand this very basic concept? You can’t simply turn the marketing guy who reads Mashable into the head of digital. You can’t simply hire the interns into Sr. Level spots because they grew up with Facebook.  You can’t simply take the head of IT and put him at the forefront of leading your digital strategy. You can’t simply hire someone with a Marketing degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard…who worked at McKinsey or Accenture and let them lead something as complex as digital, because they have the “management” pedigree. It just doesn’t work like that.

The digital talent war is real. Forward thinking companies were attracting, retaining and growing their digital talent back before 2000. Smart companies were doing it between 2000 and 2007. By the time 2007 rolled around, those who were late to the party were woefully behind. They felt the impact of being late in their mindshare, stock prices, quality of partners and of course financial KPIs.

Despite having all of this knowledge, with hindsight being 20/20, there are still organizations who aren’t investing in exceptional digital/social talent, despite the fact their competition most certainly is. We’re not moving toward an always on, ever connected digital and social world. We’re already there. And to not make having the the talent needed to take advantage of this new world a priority is simply maddening.

As Al Pacino stated so eloquently in The Devil’s Advocate, “vanity is definitely my favorite sin.”  Even those of us who believe we’re above vanity, are truly vane at heart.  We often hear about people having their “5 minutes of fame.”  Think back to pre-internet boom…say 1995.  DVD players and DVRs weren’t in everyone’s home and most relied on VHS tape players.  If you were lucky enough to get interviewed on TV by a reporter you certainly got your 5 minutes of fame, but sharing the fame with someone was pretty damn tough.  The advent of the internet certainly made distribution of that video content easier, but you still had to be lucky enough to get interviewed.

Well, today, we’ve got blogs, tweets, and web sites.  Hell we’ve got millions of them.  We’ve got millions of people all trying to be the next great journalist.  They all think, yours truly included, that what they write somehow matters.  The web and the tools (like WordPress) that we have at our finger tips have made publishing and giving people their 5 minutes of fame a hell of a lot easier.

But, here’s the thing, getting quoted in digital print just doesn’t have the same punch, meaning, and impact as being featured/quoted in “traditional” print.  Look I’m an interactive guy, living in a digital world, and I can tell you that getting featured in Wired Magazine means substantially more than being featured on Wired.com.  When we get featured in print, in the real print, we run out of our house and pay for multiple copies of the magazine/newspaper.  Heck, we might even buy every copy the store has.  We save 1 for posterity, we send 1 to our mom, we bring a few into work, and we save the rest.  We’ll scan copies of the article and email them out even though the digital version of the article is available on the publication’s web site.

Why do we do this?  Well, I’ll let the words of Shel Silverstein, as sung by by Dr. Hook And The Medicine Show, in the song The Cover Of “Rolling Stone” answer that question:

“Well we are big rock singers, we’ve got golden fingers
And we’re loved everywhere we go
We sing about beauty and we sing about truth
At ten thousand dollars a show
We take all kind of pills to give us all kind of thrills
But the thrill we’ve never known
Is the thrill that’ll get you when you get your picture
On the cover of the Rolling Stone

{Refrain}
Rolling Stone
Wanna see my picture on the cover
Rolling Stone
Wanna buy five copies for my mother
Rolling Stone
Wanna see my smilin’ face
On the cover of the Rolling Stone

Vanity is definitely my favorite sin and there’s nothing better than seeing your name or face in traditional print. Until we stop wanting to see our names in print, we’ll still need print, and print will continue to play a major role in the fabric of our lives.