Over the past few days I attended the Social Commerce Strategies conference in Las Vegas, NV. Honestly, it was one of the best organized conferences I’ve attended. Well done to the team putting together the entire event.

I had the opportunity to connect with a wide range of organizations looking to turn social into a revenue generator. We heard from Dell, Coke, Travelocity, Whirlpool, GNC, Shop Igniter, Wal-Mart Labs and a host of others. The following is a summation of key take-aways that spanned the multiple presentations, panels and conversations that took place:

1. Social is an accelerator, not a direct generator: This was a big theme and something the Wal-Mart Labs championed. Social helps you make the cash register ring faster and with greater impact, but the mistake many organizations make is treating it like it’s own revenue channel. This was akin to early eCommerce websites, where the online experience was completely separate from the in-store experience. But, as those sites evolved, the connection between online and store became greater. Social should be considered the same way.
2. Predictive Analysis: Very impressive presentation from the Wal-Mart labs team. They believe that they can predict an online customer’s behavior with 90%+ accuracy based on the social graph data (likes, dislikes, interests, what they’ve shared, etc.) and shopping history. ShoppyCat, though low in “usage” is considered a success by the labs team because of the increased data acquired and it’s impact on future shopping experiences on WalMart.com.
3. The Hunt For Social Signals: Social offers us signals that should guide our decisions. What someone does in social leaves a digital fingerprint. But, those finger prints are often ignored because they seem small in the grand scheme of things and we’re usually focused on large social networks like Facebook and Twitter. But, when we look beyond those large networks, we start to see signals, a la cookies, that can help us guide what content to show and when.
4. Expressions over Impressions: A near continuation of #3, but people are now leveraging social to express themselves. Pinterest is a great example of this. The photos they pin are an expression and representation of the user. The best social experiences enable customers to express themselves. Coke referenced several initiatives for their Vitamin Water brand where they’re experimenting with this concept…some have worked and others not so much. I think Beauty and Photo for Walgreens have huge opportunity under this thinking.
5. Pay To Play: As social networks look to monetize and in some cases start delivering shareholder value (e.g. Google+) the ability to simply build on the backs of these networks organically is becoming harder and harder. A brand will either need to invest in complimentary advertising to make people aware of their initiative or invest in better and more compelling experiences. Both cost incremental dollars.
6. Social + Search = Gold Mine: Everyone agrees this is future. Social and search will continue integrating to provide a better and more personal set of search engine results. Brands will need to make decisions based on perceived intent. For example, if I search Walgreens Facebook Promotion, I should be driving someone to Facebook, not Walgreens.com. It seems basic and simple, but few brands are doing this. With only limited dollars to go around, it’s tough to justify driving someone to your Facebook page where the instant purchase opportunity is low. The efforts by Google+, in this area, will be interesting to watch. The prevailing thought and said by the head of social at Whirlpool was, “start thinking about your Google+ strategy and working closer with Google than you ever have before. If you don’t you’ll end up far behind.”

I presented on both a panel and a session called The Case For The Return on Amazing. The slides can be found here:

The video from slide 44 can be seen here:

All in all a good trip with lots of knowledge exchanged.

One think I did want to call out, since it came up in a lot of the offline conversations is that “tinkering” could be the next big thing for large organizations. Companies like Dell and Wal-Mart have teams dedicated to the idea of tinkering. What’s tinkering? It’s the concept of giving a team a problem, they in turn “tinker” and generate ideas. The ideas are rapidly prototype and thrust into social channels for immediate feedback. Bad ideas are dropped. Good ideas stick. And great ideas become something bigger. It’s innovation the way it should be…like a startup!

In the great Cameron Crowe Movie, Almost Famous, Russel Hammond the band’s frontman states with disgust to young William Miller, “We play for fans, not critics.” That blunt remark stems from William’s timid attempt at getting an interview from Russel’s band, Stillwater. While Russel’s comment was terse and harsh, it was completely spot on. Magazines, news papers, talk shows all exist to critique. But, if you create music that appeals to the only the critics, the pundits and the editors and you stop creating music for your fans… you’ll soon find yourself without an audience to create music for.

Pivoting into a direction, but with a similar theme, I’ve gotten more than a little caught up the Tebow mania. A few months ago, on ESPN 1000, a sports commentator (I forget which) said something very profound with regards to what John Elway, the General Manager of the Denver Broncos, should do about the fans demanding Tim Tebow become the starting the quarterback. He said, if you make decisions based on what the fans want, you’ll soon find yourself sitting along side those fans…watching the games.  I think the real point was that the fans aren’t well informed enough or qualified to be managing a team. They live for what they see on the field, not what’s happening behind the scenes.

With both situations, in both stories, there’s a simple and clear lesson – you have to know who to listen to and you need to make your decisions because they’re the right decisions, not because they’ll appeal to the critics.

One of the wonderful and sometimes maddening things about social media, is that it’s all on display for the world to see…for the world to pick apart…for the world to heap praise…and of course for the critics to play arm-chair expert. As I wrote last week in my post, Fortune Favors The Brave:

I knew when I recommended this program and when we launched it, that the social pseudo-experts would jump all over it. I knew we’d hear that you shouldn’t “sling mud.” I knew social meda “purists” would argue you shouldn’t pay for “social media.”

Sure enough, the social media critics came out in full force. Now, I’ll be the first person to admit that over the years I’ve critiqued commercials, websites, campaigns, hires, fires and just about everything else in between. I’ve always characterized these opinions as such. They weren’t facts. They were my opinion as an outsider. I can’t underscore enough the concept of being an outsider. As an outsider you lack an understanding of the goals, objectives, metrics for success, the strategy and of course the actual results. It’s easy to poke holes in something, especially when it’s controversial, without having any of that information.

David Berkowitz, a VP at 360i, who also happens to be a guy I’ve followed on twitter and respected for his thinking, was one of the dissenters. The meat of his blog post wasn’t really what I had issue with though. Again, we’re all entitled to our opinions. We’re all entitled to say, well, that’s not how I would have approached it…if you will, the end doesn’t always justify the means. No, the part I took umbrage with was actually a remark he left in the comments, in response to my feedback on his post. In his original post, David wrote, “The problem for Walgreens is that it’s bringing a lot of extra negative attention to the issue.” I questioned it, because by every evaluative tool we’re using, it’s just not factual. But, during our back and forth, he responded with regards to where all this negative feedback was coming from and his answer was:

“Oh, and the coverage from Ad Age, Social Commerce Today, my blog and others seem to be bringing added negative attention. Maybe it’s not a lot compared to other controversies Walgreens has faced, but it’s also potentially just starting. Even the tweets themselves include what – anecdotally from the dozens I’ve read in this unscientific sample size – I’d consider negative attention.”

On a lot of levels it’s comical. As an industry we demand analytics, results and ROI. We laud those who claim we can’t truly measure our impact in social media. We point to the tools that are available, the models that can be created and the case studies that exist, as proof that we can in fact measure social media.  Yet, when we measure social media, when we scrutinize it, when we evaluate it, when we have the proof points staring us in the face…we still poke holes if the data doesn’t substantiate our own opinions.

That said, let’s break this down, because this is an important concept for any person in a leadership capacity to understand:

1. Don’t make decisions on what AdAge, the New York Times, Seth Godin or any person/company/publication will think, unless your strategy is focused on making sure you earn their praise, support, etc. Their job is to cover the story and your job is to trust your insights and gut.
2. Never use anecdotal feedback as a proxy for real data. It’s not a good substitute and can lead you astray.
3. Remember insights lead to strategy and strategy leads to the plan. If your insights are solid and strategy grounded in those insights the plan rarely fails.
4. Understand your audience. Similar to #1, you need to know who you’re trying to reach and what message you’re trying to deliver. In this case, the people were trying to reach don’t read Ad Age, Social Commerce Today or David’s blog. Heck, they don’t read my blog.

So long as there are means to have a voice, like blogs, there will always be opinion makers. There will always be people who will sing your praises and those who will question. Don’t get too excited by the praise and don’t get too disappointed by the criticism.  Rarely, is either group, close enough to the situation to make their feedback justified.

Trust your insights and play for the fans, not the critics.

Audaces fortuna iuvat – that’s latin for “Fortune Favors The Brave” or sometimes depending on the use and interpretation “Fortune Favors The Bold.” Over the years it’s been the rallying cry of several organizations and it’s something I adopted as a mindset years ago. Too often, we shirk from being bold, brave and taking risks. And why not? When a risk goes wrong, everyone looks for someone to point the finger at. I’ve always been ok with that approach. I like being accountable for my decisions. And often, they are bold, they are brave and they are risky. But, they are never ill-informed or not grounded in insights. See, that’s the key to being bold. Don’t be bold to be bold – be bold because your gut and your insights are supporting your decisions.

As I was writing this post, I came across this great post from Kathi Kruse, titled, “The Awesome Power of Bravery in Social Media.” It’s a great read, and not just because she leads with a timely quote from Richard Branson:

The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all!

Yesterday, we launched a very innovative, first of its kind social media program. It was a risky program that some have referred to as a war. It’s often easy to play armchair strategist without knowing the goal, the objectives, the strategy or the final campaign metrics.  I knew when I recommended this program and when we launched it, that the social pseudo-experts would jump all over it.  I knew we’d hear that you shouldn’t “sling mud.” I knew social meda “purists” would argue you shouldn’t pay for “social media.”  There were definitely potential downsides and less than 10% of all the conversation came from those dissenters.  That 10% number isn’t made up. You can do a quick pull of the hashtag #ILoveWalgreens certainly demonstrates a more than 10 to 1 ratio of positive to negative opinions. That ratio was also validated by 2 of our social media monitoring tools. Some of my favorite tweets can be found here.

Certainly, the program wasn’t perfect. No campaign is. We learned a lot.  We learned how to improve. We learned what worked. I also learned, what we’ve always known in this business…everyone thinks they know more than you do!  That’s ok. It comes with the territory. As Richard Branson said, “The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all!” So long as empowered to do so, I’ll keep blazing new paths, new trails, rocking boats and leveraging real insights to drive smart risky decisions.

I see the digital/social world a lot differently these days. Transitioning from the agency side to the client side can have that type of impact. Blatantly stealing the concept of “10 Things I Think I Think” from Peter King at SI, I wanted to capture the 10 things on my mind for 2012.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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?”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

We’ll have to revisit this list next year, at this time, to see how I did!

This is the 2nd of 3 posts covering updates, thoughts and ramblings from the past 3 weeks. The first post can be seen here.

1. I’m becoming more and more frustrated by companies like The Dachis Group and other social media consultancies. They’re great with data, great with theory, great with getting you educated, great with energizing and organization, but abysmal on execution. But, then again, isn’t this the problem with nearly all consultancies? I had a conversation at my last iMedia Summit with Converseon where they explained that part of their hiring strategy is to bring in people who actually brought social from strategy to implementation. They want battle tested people who can help an organization like Walgreens bring social to life. That’s no easy task. And the answer needs to be more than it requires “open leadership,” “cultural shifts” and “small wins.” I realize social is still new territory for a lot of people and companies. You’ll get more points with me saying, “we’re going to figure this out together” than pretending like you have all the answers.
2. I’m becoming more and more impressed with the folks at Lithium, every day. Smart people, they listen well, don’t try to sell us what we don’t need and are making an investment in time, resources and money to understand our challenges so they can craft a custom solution for us.
3. I visited Dell’s Social Media Command Center a few weeks ago. We were the 304th company to tour their facility and learn from Dell. My 2 big takeaways are, Dell is primed to launch a Social Business service vertical and do what companies like McKinsey, Altimeter, Dachis, Edelman, Digital Royalty, etc. can’t and/or have been unable to do well: help companies bring a forward not just a social business strategy, but an actual execution plan. They’ve been mining insights from these 304 companies and now have a very large data set about the struggles companies are having with social. Smart. The 2nd is that Dell has people they call “tinkerers” in their social media group. The tinkerers are the ones looking for new ways to solve problems. Similar to a social media strategist, these tinkerers are the ones responsible for a lot of the innovation Dell is doing in the social space. I like the idea of a tinkerer; agencies should be hiring this role as a 0% billable group, where the team’s focus is on trying to solve complex internal and client challenges.
4. In a few weeks the Leo Burnett Breakfast will take place. I participated in 2 of them and I can say with fact, this is a major reason why your billable rates are so high. The “breakfast” is a day long booze fest that starts at roughly 7am and continues through the night. The amount of inappropriate behavior that takes place through out the day is enough to make you shudder uncontrollably. Outside of the ridiculous spending to send 100s to the Cannes Festival, this is the single biggest waste of agency dollars by Leo Burnett…but remember, as clients we’re all paying for it. The Breakfast is a great example of what’s wrong with the advertising industry. We act more like Frat Boys and Sorority Girls after the homecoming game than business professionals up to the task of solving today’s business challenges.
5. The new Coldplay album, Mylo Xyloto, is good, but not great. Still falls way short of Parachutes, but it’s easy on the ears…makes for great background music.

Earlier this week I had the great opportunity to keynote the first ever Digital World Expo in Las Vegas, NV. Shawn Rorick put together a really solid summit. Digital World Expo was his brain-child and it’s impressive to see how he took an idea from concept all the way to execution. From coordinating the location, finding sponsors, locking down speakers, promoting the event and more, Shawn and his team did a tremendous job of delivering one of the better events that I’ve attended.

On day 1, I took to the stage to kick off and keynote the conference. My slides, sans the video content, can be seen here.

I’m thankful for Shawn’s invitation and those who crawled out of bed on a Monday morning at 8 AM to listen to my thoughts about the future and how to stay relevant over the next decade.

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to share my thoughts at DiGi Day Social on how organizations are evolving to drive social for their business. The slides from the presentation can he seen here:

And the full presentation, including the Q&A, can be seen here:

Social is growing up. Organizations are getting more sophisticated.  Much like 1997 when organizations starting hiding credible, battle tested leaders to manage digital marketing, we’re seeing organizations take control of their potential by hiring Sr. Leaders to head up social media. These Sr. Leaders don’t have the luxury or interest in talking in hype.  Expectations are high and results rule the day.  Companies and consultants that are selling social media services need to up their game.  The day when a company could walk in and sell a concept or service without accountability is nearing it’s end.  If we want social to have a seat at the adult’s table, we need to start treating like something that matters.

Yesterday we launched an exciting social program to support of our Walgreens Flu Season campaign.  Every time you check in to a Walgreens location on foursquare or Facebook Places, Walgreens will donate 1 flu voucher, up to 200,000, to someone in need.  That’s right, it’s that simple. You check in.  We donate a flu voucher.

But, what does someone in need mean?  Well, we’ve partnered with 5 great charities:

1. AmeriCares
2. American Diabetes Association
3. National Urban League
4. Feeding America
5. League of United Latin American Citizens

I’m a BMW guy. Always have been. Always will. Once turned down a job to work with Audi’s interactive agency because I couldn’t trade-in my BMW 530 for an Audi. Brand loyal and stubborn. If anyone was going to offer me a Klout Perk or ask me to test drive a new car, it should have been BMW. I begged BMW and their agency to do this in 2008. Sadly, I never even heard from them. Might help explain why they no longer have the business…but, I digress.  I’ve also been critical of Klout.  I think what they’re trying to do is ambitious and I applaud their efforts, but I still think their scoring model is not reflective of true influence.

Talk about an intro.  Well, with all the above stated, you could imagine my surprise when I received a Klout notification via twitter and email that I had been granted a perk from Chevy.  I was even more surprised when I learned that Chevy would be giving me a new Chevy Volt to play with for 3 days, as part of their Driving The Midwest campaign.  My Klout Perk read:

“The Chevrolet Volt is Yours to Drive
Klout, Chevrolet and DrivingtheMidwest.com invite you to be one of the first consumers to get behind the wheel of the all-electric Chevrolet Volt. Participants will receive a $50 gift card and an awesome driving experience which combines the efficiency and benefits of an electric car with the long-range capabilities of a traditional gasoline vehicle.”

I want to pause for a second and I think its important to talk about this whole program through two critical lenses:

1. The Klout Experience
2. The Chevy Volt Experience

The Klout Experience
Honestly, really solid.  Their notifications via twitter and email got me to click and learn more.  After seeing how awesome of a perk this was, I did start connecting some other social networks in an attempt to increase my Klout score and earn other perks.  Perks were a great motivator to link and sync more accounts…and in doing so, provide more information about me, to Klout.  The folks at Klout may not have mastered measuring influence, but they certainly are mastering gameification.  The entire acceptance process of the Perk was also simple.  Two clicks, if I recall, is all it took.

While the process of earning, accepting and ultimately redeeming a Perk was simple, I still question the value of Klout.  Think about this for a second.  I’m not influential about cars.  I don’t have car enthusiasts in my network.  Nearly everyone I know and am connected to has a foreign car.  Add into the mix, that I’m not a fan of hybrid cars…kinda hard to be be when you’re a BMW enthusiast, and you have to start to scratching your head.  Now, I will say, I have been a Chevy car owner before.  Around 2005 I was a Chevy Malibu owner.  It was a great car.  Prior to that car I owned a Suzuki Grand Vitara and a Toyota MR2.  After that car it was a BMW 530i and the BMW 328i I currently own.  I’m giving you this background, because I don’t understand how it is I “qualified” to earn a Perk for a Chevy Volt.  There’s no doubt a cool factor in being selected, but as a marketer, I hesitate about working with Klout.

The Chevy Volt Experience
The first thing I have to say is what a cool car. Seriously. It’s fun. It has oomph (is that a technical term?) that other hybrids lack. Having driven the Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius, I can say there’s simply no comparison. The Chevy Volt is a car, the other two are just go karts masquerading as cars. I was impressed with the style of the Volt. The exterior is striking and the interior has refinements that are usually saved for luxury cars. For example, not only is their a stylish, easy to read heads up display, but the center console has a large full featured touch screen display that basically controls the entire car. Having used BMW’s iDrive, I can tell you the usability experts at Chevy nailed this. The menus are intuitive, the iconography clear, the screen responsive and they’ve minimized the steps you need to accomplish a task. In most instances, I found myself needing only 3 taps.

There were some oddities though, that I need to call out. Leather seats? Check! Heated, leather seats? Check! Awesome, right? But, the seat adjustment options were all manual and quite difficult to use. The key fob was a mixed bag as well. It had remote start capabilities and didn’t need to leave your pocket to start the car. But, there was no keyless entry; yes, that means you have to use the fob to unlock the car by pressing a button. Even Toyota offers full comfort access where the fob never has to leave your pocket to open the door or start the car. Also, and granted this sounds like a nitpick, but I was stunned the car didn’t come with a moonroof. It just seemed like it would be such a great fit.

The handling was better than expected. Seriously. The steering was tight and responsive. I thought I’d feel every bump, but I didn’t. Honestly, when you consider how bad Chicago’s streets and highways are, this was a real accomplishment.

Ok, so what didn’t I like about the Volt? I think there’s really 5 big things I can point to; 4 of them Chevy could/can control and the other is just life.

1. The seats were uncomfortable.  I know they’re bucket seats, but even a 30 minute drive left my back and butt sore.  They’re leather and they’re heated.  But, they feel like a slab of marble.
2. The view through the back of the car was narrow and difficult. There’s a split in the hatchback window that makes seeing out the back nearly impossible.
3. Keeping with #2, the mirrors are either strangely placed or too small.  No matter how I adjusted them, I never felt like I could actually see to the left or the right.
4. The Volt is a hybrid.  To really maximize the value of the Volt you need to be driving the car on electric power.  Simple in theory.  But, to fully charge the car takes roughly 10 hours.  And, unless you live in a house or have an apartment/condo that has indoor/covered parking with charging stations, you’ll never be able to take advantage of the Volt’s amazing electric performance.  In my case, I have to park on the street.  That doesn’t exactly leave a lot of options for charging the car.  I will say this, charging the car, when possible, is easy.  You simply plug a cable that looks like an extension cord into an outlet with one end and into the car with the other.  Simple.  There’s really nothing Chevy can do about this. Even if they found better batteries, you’d still have the same plugin challenge.
5. Lastly, the cost.  Yowza.  The model I drove, ran roughly $45,000.  To put that into perspective…that’s more than a BMW 335i Diesel.  It’s more than a lot of cars.  Yes, I know we’re talking about two different mindsets for car owners, two different demographics, two different types of cars, etc.  But, still…

Just over 3 months in at Walgreens and to date, we’ve accomplished more than I had ever hoped we would. As we continue making social a key component to our marketing strategy we are growing our team by 3 people, across 2 distinct roles.

Social Media Planner/Strategist
Everyone wants to be the idea person. But, the strategist role is so much more than simply generating ideas in a brainstorm. They need to not only leverage data coming from our analysts, but also feedback from our community managers and social trends. They need to be ahead of our internal partners and agency partners when it comes to social knowledge. When Facebook changes their promotion rules…again…they need to know about it before anyone else. It’s being that invested and that knowledgeable that will enable them to be a valued resource, who is the first point of contact for new initiatives. Collaboration with our internal business owners is critical. The strategist needs to be a true partner. Someone who can provide direction and counsel, but also flexible to blend business needs with social behavior. Lastly, our strategists must ensure the our Walgreens overall strategic framework is being applied to every initiative. They must make sure that we are always delivering a return on investment AND a return on amazing. Daunting, but rewarding!

Community Manager
This has been such a misused term. It’s clear, so many people and companies, just don’t understand the value, power, influence and importance of the community manager role.  Let me first say, the community manager is NOT the person who simply updates Facebook and twitter. The community manager is literally the nerve center of the entire social media organization.  Why?  Because, they have their finger on the pulse of the community.  They know if you are over communicating, if the deals aren’t strong enough, if you aren’t responding faster enough, etc.  When someone asks, “do you think our fans will like X” the community manager doesn’t guess, he/she knows.  They are the voice of the community and they keep the social team honest to make sure we are truly providing  value to our community.  Ultimately, they have the unenviable task of balancing project goals and objectives with maintaining a strong community echo system.  Sure, they need to be focused and a detailed project/account manager.  And, they need to know how to publish content.  But, to simply think of them as forum moderators or content pushers, is to show they you don’t have a grasp on community management.  Our community managers will leverage insights from the planners/strategist and data from the analysts to maximize the business opportunity of the community while providing an outstanding experience.

At Walgreens, we’ve built social into a horizontal organization that acts very similarly to the hub-spoke-with many hubs model that Jeremiah Owyang often references. Part of having a horizontal organization is having a defined group of people that form a center of excellence. This group needs to be able to operate in a world of organized chaos, where process is a framework and not a linear means for reaching success.

Our Social Media Strategists and Community Managers are only two of the several roles that will be part of the center of excellence. Stay tuned for more on this topic; as we evolve our social media roadmap I’ll be able to share additional information.

This is an exciting time to join Walgreens. From tools to partners and opportunity to empowerment, you find another organization with the leadership, resources and commitment needed to succeed in social. We’re taking social serious. It’s not just a box to check; it’s a core part of our business strategy.