25 Inspiring Global Social Business Leaders

25 Inspiring
Global Social
Business Leaders
Why they are shattering the
traditional workplace as we know it.
Authored on behalf of IBM by:
Maria Huntalas
Sr. Marketing Manager,
IBM Social Business, Strategy & Solutions
www.linkedin.com/mhuntalas
@mhuntalas

© Copyright IBM Corporation 2015
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January 2015
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1:
Social Business:
Shifting From Noun to Verb 5
Chapter 2:
A Pilot Project:
25 Inspiring Global Social Business Leaders 15
Chapter 3:
The One-to-One Connection:
How to Inspire Others to Tell Your Story 22
Chapter 4:
The Value in Partnerships:
Working Together to Bring Your Story to Life 30
Chapter 5:
The Impact of Technology:
Changing the Way We Engage 37
Chapter 6:
Putting It All Together:
Where Do We Go From Here? 43

25 Inspiring Global Social Business Leaders
5
Chapter 1:
Social Business:
Shifting From Noun to Verb
Social business is incredibly powerful, as it connects people with each
other to share knowledge, identify expertise, ignite innovation and
ultimately help drive the bottom line. Over a surprisingly brief period,
the use of social networking technologies in the workplace has grown
from limited experimentation to what’s now mainstream corporate
practice. As the line between traditional business and social business
blurs, people have moved from asking, “what is a social business” to
“how do we conduct social business.” By weaving social into other
trends driving innovation right now – such as cloud, mobile, big data
and analytics – an organization can put people at the center of the
conversation and create tighter engagement with customers.
But to fully understand social business and its impacts, we need to shift
our thinking, and start thinking about it as a verb – rather than a noun.
It goes much deeper than being a static object and instead morphs
into an action, a movement and ultimately the “how” in your business
with many benefits, including a more engaged workforce and stronger
relationships with customers.

6
The fact is that social networks are facilitating huge numbers of people
to share their ideas, beliefs, and stories – creating communities of
influence. Social is now the top Internet activity1
and by 2017, the
global social network audience will total 2.55 billion.2
Nick Blunden, Senior Vice President of Digital at The Economist Group,
describes social business as a mindset or a culture. Social recognizes
that collaboration, particularly collaboration facilitated by technology,
and the collective knowledge that results from that collaboration is a
large source of competitive advantage for businesses.
Moreover, social business leadership comes in all shapes, forms and
sizes, as it smashes down silos and fosters connectivity and new levels
of collaboration like never before.

7
Moving Beyond Tweets and Likes
The social business phenomenon isn’t just about tweeting and likes
– it’s about something far more powerful. As Bryan Kramer explained
in his book: “There is No B2B or B2C: It’s Human to Human: #H2H”
businesses are starting to behave and sound like real people dealing
with other people, rather than “business” to “consumer.”
It’s about connecting people – employees, partners, and customers –
with each other to share knowledge, identify expertise and better reach
customers. Leaders are using social business strategies, technologies
and practices to make a significant impact on their businesses and
communities. Using the power of personalized storytelling through
social business, impactful stories can be unleashed into the
marketplace – and shared like never before.

8
Take, for example, Nestlé. When the company hired Peter Blackshaw
in 2011 to be its Global Head of Digital and Social Media, the Swiss
food-and-beverages giant was in the middle of a social media
firestorm. Nestlé, whose products include baby food, dairy products
and chocolate, had been accused by environmentalists of using palm
oil from companies that were decimating Indonesian rain forests.
Its initial response to the criticism – asking YouTube to remove an
anti-Nestlé video and warning some Facebook users against posting
altered Nestlé logos – only fanned the flames.
As The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which is the research arm of
The Economist Group, describes in its profile of Blackshaw, he quickly
shifted the company’s approach, creating a digital acceleration team,
or DAT, to train Nestlé employees to make better use of digital tools
and use special software to monitor all social commentary about the
company. The team is tasked with “listening, engaging, transforming
and inspiring,” he told Reuters in October 2012. The DAT software
captures millions of posts each day on topics of interest to Nestlé.
“If there is a negative issue emerging, it turns red,” Mr. Blackshaw said.3
Leveraging digital technology fosters changes, including increased
connectivity, collaboration and community. And it’s through these
changes that internal and external engagement is improved positively
for everyone involved.
Sharing Stories, Forging Connections
Social networks are giving people a voice to share their stories – and
ultimately be heard. People now have a microphone to share their
experiences with clients and partners that want to better understand
how to drive transformation, inspire innovation, build collaboration and
create amazing, personalized customer experiences.

9
And when you put people at the center of the conversation through social
business, the audience begins to listen, co-creation and collaboration
occur, and equally important – the community becomes engaged.
“Before social business, companies were very hierarchical, and
information was shared hierarchically, and people’s contributions were
determined partly by their geography and partly by their relationships,”
says Blunden. “But what social business does, putting people at the
center of conversations, allows you to create much greater levels of
engagement and participation at every level of the organization.”
Through social initiatives, you can identify a whole new set of
influencers who are embracing and cultivating relationships across a
wide array of initiatives and campaigns. TD Bank Group’s Wendy Arnott
admitted to the EIU3
that most people do not readily associate “bank”
with “social business.”

10
“The first question we had to ask ourselves is, ‘Can a bank be a social
business?’” the Toronto-based bank’s Vice President of Social Media
and Digital Marketing said at a New York conference last year. “We’re a
heavily regulated industry, and we take a very conservative approach.”
But Arnott saw that TD Bank Group’s customers and employees were
starting to use social media, and around 2011, the bank decided,
“we should be there, too.”
She developed a two-pronged strategy for TD Bank designed to
make it a truly social business from the inside out, including both an
internal social network that connects all 85,000 employees in the
U.S. and Canada in a very open way, and a social strategy for the
banks’ customers.
“As we were ramping up on the inside, we also were listening to our
customers,” she says. “We were noticing that Facebook, Twitter and
LinkedIn were becoming popular, so we developed a social media
program focused on customer service.”
Arnott put together a team that monitors all the different social
networks and responds quickly to any questions, complaints or
suggestions, seven days a week. The team has grown quickly, along
with this new customer service channel, a group that started with
three people now numbers 25, with another 45 who contribute and
provide oversight.
To further improve customer service, TD Bank also created forums on
its website where customers and employees from across the bank can
interact. This example not only illustrates how influencers can embrace
and cultivate relationships, but also how it promotes collaboration.

11
Putting People at the Center
Many of the greatest inventions in history are connected to specific
individuals, such as Thomas Edison and the light bulb and Alexander
and penicillin,” explains Blunden. But the majority of these inventions
are the by-product of the work of many. Similar in nature is the benefit
of putting people at the center of the conversation. It unlocks greater
levels of innovation and ideation, and it is about the benefits of
information sharing.
“People increasingly talk about big data and the digital world, with data
being a strategic asset,” says Blunden. “But data is a strategic asset
only when you expose it to the right people in an organization and
exploit the ability to share information through digital technology, in a
seamless way. And it’s clearly driving efficiency in the way business
is conducted, with a much greater ability to execute at speed.”

12
Take, for example, Gilberto Garcia, Director of Innovation at Cemex.
In the EIU’s profile story, Garcia explains that he’s always looking for
disruptive technologies that have an impact on business performance.
He had a chance to put social technologies and principles to work in
2009, when Cemex’s chairman asked him to develop a social business
strategy to improve collaboration and innovation across geographies.
At that point, the company mainly used conference calls and video
conferencing to connect its employees, who today number 43,090
worldwide. That system was cumbersome because of the many time
zones and languages employees had to accommodate.3
Garcia helped create Shift – as in “shift the way we work” – an online
platform for Cemex that provided open forums where employees could
communicate and share ideas about products and work processes.
Shift offered forums for various areas of expertise, and employees
quickly started using them to solve problems, improve business
practices and drive innovation.
The platform also offered blogs, wikis – collaborative online documents
–and videos to collect new ideas and demonstrate new ways of
doing things.
Being Heard, and the Unexpected
IBM and the EIU set out on a project that would select 25 inspiring
social business leaders from around the world and make sure their
stories are heard. The project drove us to think about companies that
were using social business outside the obvious norms, and what the
term “social business” really means to them. The selected individuals
came from a cross section of companies and represented a variety of
insights and strategies being applied.

13
We found that through this transformative initiative, a company’s social
business journey isn’t always led by marketing, or one department –
or even one role. The 25 inspiring global social business leaders are
a diverse group that included individuals in product innovation,
communications and marketing, vice presidents, chief executive
officers and many others serving in a variety of roles. All of them
embodied individuals who are embracing social business in their
daily work, and understand the value and power of putting people at
the center.
Another interesting discovery was that companies really benefiting
from social business have made considerable investments, and not just
financial, in ensuring they have the infrastructure in place to enable their
commitment to collaboration and authentic engagement. And what
was also clear is that social technologies can not only have a positive
impact, but also create real value across every aspect of the
value chain.

14
Resources
1. Business Insider, “Social Media Engagement: The Surprising Facts About
How Much Time People Spend On The Major Social Networks,”
September 26, 2014
2. eMarketer, “Social Networking Reaches Nearly One in Four Around the
World,” June 18, 2013
3. Excerpts from the 25 global social business leaders profiles were
authored by The Economist Intelligence Unit

15
Chapter 2:
A Pilot Project:
25 Inspiring Global
Social Business Leaders
Over the past few years, social technology has shifted the way we
do business. In fact, 70 percent of executives believe that social
business can fundamentally change the way their business works.1
People are now sharing original content, joining virtual communities,
tapping into the advice and expertise of others, and sharing experiences
at an unprecedented pace.
In addition, we’ve observed a shift of power in commercial relationships
from producers and sellers to buyers – which has significantly changed
the marketplace. Leaders now envision greater collaboration with
customers, partners, employees and other stakeholders. In fact,
90 percent of chief executive officers plan to collaborate much more
extensively with customers over the next three to five years, according
to the 2013 IBM Global C-Suite Survey.2
In this spirit of advancing IBM’s conversation about corporate
leadership in this new age, IBM teamed up with the Economist
Intelligence Unit (EIU) on a project to identify the 25 inspiring global
social business leaders.

16
This type of initiative was new to IBM and the EIU, but both companies
understood the value of teaming and collaboration, especially when it
came to engaging influencers in sharing their stories.
Forging the Partnership
The EIU is the research arm of The Economist Group and is best known
for its country analysts who follow developments all over the world.
It also has a thought leadership group that conducts research projects
on business trends, for a C-suite audience. The EIU has its own survey
panel of opinion leaders, about half of whom are executives at the
C-suite level, and it conducts many surveys.
However, the 25 Inspiring Global Social Business Leaders project was
different from anything the organization had worked on in the past.
The EIU would identify individuals inside organizations who are using
social business processes, practices, and technology to positively
impact their company or organization. They would then profile these

17
leaders and elevate them as thought leaders, sharing their stories and
teaching lessons to a wider audience.
Before embarking on the process, however, the EIU created a framework
for identifying the leaders and selecting who would be featured.
It actively sought out individuals who are considered visionaries,
culture shapers, strategic thinkers, storytellers and entrepreneurs.
Using traditional research, recommendations from a specially convened
advisory board, crowd sourcing and an open nomination process, the
EIU received nominees from all over the world. The advisory board,
which included an IBM representative, then selected the awe-inspiring
final 25.
All these leaders used social business strategies, technologies and
practices to make a significant impact on their business and community.
Leveraging the power of personalized storytelling, the EIU and
IBM unleashed their stories and videos into the market using a

18
phased-amplification launch plan supported by crowd chats and blogs
and tied it to the broader strategic themes. They accomplished this
through a very detailed and strategic process that included delivering
this content to the market in bite-sized and snackable ways. The result
was tremendous impact, which included 34 million impressions, 3,667
social mentions, 1,402 unique users and a nomination for the Ad Age
BtoB Award.
Advisory Board, Nomination Process
and Criteria
Both IBM and EIU take a rigorous research approach to these type of
initiatives, so, to start off the project, they created an advisory board
to assist with identifying the criteria of what makes a social business
leader. This advisory board not only identified social business leaders
but also figured out why they were the most inspiring. Members of the
board included:
• Nick Blunden, Senior Vice President of Digital at The Economist
Group and global publisher of Intelligent Life and The World
in 2015
• Cheryl Burgess, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Marketing
Officer at Blue Focus Marketing, author of The Social Employee
(McGraw-Hill)
• Lisa Gansky, Chief Instigator at Mesh Labs
• Brian Solis, Principal at Altimeter Group and author of What’s the
Future of Business (WTF)
• Maria Winans, Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President of
Marketing for Commerce, Social, and Mobile at IBM (with advisor
Eric Lesser, National Director of IBM Institute of Business Value)
Brian Solis explains: “My role on the advisory board was to add what
was described as an expert voice in addressing the state of the industry

19
and also offer insight into who the leaders were in the evolution of
social business. Additionally, I was asked to identify those pushing for
acceleration and advancement of the industry as a whole, not just
the companies that they were working for…those looking beyond
the technology.”
The EIU created a process that used its survey platform to gather
nominations through an online form from the public. The EIU, IBM and
the advisory board did a social media push, reaching out through Twitter
and other social channels to get nominations of social business leaders.
The EIU reviewed each nomination and conducted research to identify
additional people for the board to consider. They then presented a short
list of 40 to the advisory board, which came to a consensus on 25 to
profile and the top five individuals to also highlight in videos, selecting
those who had really great stories to tell.
Some were pretty well known in their fields, while others were
up-and-comers. The goal was to spotlight a broad range of people with
a variety of outlooks and strategies, rather than a few household names.
Those Named to the List:
The Personal Impact
Being selected to participate in the 25 Inspiring Global Social Business
Leaders project was a game changer for many of the chosen individuals.
For some, it validated what they were already doing in social business,
and, for others, it launched their careers to new levels. While we didn’t
set out with this as an original goal of the project, both the EIU and
IBM were pleased to have been able to provide the catalyst for bringing
their stories to the world. Here are a few of the most powerful personal
impacts from the 25 Inspiring Global Social Business Leaders project:

20
Validation of social business credibility.
One recipient explained that a specific project gained increased
awareness as a result of the individual being selected to participate in
the 25 Inspiring Global Social Business Leaders project.
New opportunities to explore social business initiatives.
One of the youngest members chosen found that when providing
advice and direction on new initiatives, it was given greater importance.
This enabled growth and the ability to try many new things from a social
business angle.
New speaking engagement and interview opportunities.
After being selected for the project, one awardee was offered four
different speaking engagements, and another said it led to many
interview opportunities. An additional by-product of this recognition
was the employees’ renewed belief that they were engaged and actively
helping deliver the companies’ brands.
Brian Fanzo, who was selected to participate in the project, explained
that being featured gave him access to people in the industry that would
have otherwise been difficult to connect with. Like many social business
leaders, before being named to the 25 Inspiring Global Social Business
Leaders list, he often ran into obstacles validating social media utilization
because he wasn’t in the “marketing silo.”
But he was able to leverage other social business leaders’ stories as
proof points to say: “Hey, what I’m doing isn’t just a worthless waste of
time. I promise I’m increasing productivity. I’m not adding extra steps.”

21
Engagement Results
The results of the project were significant, with 34 million-plus
impressions, 3,667 mentions and the engagement of 1,402 unique
users. In fact, it was a top-performing social campaign for both the EIU’s
thought leadership group and IBM Social Business and was recently
nominated for an Ad Age BtoB award. Beyond the numbers, though,
perhaps the most significant result was the building of new relationships
with these 25 inspiring global social business leaders, resulting in a
whole new level of engagement.
Moreover, the companies could promote the sharing of stories with
clients and partners who wanted to better understand how to drive
transformation, inspire innovation, build collaboration and create
amazing customer experiences.
References
1. MIT Sloan Management Review, “Social Business Study: Shifting Out of
First Gear,” July 16, 2013
2. IBM, “2013 IBM Global C-Suite Survey,” 2013

22
Chapter 3:
The One-to-One Connection:
How to Inspire Others to
Tell Your Story
Customers today are demanding a more personalized experience than
ever before, which leaves businesses working harder to meet these
rising expectations. When used effectively, the rewards of personalization
can be enormous – increasing sales and revenue, enhancing online
conversion rates, boosting average order value, driving cross-sell and
upsell initiatives, and strengthening customer loyalty and retention.
But even more powerful than personalization is a concept that marketers
have been familiar with for years: real-time personalization. It’s not just
making advance decisions about what message customers will see the
next time you interact with them – it’s also being prepared to make
fact-based decisions about personalized messages to create real-time,
meaningful interactions.
And while most companies are beginning to understand personalization
and even real-time personalization, others are taking this concept a
step further to include personalized engagement, which, in social,
is a two-way conversation.

23
They are leveraging personal connections and giving people a platform
to tell their stories through social networks – exposing large numbers of
people to other’s ideas, culture, beliefs and technologies, and creating
communities of influence. The initiative to select the 25 inspiring global
social business leaders was one such project. Through it, we took this
idea of personalization – and the one-to-one connection – and gave
people a microphone for telling their stories in a very meaningful way.
Amplifying Connections
Customers have grown increasingly overwhelmed with outbound
marketing offers, and consequently the effectiveness of traditional
outbound marketing campaigns has significantly declined. The ability
to connect with customers on their own terms, at any time, with any
device can dramatically improve the effectiveness of your marketing
efforts. We already know that real-time personalization allows you
to successfully:
• Increase response rates of inbound channels by maximizing the
relevance of messages presented in real time
• Improve each customer’s experience by personalizing his or her
interaction with your company
• Maintain a consistent dialogue with customers across all channels
• Achieve better overall marketing results, including increased sales
and revenue, improved online conversion rates, and strengthened
customer loyalty and retention
But social business takes all the benefits of personalization and brings
them into a very public forum. It gives people a way to share their
insights with others – on a massive scale – and creates overwhelming
value for everyone.

24
In general, engagement and collaboration trends are on the rise, and
leveraging these one-on-one connections – through social business –
offers a creative outlet. For example, 57 percent of CEOs expect digital
channels to be a key way to engage customers1
in the future.
Creating these personally relevant experiences and knowing each
customer in the right context transcends to a whole new level when
giving them an opportunity to share their stories and insights. The result
is more meaningful interactions and tighter customer engagement.
For example, 36 percent of companies that use social tools have reported
higher customer service ratings.2
And many business leaders are coming
to realize that social business, combined with giving customers a voice,
changes everything.
In fact, 70 percent of executives believe that social business can
fundamentally change the way their businesses actually work.3

25
B. Bonin Bough told the EIU that he has seen the results firsthand.
The 36-year-old New York native is Vice President of Global Media and
Consumer Engagement at Mondelez International, which sells such
well-known brands as Oreo, Cadbury, Ritz, Wheat Thins and Trident,
and he has been closely watching technology upstarts for ideas that
can give his social business strategy extra energy.4

26
Lately, Bough has had his eye on product personalization and
3-D printing. Faced with these potential disruptions in the food industry,
he urges his colleagues to be proactive. “I’ve been passionate to make
sure that people own their destinies.”
Sherri Maxson, former Head of Social Business at W.W. Grainger,
explained in her EIU profile that everything is about relationships.
Maxson arrived early to the social revolution. “For me, it started in 2005
and 2006, when blogging was a new medium for companies,” she says.
She built her career on being Internet savvy, first building websites for
fine art photographers and then moving into digital marketing. “I came
to life when the Internet was born,” she said at a conference a few
years ago.4
It soon became clear that the practice of social business in a
business-to-business environment is not so different from the
business-to-consumer world. In both contexts, “It’s about relationships,”
Maxson says.
She explains that putting customers at the center is still the key to
success; in the 21st century, this requires listening to them on social
networks. “My goal is helping companies understand the value of social
media and how it can help your business.”
Through inspiring others to tell their story and by forging mutually
beneficial partnerships, companies gain a tremendous opportunity to
reach others as never before — and make relationships much deeper
and more valuable.

27
Inspire Others, Tell the Story
Inspiring others to tell your story is all about keeping people at the
center of the conversation by generating dialogue that adds value
through co-creation. At the WeFirst Leadership Summit 2014, Heather
Wajer, VP of Marketing with the Livestrong Foundation, shared insights
on social business, collaboration and co-creating to scale innovation.
She developed new solutions with the community and wove those
solutions into the cloth of the organization to make a larger impact on
the lives of cancer survivors.

28
But in addition to keeping people at the center of the conversation, it’s
also important to focus on the “we” through engaged communities and
personalized engagement. Liz Heller, Director of Business Development
at TOMS, shared insights on this, as her company focused on
transforming internal and external collaboration through social platforms
and scaling through collaboration. Through this approach, they drove
campaigns through social business and leveraged social to listen to
feedback and give people the voice that they crave.
Being Personally Relevant
Creating that one-to-one connection is ultimately about being personally
relevant – inspiring others and giving them an opportunity to share
their valuable insights and vision – which positively impacts everyone.
Building these connections and partnerships, however, requires people
to be open to examining all potential possibilities, even the ones that are
slightly unexpected. Because in the end, it’s sometimes the unexpected
connections that yield the most significant, and at times unexpected,
results.

29
References
1. IBM, “IBM Global C-Suite Survey,” 2013
2. ESG Research Report, “Social Enterprise Adoption Trends,” June 2012
3. David Kiron and others, “Social Business Study: Shifting Out of First
Gear,” MIT Sloan Management Review, July 16, 2013

30
Chapter 4:
The Value in Partnerships:
Working Together to Bring
Your Story to Life
Social is bringing new possibilities to business through both expected and
unexpected partnerships. The statistics are telling – an unprecedented
78 percent of people are sharing knowledge through social.1
But perhaps even more telling is the fact that 49 percent of people

31
are using social to engage experts.1
In addition, consider the fact that
people’s activities are far more accessible, with many talking about
issues – and specific brands – in greater detail, and 81 percent of people
engaging in brand conversations.2
The 25 Inspiring Global Social Business Leaders project encompassed
two partnerships. The first was between IBM and The Economist
Intelligence Unit (EIU). However, a second group of partnerships
emerged, and that was between IBM and the individuals selected.
Together, these two partnerships represent thinking outside-the-box
and bringing the power of storytelling to the conversation to forge more
meaningful connections.
Elevating the Voices of Others
Telling stories brings an element of “openness” to social business.
Through the project with the EIU, IBM forged a connection with Xiaomi
Co-founder Lin Bin, who is focused on bringing this element of

32
openness to social business. His company is breaking the mold
for technology companies – especially when it comes to internal
customers: the employees.3
Xiaomi is giving employees a voice through social media and through
the elimination of the top-down structure of most Chinese companies
in favor of a flat management structure. The company has only three
management levels, and employees are using social media to talk
to one another – to announce lunch events, form work groups and
more. Xiaomi employees talk to suppliers via MiTalk, the company’s
smartphone messaging and chat app.
The company takes this a step further, soliciting open feedback from
users – even inviting them to vote product features in or out – through
online forums, MiTalk and other social media. It has 20 million registered
users on its forums and a staff of 20 to sort through the comments.
In addition, Xiaomi has some 50,000 “VIP users” who regularly test new
prototypes and products.
Xiaomi is leveraging those internal connections to form partnerships,
tell stories and make internal customers feel valued. Social media,
in fact, is becoming part of the company’s DNA.

33
Rethinking Relationships in the
Context of Social
Chris Crummey, Worldwide Director of Sales for Social Business for
IBM, recently shared some recommendations for organizations who
want to inspire a more collaborative workplace culture – one that is truly
people-centric. Chris emphasizes the importance of starting with
a well-defined strategy, recognizing the importance of engaging
employees, reinventing business processes through social, and driving
collaboration through the wisdom of the crowd.
He also highlighted key findings from the recent IBM Study on Social
Business, which are shared here.
By applying these strategies to build connections, you can accelerate
your business, enhance collaboration and build engagement on a larger
and more impactful scale.

34
Digital Partnerships,
Driving Industry Growth
When thinking about forming partnerships, many look to the community
to find people who are seeking a way to tell their stories and have
valuable insights to share. At the WeFirst Leadership Summit 2014,
John Roulac, CEO and Founder of Nutiva, shares his insights on social
business and talks about how Nutiva has engaged their community to
grow their business. Their strategy is remarkably successful, with the
company landing the sixth spot on Inc. magazine’s list of fastest-growing
companies for six consecutive years.
He suggested that companies solicit the community’s input on how
to amplify the dialogue. He also stresses the importance of workforce
culture and knowledge sharing, and the benefits of driving e-commerce
on the Web through social.

35
Overall, the use of social not only extends to customers but also creates
relationships within a community, with a focus on dialogue, sharing and
adding value – ultimately, providing a powerful foundation for sharing
stories, that otherwise may never be told.
The Right Partnerships,
Meaningful Connections
Selecting strategic partnerships allows you to generate content creation
to reach a specific audience, Scott Rouesch, SVP, Takepart, explained
recently while attending the WeFirst Leadership Summit 2014.
But in addition, you can change the conversation on key issues.
So when selecting partnerships, it’s important to be intentional with
your focus and to influence the partnerships – and the conversations on
key issues. This ex-tends not only to external partnerships, but also to
employees as ambassadors for your company.
Rouesch explains that social business and partnerships have a formula
that influences many, including the bottom line. And that formula is:
doing well + doing good = your bottom line, doubled.

36
References
1. PRWeb, http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/7/prweb9705916.htm,
July 19, 2012
2. ClickZ, “Social E-Commerce and the Customer Network,” Aug. 27, 2013

37
Chapter 5:
The Impact of Technology:
Changing the Way We Engage
Technology is changing the way that people communicate, learn, work
and play. In fact, by 2015 there will be over a billion smartphones in the
world.1
In addition, Apple users have an average of 48 apps on their
devices and Android users average 35 apps, according to the Nielsen
Company.2
But the mobile experience, as well as technology as a whole,

38
goes so much deeper than before, explains Brian Solis, who served
on the EIU advisory board that helped to select the 25 inspiring global
social business leaders.
“When you say the word mobile, you think tablet, you think phone,
but you don’t think of the context in which you use those devices,”
says Solis.
Technologies, including the context in which those devices are used,
have forever shifted the perception of relationships, engagement and
fair exchange of value. In the context of social business, this technology
is being leveraged to give people voices, which positively impacts
everyone.
Rethinking Customer Needs
High-performing businesses are leveraging technology to serve
customers in many different ways. First, they are focusing on customer
value and rethinking operations in order to profit while delivering value
to customers. Second, they are capturing customer insight, while gaining
a deeper understanding of customer needs and behaviors through
real-time analytics – extracting meaning from the massive amounts of
text, video, and audio content that people create and share daily.
Andfinally,businessesarefocusingoncustomerengagement,connecting
with customers in a meaningful way using a variety of means, and offering
a valuable customer experience.
Leveraging new capabilities and transforming your engagement strategy
to give customers a voice is powerful. Think about what customers are
willing to give up for the ability to be “known” and understood.
For example, 80 percent of individuals are willing to share their personal
information in exchange for personalized offers.

39
In addition to wanting companies to know and understand them, people
are connected in ways that are unprecedented in history – and they are
forever tethered to a variety of devices. In fact, smartphone users check
their phones an estimated 150 times a day.3
Eighty-four percent of
millennials and 70 percent of boomers say that social and user-generated
content has an influence on what they buy.3
And all this, of course, ties
into social business.
To compound matters further, customer expectations are steadily
increasing. For example, customers expect a five-minute response
time when connecting with brands via social media.3
And as a result,
brands are now playing by new rules of engagement. They must know
each customer in context, deliver personally relevant and rewarding
experiences, and learn the value of co-creating with customers,
employees and partners.

40
Knowing and Engaging With Customers
Through Technology
Establishing true customer engagement is similar to perfecting a recipe.
You have to try new combinations, see how the mix works and adjust
until it is right. Just ask Marco Magnaghi, who until recently served
as Business Innovation Manager at Amadori. He pioneered the Italian
food company’s online outreach to customers, serving up everything
from bake-offs and recipe guides to microsites aimed at younger users,
according to his EIU profile.4
Back in 2010, a major challenge for creating a budding social
business lay in evaluating whether social initiatives were successful.
Few benchmarks were available by which to judge them; no one knew
whether, say, adding 5,000 Facebook followers in a site’s first week was
an encouraging or a discouraging result.
So Magnaghi focused on creating a voice for the company that would
connect with social media users and ran tests to see what content hit
home and what missed. The goal was to be “able to understand what
consumers and users wanted to know” so Amadori could give it to them,
says Magnaghi, who is now Chief Digital Officer at Maxus Italy, a media
agency of GroupM, which is a unit of the global advertising agency WPP.
Success, he believed, would come from knowing and engaging
customers and differentiating Amadori from rivals.
This is a prime example of how the methods by which customers
engage with technology, such as mobile and social, are changing
everything for business.

41
The Technology and Storytelling Connection
With customer expectations changing so quickly, businesses have
more opportunities to leverage rapidly emerging technology to tell
stories – and ultimately connect. At the WeFirst Leadership Summit 2014,
Andy McKeon, Global Customer Marketing Lead at Facebook, shared
perspectives on social business creating the most relevant content
for communities and individuals. He explained that storytelling, the
shift to mobile, mobile video, and removing “social” and “digital” from
marketing are key to businesses.
He also highlighted the importance of using digital to inform your
creative from the start, connecting with people with relevance and
focusing on business outcomes rather than social metrics. He explained
that future success is tied to:
1. The shift to mobile
2. Content relevance
3. Focus on business outcomes
4. Personalized engagement

42
By creating collaborations through storytelling, all businesses are
able to integrate technology to create real value for both internal and
external customers.
Tying It All Together
In the end, it’s about social, mobile and real-time connections – and
how those pieces work together to enable stronger connections among
people. They can share more easily than ever, right in the moment,
at any given time. Through the 25 Inspiring Global Social Business
Leaders project we learned some valuable lessons and gleaned some
interesting insights on where this is all going in the future.
References
1. Computer World, “Most will access Internet via mobile devices by 2015,
IDC says,” Sept. 12, 2011
2. Watershed Publishing, “In addition to share leadership, Android and iOS
users have the most apps and use them the most,” 2014
3. IBM, “Customers Rewrite the Rules of Engagement,” 2014
4. Excerpts from the 25 global social business leaders profiles were authored
by The Economist Intelligence Unit

43
Chapter 6:
Putting It All Together:
Where Do We Go From Here?
When IBM teamed with The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), it wasn’t
just about creating a mutually beneficial relationship through the 25
inspiring global social business leaders project. It was also about
giving people a voice to share their stories. And in the future, the
power of true engagement, facilitated by social and mobile technologies,
will no doubt be more tightly integrated into regular business as social
permeates across all different departments within business and silos are
broken down.
More than ever, productive and profitable relationships with customers
will be rooted in a company’s ability to interact with them in ways that
are meaningful and relevant. This poses two distinct challenges: the
ability to understand exactly what an individual customer needs, and
the ability to address that need at the correct point in time.
The integration with social business makes this possible through
providing an openness that hasn’t been available in the past.
Britta Meyer, Chief Marketing Officer at WageWorks, explained in her
EIU profile: “You have to let go of the fear. You can’t just post Tweets
and go on Facebook. That’s not going to do anything for you anymore.

44
What companies need to do is live and breathe what the principle of
social stands for – which is being open and listening.”1
Understanding how customers want to interact in the future – and
meeting them there – will become increasingly important when it comes
to interactions, and truly creating a sense of personalized engagement.
Uncovering the Needs of the Future
To better understand people and customers, we need to use the
insights gleaned from data to help us better establish personalized
touchpoints and engagement. This requires a comprehensive
understanding of multiple types of data that reveals who the customer
really is and what they care about.
Predictive analytics can help reveal individual motivations for actions
– instead of relying on assumptions about such motivations based on
surface data. This type of analytics uncovers true individual needs

45
and preferences based on complete, comprehensive data, and, then
predicts individual behaviors. Ultimately, this means organizations can
actively manage both the content of the interaction and the timing of it,
ensuring that it is relevant and meaningful to the customer – and, in turn,
profitable for the organization.
The Forefront of Cognitive Computing
In addition to leading in predictive analytics, IBM’s Watson will also play
an important role in the future. Watson processes a question through
an approach similar to one that humans use. It starts by analyzing the
question (or case) as input and generates a set of features, then
hypotheses. Using hundreds of reasoning algorithms embedded in the
system, Watson does a comparison of the language of the question
itself, as well as that of each of the candidate answers. Statistical models
are then used to determine how relevant the answers are, producing a
percent of confidence for each answer.
It’s technology like this that in the future will help us understand
customers in ways we haven’t been able to in the past. Leveraging
these insights will drive engagement, create stronger relationships and
drive meaningful interactions with customers. And it’s through these
high-quality, ongoing interactions that the company can serve
individuals’ needs not only as customers but also as people – which
ultimately is the goal of any relationship.
Social Business: The Next 10 Years
In addition to exploring technology like predictive analytics and cognitive
computing, we spoke with the 25 inspiring global social business
leaders to get insight on what the next 10 years hold. Brian Fanzo,
one of the leaders profiled by the EIU, believes that in the next decade
social won’t be an employee community, and it won’t be a customer

46
community, but instead it will be a social business community, where
all who are involved work together to solve problems. Other social
business leaders identified a few common themes moving forward.
It’s no longer “social business.” It’s simply business.
Social is a business environment that recognizes the continuum of
opportunities and challenges that “life” puts forward for us. Technology
will be more mature, which will enable social relationships in more
natural ways, and some of the serendipity that is lost in the virtual
interactions today will be made possible once again with tools like
Watson – which will be able to infer connections and create opportunities
for intentional serendipity.
The future of work focuses on the individual, and the community.
Social technologies have a major impact on how we work, and how
we become more productive. 94 percent of surveyed workers have felt
overwhelmed by information to the point of incapacity.2

47
We are overwhelmed with information overload in the workplace,
and today’s tools are not adequate for the workplace of the future.
Especially email – a particular source of frustration when it comes down
to today’s worker. People are looking for an easier way to collaborate
with the people who matter to us most – one that centers on the
individual and brings a sense of community to our virtual workplace.
Like what IBM Verse offers – a shift from “me” to “we” with
communication and collaboration that understands you through
personalization.
A proliferation of new devices and networks will allow us to
connect in all-new ways.
The tools and technologies will be more advanced and integrated.
However, the fundamentals of relationship development will remain the
same. Bidirectional engagement will be just as important in the physical
world, as it will be in the virtual world. Ten years from now, we’ll be looking
at a much more interconnected world, and tools like instant translation

48
will be widely used to connect social business leaders from all around
the world and remove what will then be archaic language barriers.
Community will be the focus.
Employees and customers will be treated and valued as the most
important aspects of a business. Better market and customer insight
will drive outstanding customer experience, which will lead to revenue
and shareholder growth.
Social will no longer be limited to specific departments.
It won’t be confined to marketing or customer service; or to levels, such
as “lower ranks”; or to industries, such as media or advertising – it will
be pervasive from all roles within the organization. For example,
social might be integrated within procurement, supply and logistics or
human resources.
Fanzo further explains that in the future when businesses embrace
social business, they’ll make their employees “rock stars” empowering
them to act as ambassadors and talk with the community – instead of at
them from the brand level.
Moving Forward
While it’s true that businesses in the future will know more than ever
about their customers, the ways that interactions take place between
them and their customers will also change. Juliana Rotich, Co-founder
and Executive Director at Ushahidi, warns businesses to focus on
utility over appearance. “It’s not just about what looks pretty,”
Ms. Rotich told the EIU. “Software needs to work for each situation and
solve a problem.”1

49
Lauren Vargas, Head of Social Media and Community at Aetna, says
that more change is on the way. According to her EIU profile, better
social listening has already driven significant change in her company’s
website, which has been cleansed of the legalese that customers
despised. As more employees get more social, more change will come,
she said.1
Through our work and collaboration with the EIU on the 25 Inspiring
Global Social Business Leaders project, we found that it’s about more
than “engagement,” as these connections extend outward to not just
social but mobile and digital – and at a global level. It’s about being an
“open business” and how we leverage knowledge to foster innovation
in the future.
Brian Solis explains that what the EIU and IBM tackled with the 25
inspiring global social business leaders project was just the beginning
of what’s referred to as digital transformation. As a business becomes
social, it also opens doors to new ways of working. Business models,

50
workflows, systems, will undergo digital transformation to compete for
a new generation of customers and employees he believes. And that
was his point all along. “Forget social media,” he exclaimed. “Think
about what social media means to how people connect, communicate
and discover. Becoming a social business is an act of becoming more
human and meaningful in a digital economy.”
But in the end, when thinking about what social business means, many
people are stuck between wondering if it’s a business that’s engaged
in social – or if social business is linked to a company’s “point of view.”
But it’s actually both. To truly put people at the center of the conversation,
and engage with them authentically, you have to better understand
them. And by using technology, such as analytics and cognitive
computing, you can better understand those social interactions across
all different types of social networks, to not only better understand
people, but ultimately have more meaningful interactions.
References
1. Excerpts from the 25 global social business leaders profiles were authored
by The Economist Intelligence Unit
2. Basex, “The Knowledge Worker’s Day: Our Findings,” 2011

51
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank and acknowledge the following individuals who
contributed and supported the 25 Inspiring Global Social Business
Leaders project and the writing and production of this eBook.
25 Inspiring Global Social Business Leaders Project Lead
Contributing Author:
• Maria Huntalas, Sr. Marketing Manager, IBM Social Business,
Strategy Solutions
Executive Sponsors:
Marketing for Commerce, Social, and Mobile at IBM
• Ed Brill, Vice President of Social Business Transformation at IBM
• Eric Lesser, National Director of IBM Institute of Business Value
• Michelle Killebrew, Program Director, Strategy and Solutions,
IBM Social Business
Group and publisher of Intelligent Life and The World in 2015
The 25 Inspiring Global Social Business Leaders Project’s
Advisory Board:
Group and publisher of Intelligent Life and The World in 2015
• Cheryl Burgess, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Marketing
Officer at Blue Focus Marketing
• Lis Gansky, Chief Instigator at Mesh Labs
• Brian Solis, Principal at Altimeter Group
Marketing for Commerce, Social, and Mobile at IBM

52
The Economist Intelligent Unit:
• Riva Richmond, Senior Editor of Economic Insights at The
Economist Intelligence Unit
• Frieda Klotz, Deputy Editor of Economic Insights at The Economist
Intelligent Unit

53
25
INSPIRING GLOBAL
SOCIAL BUSINESS LEADERS
Peter Blackshaw
Global Head of Digital and
Social Media, Nestlé
B. Bonin Bough
Vice President of Global Media
and Consumer Engagement,
Mondelez International
Nathan Bricklin
Head of Collaboration and Social
Strategy for Wholesale Services,
Wells Fargo
Wendy Arnott
Vice President of Social Media
and Digital Marketing,
TD Bank Group
Jon Bidwell
Chief Innovation Officer,
Chubb Group of Insurance Cos,
unit of Chubb Corp
Lin Bin
Co-founder,
Xiaomi
Martyn Etherington
Chief Marketing Officer,
Mitel
Brian Fanzo
Former Digital Technology
Evangelist, IO Data Centers
Gilberto Garcia
Director of Innovation,
Cemex

Tony Hsieh
Chief Executive,
Zappos.com
Ricky Hudi
Chief Engineer for Electrics/
Electronics Development,
Audi AG
Chris Laping
Senior Vice President for
Business Transformation,
Red Robin Gourmet Burgers
Scott Monty
Former Chief of Global Digital
Communications, Ford Motor Co
Simon Poulton
Manager of Inbound Marketing
Programmes, Laserfiche
Michelle Regner
Founder and Chief Executive,
Near Me
Marco Magnaghi
Chief Digital Officer,
Maxus Italy
Sherri Maxson
Head of Social Business,
W. W. Grainger
Britta Meyer
Chief Marketing Officer,
WageWorks
Juliana Rotich
Co-founder and Executive
Director, Ushahidi
John Stepper
Managing Director,
Deutsche Bank
Bill Strawderman
Senior Director of Digital
Marketing and Social Media,
Siemens USA

55
Marisa Thalberg
Vice President for
Corporate Digital Marketing,
Estée Lauder Cos
Doug Ulman
President and Chief Executive,
Livestrong Foundation
Lauren Vargas
Head of Social Media and
Community, Aetna
Kristina Verner
Director of Intelligent
Communities, Waterfront Toronto

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