My five plus year (and growing!) fascination with the impact of social technologies on the public relations business started here on September 29, 2004, when our CEO, Richard Edelman first posted to his blog, 6am. Truth be told, we’d been experimenting with early-versions of what is now widely referred to as Influencer Marketing prior to that, and that work led us to become governing members of WOMMA. But Richard’s blog was an accelerant for him, for me personally and for the firm as a whole. He knew we were going all-in from the onset. It took me another few months to catch the bug.
I can still recall sitting next to Pete Blackshaw at Blog Business Summit in Seattle. I’d registered to see what this blogging thing was all about. Debbie Weil was up on stage, and I took issue with something she said. I leaned over and mentioned it to him, and he gave me the order: “so post a comment on it.” In classic newbie fashion, I agonized over that comment, wrote draft after draft, and when I finally had it perfect, pressed “Post.” About five minutes later, Pete then said something to the effect of “hit refresh.” There were already two comments building on my comment. I was fascinated… and hooked. More than that, I was now one of those who found themselves 100% convinced that “social media” was going to forever rewrite the rules by which we communicated. All of us.
Fast forward to today. I don’t think any of us sitting in that conference room could have predicted the speed with which those rules have been re-written – for people of all ages, in all walks of life, in every corner of the world – but Richard knew we had to change or we’d get left in the dust. He got me to drop my day job and take on a new role to champion social media and trumpet the need to change to our staff, our clients, and pretty much anyone else who’d give us an audience. He funded a skunkworks group called me2revolution, and we brought in an amazing team of early thought leaders that included Phil Gomes, Steve Rubel, Leah Jones and Michael Wiley. We wrote white papers, incubated some products, spoke at countless conferences, hosted summits for academics in the US and EMEA and led countless Social Media 101 sessions with clients and prospects worldwide.
We merged me2 and all of Edelman’s digital businesses together under the Edelman Digital banner in January 2008. At the time, we had a global team of about 70 people driving $10M in fees, and that sum was driven principally by strong, established teams in NY and Washington DC. That summer in Shanghai, Richard issued the challenge to make Digital 15% of Edelman’s total business within five years. Two years later, we’re 70% of the way there. Edelman Digital is now a team of more than 300 people worldwide, and about 30% of our staff and business come from outside the US. But that’s just the half of it. Because of an incredible commitment from the firm’s leadership and the industry’s best training program, there are now 3,400 more people at Edelman who can also walk the new talk.
And now for the reason behind the history lesson.
An email went out to our staff a few minutes ago announcing that effective June 1, I’ll be the president of Edelman’s Chicago office. I’m both honored and energized by the opportunity to lead our incredible team there in the place it all began some 58 years ago. I wouldn’t trade the past five years for anything. I’ve learned so much, about so much, from so many of you. I’ve seen “this” grow from intrigue to interest to dabbling to all-in. And I couldn’t be prouder of, nor more confident in the leaders of Edelman Digital who’ll take it from here: David Armano, Ryan Burke, Marcus Dyer, Kevin King, Thiane Loureiro, Mike Krempasky, John Kerr, Marshall Manson, Sylvain Perron, Steve Rubel, Cricket Wardein, Michael Wiley and Ming Yee. You all are the reasons behind our success, and I can’t begin to thank you enough.
As for me, I’m now part of a very digital Edelman. This move is the next chapter for me at the firm that has already given me so much. And I can’t wait to get started.
Cheers,
Image credit: Leah.jones
