It's been around three months since I joined the team at Edelman Digital and whether you are a casual or frequent visitor here, you may wonder from time to time what I actually do. Here's a few things I've been focusing on. Since joining, I've worked on several new business initiatives, have been plugging into a number of clients including eBay, RIM (Blackberry), Chevron and several others. I recently hired a community manager who will work exclusively on our Edelman Digital property (not clients) and we've been heads down on planning our launch within the next few weeks.
I've also been working on some internal frameworks, and have some definitive ideas in mind for ways to package our services. I've been traveling a bit less which has been really nice, and by design have dialed back the speaking engagements to a more manageable mix. Balancing being in the trenches and working at 30k feet is always tricky.
I've certainly been reaching into my toolbox tapping every skillset I have from visual thinking, to strategy, to telling a story or communicating a framework. It's all good. I'm working with some great teams across several different offices and have been impressed by everyone I've worked with. I'm really excited about the long term vision we are crafting for the Edelman Digital property and how we will begin to execute against that as well how we are engaging with our clients at a business strategy level.
In short, it's all systems go—and it feels good to be making progress. I'll likely see several of you at SXSW so if you are going, please be sure to approach me to say hello. I meet so many people who mention after the fact that they were going to, but never did.
While the economy is proving to be shaky at best, I'm excited by the opportunities we have with many of our clients. This is a great time to be engaging your customers, employees and business partners both authentically and on their terms. I'm no Steve Jobs, but anyway—that's what I think.
More to come...
-David
