Quote

The tech and tech media world are meritocracies. To fall back to race as the reason why people don't break out in our wonderful oasis of openness is to do a massive injustice to what we've fought so hard to create.

There's an adage that is an apt description of the new dynamic at work between brands and consumers connected through social media: People support what they help to build. But now that many brands are launching community-driven cause marketing campaigns, the challenge becomes what to do next?

Cross platform, we have opportunity across all our businesses to not only take the most well-known and high-profile brands and bring them to life with the guidance of people who know them well, but to incubate new ones.

Brands are facing a new competitive landscape in which self-definition, core values and purpose will increasingly define their ability to reach customers that only allow what is meaningful in their lives to pass through their filter.

Every brand has something on the Internet, whether it's video or doing something on social media. It's just another form that brands are starting to realize they have to be a part of.

We created a brand for ourselves, so that now people can't get mad at what we do, because then they're just making of themselves.

As a function of the easy access to information provided by the Internet, and the ease with which it can be shared thanks to social media, consumers are now better informed as to the behavior of brands and the multiple global crises we face.

Eventually the consumer will come to appreciate the editorial point of view of every different brand. User-generated content without editorial oversight will simply be background noise.

People's mouse clicks decide what businesses, services, and content succeed. Users have equal access to tiny businesses with viral ideas and blue-chip companies, allowing these enterprises to compete on their own merits. It's how so many small start-ups have been able to become Internet success stories.

The creative destruction that social media is currently unleashing will change more than technology or the leader board of the Fortune 100. It is driving a qualitative shift in the nature of relationships between brands and their customers.