The Conversation Group

Challenge:
How can social media accelerate a company’s growth strategies and unleash greater innovation from its people? Best Buy’s senior team wanted to fundamentally transform the enterprise to take advantage of the collective wisdom of its over 130 technology savvy employees. It had to develop new strategies, gain internal support and excitement for them, and then build tangible programs for employees, developers and customers to deliver on that vision.

Solution:
The Conversation Group partnered with Best Buy to help define its social media narrative and strategy and then share those insights with business leaders as part of a strategic communication and change management effort. Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson was interviewed by The Conversation Group Chairman Peter Hirshberg about these efforts at the Google Zeitgeist conference in California and at the DLD conference in Munich as part of this effort. TCG also then helped Best Buy develop and introduce its groundbreaking Remix program.

Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson speaks with Conversation Group Chairman Peter Hirshberg about how social media is changing the art of management at the firm. From the Google Zeitgeist Conference

Best Buy’s Michele Azar, Geek Squad Founder Robert Stevens, and TCG Chairman Peter Hirshberg talk about social media and Web 2.0 at Best Buy

Challenge:
The Symbian Foundation, the independent not-for-profit organization that supports the largest mobile operating system worldwide, had three major challenges when they approached TCG: (1) Implement new programs while working to release the entire Symbian operating system as an open source project; (2) Continue to attract individuals and organizations to develop dynamic applications on the platform; and (3) Be the hub of a technology movement through supporting, championing, and leading this community to create a more effective and open engine for innovation than competing commercial efforts could ever produce.

Solution:
Executive Director Lee Williams appointed TCG partner Ted Shelton as a leadership team member and interim head of marketing. TCG then implemented our “Open Management” strategy – restructuring the marketing organization, hiring for key positions, providing training for existing staff and implementing open communications initiatives. In addition, TCG helped build Symbian’s developer program including Horizon, Symbian’s new application publishing platform. Finally, TCG assisted in creating a set of strategic partnerships to help grow the Symbian

Tags: Communications, Research, Strategy, Technology

Challenge:
Launching a groundbreaking school of higher education dedicated to teaching the next generation of science leaders on the convergence of exponentially accelerating technologies. The school faced a number of challenges, not the least of which was that its namesake, “Singularity,” had an identity more closely associated to science fiction than science. But the biggest challenge was to launch the school in February with enough momentum to enroll a first class in June — a four-month ramp.

Solution:
TCG approached the launch of the university by (a) directly addressing the controversial elements of its story, and (b) by engaging a critical mass of influencers — with vast global reach — ahead of the launch. Result: on the first day of the launch, several dozen traditional and social media influencers reported, including The Associated Press, The Financial Times, Business Week, and the BBC. And within one week, more than 300 traditional media outlets around the globe followed, filing unique stories tailored to local audiences. Singularity University quickly attracted thousands of world-class applicants, and subsequently launched its first term with great success and fanfare.

Challenge:
Positioning and up-leveling a new company in “virtual currency,” which had recently emerged as an alternative method for monetizing the burgeoning market for social games. Super Rewards was one of several companies vying for leadership in this market, but none of the players had yet earned recognition among influencers in the business, advertising, and media markets.

Solution:
TCG positioned Super Rewards as a leader in a category that had already begun to monetize not only social games but social networks. At the time of the engagement, many influencers had written off social networks as unmonetizable. By positioning virtual currency as the most effective approach to monetizing social sites, Super Rewards rapidly earned credibility in the advertising and media communities. Just four months after the beginning of the engagement, Super Rewards was acquired by Adknowledge, the world’s largest independent ad network.

Tags: Communications, Strategy

Challenge:
Positioning and launching a Voice 2.0 company in an exceedingly noisy market. Ribbit — an early-stage company in 2007 — had a technology platform that bridged the old world of telephony with the new world of Web services. The platform potentially had value for consumers, software developers, and telecommunication providers. But in a busy market, how could the company market itself simply, effectively, and with the requisite force to rapidly emerge as a global player?

Solution:
TCG positioned Ribbit as “Silicon Valley’s First Phone Company,” a claim that was at once controversial yet defensible, given the company’s underlying technology infrastructure. The corporate launch and subsequent consumer product preview, which TCG dubbed “Amphibian” (later named Ribbit Mobile), drew an overwhelmingly positive response from the global media marketplace — from traditional media to digital influencers alike — leading to the company’s acquisition by BT just seven months after the launch.