five months at edelman digital

The other day I realised that it's now been 5 months since I joined Edelman Digital, and probably nearly that long since I wrote a proper blog post, so thought I'd seize this opportunity to tell you a little bit about what I've been up to.

The 40+ strong team we've built at Edelman Digital in London – and continue to grow – is awesome. About half of our team tend to focus on production, namely design and development, and the other half on strategy, social media monitoring, and building engagement around client propositions. We do everything from help businesses build employee engagement internally, map out existing internal processes, devise strategies and tactics to build stakeholder engagement, design and devise websites and applications for platforms such as facebook and iPhone, shoot and edit video, provide social media monitoring and analysis, and create digital content.

From a strategic perspective, our work is underpinned by various pieces of Edelman IP – the Edelman Trust Barometer, the Good Purpose study, the Edelman Change Report on Internal Communications, and the Edelman Public Engagement model. The last of these is, to me, perhaps the most interesting as it describes almost perfectly the approach I've taken over the years of creating meaningful participatory frameworks that align stakeholder behaviours with measurable business outcomes. The whole point, in my experience, of social media in an organisational or corporate context being to proactively engage with audiences, and to support their needs with design and functionality in ways that help organisations and businesses to meet their goals whether those are communications objectives or goals that are more intricately intertwinned with product innovation and service delivery.

I'm also constantly amazed by our depth and reach globally – we have digital experts in every EU country, in offices across the USA, as well as in many other key markets around the World. Everytime I need insights, case studies, or more tangible support I'm always able to find someone amongst our 400 or so digital experts globally who are not only able to help, but willing to do so at the drop of a hat.

Our client list reads like a who's who of instantly recognisable, world leading brands. Sadly, I can't tell you about most of them, but working with great clients has proven to be a wonderful opportunity to achieve results that people can actually see as well as, in the background, affect real organisational change. Indeed, it's the organisational transformation angle that I'm really interested in and we're doing more of that type of work every day.

My main projects during the time I've been at Edelman include helping launch the CNN International iPhone application, leading a project (ongoing) within the European Parliament, a lot of business development activity, providing analysis of social media monitoring activity for several clients, provision of online engagement strategy and training for a range of clients, and selling and delivering a corporate intranet. There's also been about half a dozen conference presentations and panel appearances, including in London, Karlstad and Brussels, as well as a few interviews with the Daily Telegraph and appearances on BBC local radio.

It doesn't sound like a huge amount on the face of it, but it's been the most fast paced working environment I've ever been in – and a great deal of fun – and with several exciting ongoing projects and interesting proposals coming to fruition, there will be a lot more to share with you in the coming months.

My time at Edelman Digital thus far has been intellectually , and at times physically, challenging, but also full of rewards, not the least of which has been the great people I get to work with every day -  within our London team, the global team, and our clients. It's been really wonderful to work in an environment where nearly everything that can be imagined can be achieved. At the end of many work days I sort of shake my head and say "that ALL happened", a sentiment echoed in a tweet a few months ago by my global colleague, David Armano, who said "sometimes I have to pinch myself".

So please forgive my lack of meaningful blogging here over the past few months – I'm not only alive, but thoroughly enjoying myself. Back soon…