When Chris Hughes helped hatch Facebook in his dorm room at Harvard, practically the only people sharing personal information on the Web were on dating sites. Morphing into a powerhouse networking site, Facebook now has over 600 million users. Eager to connect like-minded communities to a greater good, Hughes became the force behind My.BarackObama.com, the campaign apparatus that helped elect Obama and revolutionize the Web as a political tool.
At 25 years old, Hughes has become a technology superstar whose business is people, helping create two of the most successful start ups in modern history. With an instinct for building technology that networks the commonality of real people and real communities, he helps organizations understand the limitless power of social networking.
How to do it? Go to where the users are—the consumers. Learn from them, connect with them, and leverage this connection to engage them in exchanging ideas about your product, brand, or organization. By guiding them in the conversation, you can take advantage of their potential. As a successful entrepreneur, Hughes also shares his insight into emerging technologies and new media with fledgling entrepreneurs, providing them with skills to show them the way in consumer service, Internet, and disruptive technology.
Hughes helps organizations understand how to connect in the digital realm, both internally through their own people, as well as with the greater public, and how this will impact business. By tapping into social networking tools while cultivating the user, they can use these new technologies to their full advantage.
