“The bigger opportunity or clients, we believe, is to identiy the global
societal and technological trends that are reshaping how we think, act
and buy - and to pivot into them early. Trends today tend to develop
more slowly and are harder to see, allowing clients to take a more
thoughtul, thorough and systematic approach.” - Steve Rubel

During the last decade, we’ve seen social and digital
media move rom being purely the domain o tech-savvy
types into a mainstream phenomenon. All you need to
do is consider one statistic: Twitter was mentioned on
television nearly 20,000 times in 2009, according to
SnapStream. As a result, companies are investing in it
and – slowly – seeing results.

Given the hype, much attention has turned to guessing
what will become “the next Twitter.” It’s ample odder
or tech and marketing pundits, the media and clients
- especially at the beginning o a new year and a new
decade.

However, in many ways this is the wrong question to ask. Where once it was hard to sleuth out emerging platorms like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook beore they grew, now they just seem to surace out o nowhere. You’ll know the next Twitter when you see it.

The bigger opportunity or clients, we believe, is to identiy
the global societal and technological trends that are
reshaping how we think, act and buy - and to pivot into
them early. Trends today tend to develop more slowly
and are harder to see, allowing clients to take a more
thoughtul, thorough and systematic approach.

In the ollowing pages you will nd 10 essays on such
trends written by some o the smartest thinkers in digital
marketing. These ideas, when looked at together, reveal
our key themes:

The shit to digital technologies by both consumers
and marketers is now global and pervasive across all
aspects o our lie and growing daily.

Companies (and organized interests) are just
beginning to wake up to the engagement imperative
- and how to und and develop it over time.

And nally, the uture is about careully using the data
people generate to make smarter decisions, while
adhering to concerns over privacy.

We hope you enjoy our 10 ideas or the new decade. We
welcome you to challenge us on our thinking. Ater all,
that’s the only way we can grow.

Steve Rubel
Senior Vice President, Director o Insights
steve.rubel@edelman.com
January 4, 2010
New York, NY