Peter Roberts
Chief Executive Officer, Americas
Jones Lang LaSalle
I also wanted to mention the first session I attended today titled “The Social Media Context.” Not only were there a number of interesting messages to take away, but imperatives for our business – any business, really – as well.
One insight was that social media has gone from being a toy to becoming a tool. And it’s not just a tool for commerce and business (who knew that Macy’s gets more online traffic from Facebook than Google?). It’s a tool for reform and for fostering more accountability and transparency from governments.
The other key message for me is that the future of social media is mobile, mobile, mobile! Sounds a bit like the secret to real estate is location, location, location….but the experts predict that people will increasingly interact with each other and connect to the internet via mobile devices. A fun fact: of the 500 million internet users in China, fully 70 percent of them access the web via mobile device.
These are important currents that we all need to jump into to help take our businesses to the next level. It’s clear we need to fully embrace mobility – a point driven home every time I tweet here from my iPad.
For additional thoughts from Peter on social media, watch this video.
Peter,
It’s good to know – and confirmation of our own digital strategy – that social media in general and mobile in particular are hot topics in Davos. We’ve set a goal to lead the industry in the digital space, not to win bragging rights from competitors (who will go nameless), but to support, keep up with, and stay ahead of our own people, who are relying on the technology more and more to talk with clients, each other, industry colleagues and the media. We wouldn’t think about publishing research or participating in an industry event today without using social media to reach key audiences, and we have plans and projects in development for much more.
–Molly