[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
We had to take communication
to a Web 2.0 environment.
We had to take it online.
I think the tools
are incredible.
You get better loyalty, you
get less office politics.
Taking an idea and really
stretching it across the entire
organization and network out.
Meet individuals that are
passionate around the same
thing to accomplish something
that you'd never be able
to accomplish on your own.
Most companies traditionally
communicate at employees.
They send a message to
employees, and the message
gets received, you hope,
and now we're done.
But that's not how the
world works anymore.
Employees will start groups
on Facebook, or MSN, or
at MySpace, or wherever.
They're already socializing.
Why not give them a venue
where you can be part
of the conversation?
A group of us set out to say,
well let's make a difference
and let's change this.
Blue Shirt Nation is a social
networking website, something
very similar to MySpace.
Blue Shirt Nation has been
pretty much like a lab for us.
It's allowed us to try a lot of
different things, fail really
fast, and then try
things again.
It gives me an opportunity to
really connect with more of my
coworkers, not just here at the
store but throughout
the entire company.
The WaterCooler is the online
discussion forum that allows
employees to talk about
whatever's on their mind.
It's the only method where I
can actually talk to my team
from the comfort
of my own home.
It's the fastest way to
distribute information
across the entire store.
The use of Wiki makes our
employees feel like they're
empowered, and that they can
contribute to everything
within the company.
If the stores are learning
something from the customers,
or any experiences, any events
that they're having, they
can add in the Wiki page.
I have created the actual
home theater page.
It supplies retail field
information on home theater.
We also have contact
lists on there if they
have any questions.
One of my employees
had a great idea.
He came to me and said --
what do I do with this idea?
The idea itself was the Geek
Squad gaming services.
I told him to go ahead and
post on the Loop Marketplace.
The Loop Marketplace is where
people can go to post
innovation ideas that they
want some feedback on.
Four hours later my idea
was up and people were
commenting on it.
I was funded.
Now it's going company-wide.
It was a pretty fun
process actually.
With so many stores spread so
far and wide apart, how do you
actually get people's
voices into our most
important decisions?
How can companies use the power
of the free market to help
drive their decision making?
Tools like the prediction
market tool help us do that.
It's a web-enabled
stock market game.
Stocks represent future
events or future outcomes.
And people trade in the market
based on what they think
will happen in the future.
If I'm leading a project and
the stock is will this thing
launch on time, and then all
of a sudden it went down
20%, I instantly know that
something has happened.
That gives me a chance to be
able to have a voice to
leadership when they're seeing
the stock, or they're seeing
the movement in changes going.
And know that the stuff that I
know is valuable enough that
people want to hear it.
We talk about our core
philosophies at Best Buy.
It allows us to bring our
unique experiences and
ideas to the table.
You know, it's not easy to call
up Brad Anderson and say -- hey
look, this is what
I'm thinking.
You get better loyalty, you
get less office politics.
And you create the conditions
whereby this marketplace of
ideas can come to fruition.
We're talking more as a company
at all levels, which is great.
I think we have to turn that
transparency outward towards
the customer, and allow them
to participate in the
conversations as well.
Imagine a Wikipedia not only
populated by the masses looking
for knowledge, but also by a
bunch of tech masters from Geek
Squad who are also using the
same space for their own use.
Now you've got the quality
of the crowd and some
Zen masters in the mix.
We're moving from a role of
being the ones who own the
messages and deliver those to
employees, to a role that
we are just facilitators.
We're encouraging,
we're enabling.
We're getting ahead of the
curve so that when those next
generations of folks come
work for us, we're set up.
We already have everything
ready to go for them.
It allows us to use those
insights, that input, and that
feedback to do better at
serving our customers.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
SPEAKER: Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome Vice Chairman
and CEO of Best Buy,
Brad Anderson.
And Chairman, The Conversation
Group, Peter Hirshberg.
BRAD ANDERSON: Peter,
good to see you.
PETER HIRSHBERG: Hello Brad.
So when we think of Best Buy,
this is an organization pushing
3,000 stores and $50 billion in
revenue, and it's in the
distribution business.
And that's not the first place
I would think about as a
company as a Wiki, and pulling
knowledge in from the edge.
So talk to me a little bit
about the transformation, or
how such a traditional business
is adopting some of these new
tools, and culturally what
this power shift means.
BRAD ANDERSON: Well, we weren't
actually built to do this, so
it's a little like taking a big
engine and completely
flipping it.
But the great thing that we've
had as an organization is we've
had to sell technology, which
is always in flux
and transition.
There's nothing stable in the
businesses that we sell.
So it made it a little
easier to do this.
And essentially what we saw as
the primary insight was that
our customer who we built to
basically distribute goods and
services to, we're now going to
be much more interested in how
they were going to use the
product and with the
application of the product.
And instead of that being most
easily served by one single
efficient methodology, that's
now literally millions of
different choices that people
are making in terms of-- so
we're going to have to go from
a product distribution company
to a service company, and we're
going to have to go to
a solution company.
And it would be a very
wide array of solutions.
So this seemed like the only
possible way to do it, and the
most exciting way to do it.
PETER HIRSHBERG: As I've
watched your company over the
last year, I've seen you roll
out experiments like the ones
that we've just seen where it
almost looks like employees are
trying things, and you say that
works, and then you're
learning from that.
So culturally here you have
employees taking the lead,
folks on the line -- kids --
and then you have traditional
middle management doing things
the way they should
be doing things.
What's it like at that wave
front, when you have
traditional management coming
up against power shift
and Wiki-esque things?
BRAD ANDERSON: Well this is
something that I really think
there hasn't been anything
close to enough dialogue about.
This is murder on
middle management.
Or actually, the more
senior the management
is the worse it is.
Because a lot of us who assume
the role of leaders assume the
role of leaders because
we like to be on stage.
And we like to assume the
limelight, and we like
to make the decisions.
And this absolutely flips
the role of the leader.
Because actually if I've got an
idea, it's less effective than
if somebody in the
field has an idea.
Because it has an authenticity
coming out of the field that it
doesn't have coming from me,
and it can develop a community
before it actually
gets actionable.
So fundamentally as a leader,
what I've got to be interested
in is not so much divining the
great right strategy, but I
have to have the curiosity to
do the right kind of listening.
And I have to know how to take
whatever resources I can do as
a leader to marshall it behind
initiatives that come from
somewhere else in the
organization instead
of from the top.
And that's really been tough
for us at the senior levels.
PETER HIRSHBERG: I think one of
the reasons that this
innovation is happening at Best
Buy first is there's almost a
perfect storm going on.
You're dealing in geeky
technical things where you need
an awful lot of the collective
knowledge of line employees and
customers, but your employee
base is really interesting.
When Jennifer spoke earlier,
she talked about the fact
that 50% of the world
is under 25 years old.
And that's pretty much the
Best Buy employee base.
So talk to me a little bit
about the people who are at
the core of this kind of--
BRAD ANDERSON: Yeah, we had
this enormous natural asset.
I sort of look essentially
at organizations as they're
sort of energy pools.
And we've got 170,000 people
with the potential insight
of 170,000 people.
And I know after 35 in starting
in the stores, you're exactly
as motivated to deliver service
as you feel like you're
engaged in the work.
So their level of energy for
the whole enterprise rises
dramatically if I can feel like
I'm actually engaged and not
just doing a job somebody else
told me to do, but I'm actually
creating the job
that I'm doing.
And with the technology we're
talking about today, you
literally can do that.
Plus that our customers use the
devices in so many different
ways, if we're going to mirror
it we have to have a huge range
of capacity in able to be able
to add value in the process.
So the economic potential for
us as an organization, to be
able to sort of mirror those 22
year old-- our average age is
about 22 in terms of our
employee base -- to mirror them
and their insight
is just enormous.
And that's the adventure,
to see if we can get
these two lined up.
PETER HIRSHBERG: That
video went by quickly.
I want to go through a couple
of the case studies there.
There was something called
the Loop Marketplace.
Now this essentially replaces
the suggestion box.
And what does everybody think
of the employee suggestion box?
And in this case, you're
actually using almost like a
financial market, where if an
employee has an idea they
can make a suggestion.
And then if somebody in
corporate wants to fund
it, it makes the market.
And the employee doesn't--
it's not just thanks
for the suggestion.
It's like here's some
money, go ahead and do it.
BRAD ANDERSON: Yeah, and
there's even a bigger
advantage before that.
Which is if I hear the loop and
somebody in corporate doesn't
think it's worth anything, but
I'm in another store somewhere
and I think that actually
solves my problem, I can go
try that somewhere else.
And so if it doesn't land with
the person in corporate
initially, I could have a small
army starting to do it before--
that actually overwhelms the
decision that winds up being
made at the corporation,
because I've now got evidence
that it actually works.
PETER HIRSHBERG: And there's
another financial market type
thing, which is Tag Trade.
Which is where you almost
assign phantom stock to
programs, like how many
of these DVD's will we
sell, or how will the
Christmas promotion be.
And you track what employees
think of the stock
going up and down.
BRAD ANDERSON: This was the
first thing we had that
really got exciting.
Because we do Christmas
forecasts every year, and as
you can imagine executive--
senior level executives-- if
you tell me that our results
are going to be very good, I'm
enthusiastic about hearing
that kind of input.
So there's a weighting to
the dialogue that's always
there towards being overly
optimistic in terms of
expectations of future.
And I've also got
necessarily penalty.
If I've got something going
on wrong, I may want to
kind of cover that up.
And by creating a marketplace
where essentially anybody could
vote, you started to see
patterns that almost become--
actually the first Christmas we
used it, it was dead on in
terms of figuring out what our
sales were going to be on a
daily basis a month in advance.
And the reason it was dead on
is that we had the insight that
was in the system that wasn't
captured through the hierarchy.
So it's really transformed the
way-- it's incredibly helpful
in terms of running the
business, because you get a
chance to see the insight
inside the business that's
otherwise covered up by
a normal hierarchy.
PETER HIRSHBERG: You know when
people read information
displays they tend to
be schooled in it.
Traders know how to read
Bloomberg terminals.
All of a sudden you have
real-time information
coming in from employees
about what they think.
Going to the merchants who
haven't had this before, was
it information overload?
Was it thank you?
Was it what do I do with this?
BRAD ANDERSON: Yeah.
If I'm sitting there and I'm
trying to achieve a given a
number, and the evidence is
that I'm not going to be able
to achieve it, I've now given
the person that's seen that
evidence a chance to be heard.
And they're heard because
they're blind-- they're a
part of an overall market.
So there's no accountability
for them for raising
their voice.
PETER HIRSHBERG: One of the
other interesting things is
Blue Shirt Nation, which is
an internal social network.
And the story of how this came
about I found interesting.
Gary Koelling and Steve Bendt,
who were in advertising, wanted
to understand from front-line
employees what are the
issues in selling an HDTV.
So they actually decided to
build a network so the
employees could say what the
issues were, so they
could do better ads.
And when they deployed the
network the first thing the
employees said was-- thanks for
the social network, there's
many things we could
use this for.
And you'll have to earn our
confidence for us to answer
your questions, because
there's better things
we need to do with it.
What was it like culturally
when you connected everybody,
and they kind of took control
of the engine and
said thank you?
BRAD ANDERSON: Well,
it's been a journey.
One of our vice presidents got
up and-- shortly after Blue
Shirt Nation was formed--
and expressed his concerns
that it wasn't working.
Because he tried to express
what he wanted to do
on Blue Shirt Nation.
And literally had nobody in
the enterprise respond.
And the guys who started Blue
Shirt said-- you did get an
answer, you got a very
profound answer to what
you're recommending.
So it's been a great process of
really starting to feel like
we're more connected with this
large enterprise of people that
have an insight that those of
us, certainly at the center of
the enterprise, can't
get very easily.
PETER HIRSHBERG: Here's one of
the examples that struck me.
Whenever anyone goes in a Best
Buy store we see terminals that
your employees use to get
information, pull things up--
which is called the
Employee Toolkit.
And evidently, like so many
users of IT systems, they
were dissatisfied and
wanted a better one.
And ultimately you ended up
having the employees build
the better system themselves
than go to the consultant.
Here's a clip of Scot Kersten,
who was running the project, as
he realized that they could
toss the building of an IT
system out to field employees
who normally sell DVD players,
rather than the big consulting
company that normally
does these things.
Let's take a look at this.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
We actually got a request
for an estimate on how much
this was going to cost.
And the thing was going to end
up costing us $6.5 million.
And the company that was going
to build it for us said that we
could probably have a proof of
concept out to a test district,
which is about 10 stores, in
about eight months to a year.
Then we got six employees up
to the corporate office.
Paid for their travel,
paid for their hotel.
Ended up spending about
$250,000, and six weeks later
we had a proof of concept
out to that test district.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
PETER HIRSHBERG: OK.
So by day they sell TV's and
DVD players, by night they
rewrote the IT system.
BRAD ANDERSON: Yeah.
We had an exercise a couple of
years ago when we first started
to put the underpinnings
underneath this.
Where one of our leaders had an
audience about actually this
size of Best Buy employees,
with what our current themes
is-- which is I am Best Buy,
which applies to everybody
in the organization.
And at random we just started
picking people out of the
audience and asked them to tell
a little bit about their story.
And you realize this-- by the
time you got to seven or eight
people you realize that inside
this room was this enormous
variety of experience
and expertise inside
the organization.
And the passion to get the
thing done, it was always
closest to the person who cared
most about the particular work.
So by the time you hand it
to a third party and say
I really care about this,
it gets less efficient.
So if they've actually got the
technical skills-- and that's
what we're finding oftentimes
is the case-- if you can keep
it close enough to the people
who care about the outcome,
well the cost goes way down and
the speed to get to
it gets very fast.
PETER HIRSHBERG: This says a
lot about the difference
between young people who are
connected, how they look at
management, and others.
These people came in, dispensed
with a lot of planning,
dispensed with a lot of design.
They kind of knew what they
wanted and they just kept
working until they
got it right.
BRAD ANDERSON: Yeah.
No there's a real consequence
on the other side, which is
that you won't have
a scalable product.
But by the time you know that
there's a customer for it, the
risk has gone out of building
this scalable product.
And the speed to get to market
in particular, combined with
knowing that, has been
an enormous benefit.
Really is opening
up options for us.
PETER HIRSHBERG: The kind of
benefits you see in letting
employees participate and
create, doesn't just show
up in geeky things.
There was another case where
with a workforce average age of
22, getting people to sign up
for the 401(k) plan
is a challenge.
And I gather that that
was thrown out to the
social network as well.
So here's a clip of Gary
Koelling and Steve Bendt, the
advertising guys who built the
social network, dealing with
the fact that HR says could the
employees please fix the fact
that they're not signing up
for the 401(k) program.
Let's take a look.
[VIDEO PLAYING]
The team approached us and said
we want to have a video contest
on Blue Shirt Nation
around the 401(k).
We want to increase enrollment.
And Gary and I looked
at each other and
said we'll help you.
We'd be happy to help you,
but good luck with that.
Enrollment percentage of our
employees in the 401(k) was
around 18% to start with.
After the contest it
went up to about 47%.
So that's about what, 40,000
employees that signed up for
a 401(k) that hadn't before.
Because, I would argue, the
employees got to talk about
the 401(k) in their voice, in
their way, in their terms.
And they connected with others.
[END VIDEO]
BRAD ANDERSON: And I should
tell you the story.
We played the video that the
employees produced that led to
this huge improvement in terms
of sign-ups to our board of
directors, and believe
me that did not work.
The two audiences did not
have the same values.
Anyway, I'm sorry.
[LAUGHTER]
PETER HIRSHBERG: In fact, let's
show a clip of that video
to this audience right now.
BRAD ANDERSON: You might
agree with the board--
PETER HIRSHBERG:
The winning video.
[VIDEO PLAYING]
The trick to the 401(k) plan is
you've got to start saving
early so you can have more
money for the future.
And the time to start is now!
See this is how it works.
Best Buy matches the first 3%
contribution that you make
out of your paycheck.
Then they match $0.50 on the
dollar for every 2% afterwards.
Don't you get it?
Don't you get it?
What is this?
What are these numbers?
[SLAPS FACE]
Ow!
You slapped me in the face!
[MUSIC___PLAYING ___"THE___B
OYS___ARE___BACK ___IN___TOWN"]
[END VIDEO]
BRAD ANDERSON: We should have
played it for this audience
instead of the board.
PETER HIRSHBERG: What's
staggering is the results.
Participation went
from like 17% to 46%.
BRAD ANDERSON: Yeah, and we're
seeing this tangibly in the
results of the enterprise.
We just finished a quarter that
wasn't such a hot quarter from
an earning standpoint, in part
because we're spending
a lot of money.
We're spending money on these
kinds of initiatives, which we
think is a really good
leading indicator.
But the sales number
was terrific.
And we also had a number we
disclosed, which is for the
first time in the history of
the company our turnover rate
of employees in the whole
system is below 50%.
And it was a 130%
just 2.5 years ago.
PETER HIRSHBERG: The reason
large industrial organizations
were built were to do things
like deal with nearly 3,000
stores with lots of products.
Meanwhile you're handing a lot
of control over to someone else
while asking managers to kind
of be cool with it
and manage that.
So how do you manage that?
BRAD ANDERSON: I thought the
last discussion just before
was fascinating, because
the core thing that has to
be there are boundaries.
So we have to get a return on
the investment on the
initiatives that come out of
the folks in the field.
Our brand has to mean
something to the customers.
So it has to sustain
some characteristics.
And the lens we've got right
now is that essentially in
order for this to work the
values at Best Buy have to
become so deeply entrenched
that they are effective
boundaries that keep behavior
consistent enough, so that you
actually can count on better
fundamental behavior from an
employee base than you'd have
if you weren't engaged
in these activities.
PETER HIRSHBERG: So like
what kind of boundaries?
What are the things you have
to render explicit so people
can run around and create?
BRAD ANDERSON: We have four
values that were created long
before we started doing
this, but happened to
thankfully really fit.
The first one is unquestioned
integrity, starting
with humility.
So it starts with the
presumption that you got to be
interested in what the other
guy's doing, not just
what you're doing.
And I got to be able to trust
you, because if you're not a
person of your word I can't
build on that foundation,
especially deep in
the organization.
The second is learn from
challenge and change.
That the enterprise is going
to be constantly in flux,
constantly in transition.
Instead of a bad thing,
that's a good thing.
And you need to create
environments as a leader
in which that's apparent.
The third is unleashing
the power of our people.
Our competitive advantage is
using more of the talents of
the people who work for
the organization than
somebody else can.
And the last one is having
fun while winning.
Having fun while
being the best.
And so those four values have
to really be lived in each
environment for this to work.
PETER HIRSHBERG: When you
mentioned that to me it struck
me that that stuff used to be
so much HR stuff when
you had a job to do.
But when you're kind of
inventing things, dealing with
the public and sourcing what's
going on all the time, it's
almost like you need the
constitution or the underlying
precepts because you're
letting your people invent
stuff all the time.
And it's no longer just--
BRAD ANDERSON: Well, if
leadership strays from this you
can get all the dangers, some
of which were referred to
in the last presentation.
PETER HIRSHBERG: Let's move in
our remaining time-- we've
talked a lot about internal
things-- to how this will
change how you design
customer experiences.
And increasingly young folks
live with mobile technology.
And when we think of Best Buy
we think of the store, and we
think of an online thing.
How is mobile going to come in?
And I think to kick this part
of the conversation off we
should throw it over to Ben
Hedrington, who works
in IT development.
And basically I was talking to
him one day, and he kind of
stated his take on the
company's mobile vision.
So let's start with that
and see where it goes.
Let's take a look at Ben.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
Best Buy says is-- we need our
customers to know all we know.
And that's one of our goals.
And that's something we do very
well today, and I think a
critical piece of that
could be mobile.
What I've learned from talking
to some Blue Shirts in
stores is they would love to
have more information.
They look at the little
cards on the products and
there's three specs on it.
What does that even mean?
Customers are asking them
questions they can't answer.
Wouldn't it be great if they
could pull out that mobile
device and see everything
that we know, in quotes?
So really putting some tools in
our Blue Shirt's hand to close
sales, to be smarter, and to
learn quicker I think would
be seen as a huge win.
Customer reviews and ratings
are currently available on the
beta version of the mobile
site I have out today.
And I really envision a
customer-- maybe not today,
maybe today, who knows--
walking up to a camera and
saying I need to know what the
crowds have said about this.
And it's still the Best
Buy reviews from our
BestBuy.com site.
But that's much more
information than you will get
by just talking to the people
you're standing next to.
So read 60 reviews about that
iPod Touch while you're
standing right next to it.
They might walk out and
go to CNET to find
that same information.
If I can provide that to them
while they're in that
experience, I think that's a
net positive for the company
as a whole as well.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
PETER HIRSHBERG: So I haven't
historically thought of
Best Buy in the user
experience business.
But what Ben's basically
talking about is we should be
able to provide the same
experience you get when you're
looking up stuff, or support
information, any time
with you all the time.
BRAD ANDERSON: Yeah, we have an
overall sense that the user
experience in the consumer
electronics space is pretty
terrible on average.
And we've got a tremendous--
actually any country we've
touched, we can go in and shoot
man-on-the-street interviews
and have people talk about
the frustrations of dealing
with the products we sell.
Our dream is that we
solve that puzzle.
So what we've got to have is
basically a combination of
folks with a particular vision
of how to begin the elements
of solving the puzzle.
And then we've got to sort of
swim far enough ahead in the
horizon that we make it
possible for those attributes
to be there as these
visions develop.
PETER HIRSHBERG: The theme of
Clay Shirky's book, Here Comes
Everybody, is the power of all
this wisdom that's out there.
How are you harnessing the fact
that it seems like one of the
greatest assets you have is the
collective knowledge of your
Blue Shirts, and then all of
these Geek Squad folks, and
then the wisdom of all
of your customers?
It's like if you put all
that together there's a
lot of experience there.
BRAD ANDERSON: Yeah.
One of the things we want
to make sure is-- we're at
the very early stages in
relationship to doing this.
This is not mastered.
I mean the early indicators
we've got are really
exciting and thrilling.
If you look at potentially what
could be brought to bear--
there's no real technical
reason this can't be brought to
bear-- is the insight
of our customers.
We're actually literally
building stores right now with
customers volunteering-- female
customers volunteering in a
couple of communities-- to
tell us the store we want.
And then we're seeing if we
can realize that store.
But the insight of our
customers, the insight of a
whole series of suppliers--
electronics suppliers, as well
service suppliers-- and then
the insight of our folks.
And if we can get those things
linked up, and we're clear
about the problem we're
trying to solve, we think we
can add a lot of value.
PETER HIRSHBERG: You know
we saw that clip earlier
where the kids built the
employee toolkit thing.
And I understand that now
having seen that work, you're
rolling out the ability to kind
of almost eventually let any
employee kind of express a
store, build their
own online store.
In the sense of why have just
one online store done in a mass
way, when each employee has
their own set of contacts,
their own view of the world,
their own relationship,
their own take on products.
BRAD ANDERSON: We had a young
man come up and talk to me who
was an intern, works in one
of our Iowa stores while
he's going to college.
And when he came up as an
intern and started to do some
work at the corporation he said
what people in Iowa City don't
realize is who's working
in the Iowa City store.
Like the photo department is
made up of two professional
photographers who are the
best in town, and they have
insight that is enormous.
Now not every department in the
store is as good, but boy if I
in Iowa City knew that access
was available it would
really be helpful.
And with the web it's
possible to do that.
So we're trying to figure out,
and we've got some experiments
starting, in terms of how do
you make that localized skill
set that may be utterly unique
to that particular environment
available and accessible to
the communities we serve.
PETER HIRSHBERG:
We'll wrap up today.
I want to show you a clip of
one of your employees in the
call center doing something
that three years ago, before
any social networking,
couldn't have been possible.
And let's talk about what
that means for-- because
we're going to see.
Let's take a look at Gina.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
In this world of Web 2.0, when
a customer has a service
disappointment they could
potentially broadcast
it globally.
So for example, with this
customer MercuryInfo, they
had a negative experience
with Sears and they
twittered about it.
Sears wasn't able to help them
out with their washer, and they
referred to Sears
as being lousy.
Sears is not here engaging with
them on Twitter, but we are.
Through the Twitter reader that
I utilize, I caught that they
used the words Best Buy in a
post and I reached out to them
and said-- here at Best Buy we
strive to provide excellent
customer service.
And then the customer said--
thank you for your reply Gina.
I'll take that as a positive
customer service gesture.
Your stock just went
up a few notches.
And then they again
said-- go Best Buy.
So this individual had began
their experience with their
washer with Sears, and now it
looks like they are returning
to us as a customer.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
PETER HIRSHBERG: So when you
first saw that, as a merchant
who kind of grew up in sales,
you must have looked at it and
thought things are
pretty different.
BRAD ANDERSON: It was pretty
thrilling for me, because as I
mentioned I started as a clerk
in a store 35 years ago.
It's an accident that I
wound up in a leadership
job, I just got lucky.
But what I used when I had no
real management experience,
strategically was I just used
the insight I gained out of a
little three person store.
So the fact that we can have
this kind of dialogue coming
from this many different angles
with customers as a leading
indicator in terms of what we
can do in the future, is for
somebody with my lens
is pretty thrilling.
Hard to even have imagined
as a science fiction
movie 20 years ago.
PETER HIRSHBERG:
Thank you very much.
What I found so amazing about
this is I think it was only
four years ago that social
networking popped
into our radar.
We remember the bloggers
went to the convention,
it was about that.
Then three years ago it
was about marketing.
And then we heard
about entertainment.
And it looks like these
experiments have started
feeding back into actually
how one does the art of
management and growth--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
BRAD ANDERSON: And the other
thing I think we shouldn't miss
is how much more fun it's going
to be to work in an enterprise
5, 10, 15 years from now
than it was when I started.
And what are the productivity
implications for the overall
society if we can figure out
how to master these skills?
They should be terrific.
PETER HIRSHBERG: A
great note to end on.
Thanks for coming
today Brad Anderson.
Thank you all of you.
[APPLAUSE]
