The Journey: Ant's Eye View

I'm really excited to announce that as of today I'm joining Ant's Eye View in Silicon Valley. What is Ant's Eye View? Here's the quick overview:

"Ant’s Eye View is a social engagement strategy development and consulting firm that helps guide mid to large-size companies through the process of transforming customer experience and brand engagement by activating and embedding the voice of the customer into all aspects of a company’s social business. 

Founded in 2009, the consultancy currently has offices in Austin, Seattle and Silicon Valley with a client roster that includes Google, P&G, Visa, Microsoft, Intuit, Cisco, Wells Fargo and USAA."

What that overview doesn't capture is the absolutely astounding array of professionals who are part of the organization. If you've followed the Social Business space over the past few years, you've undoubtably crossed paths with some of them. My new colleagues:

 
The thing that has me most excited is the opportunity to work with the stunning cast of characters noted above (who, not incidentally, have been *cracking me up* already via our internal Yammer network -- enterprise collaboration rocks). However, only slightly on the heels of the amazing culture is the commitment to strategic vision that the organization has already put in place. This vision is not constrained to the tactics of the social media tool du jour, but instead derives from understanding the challenges of the journey that an organization must undertake in order to achieve real business results supported by metrics and KPIs while at the same time ensuring that customers and customer communities remain strong and empowered. It's a rare combination.

Jackie Huba, from the Ant's Eye View anthill in Austin, illustrates the journey in five stages:

The illustrations here show the top-level view; check out Jackie's longer post here on the overall Social Engagement Journey.

So, today, it's off to the Seattle office for a couple of days for hazing and initiation training and account planning (our client list freaking ROCKS, by the way) and then off to SXSW later this week, where I'll be speaking on a panel on Sunday, March 13th.

To my former colleagues at Edelman, I wish you the best. Seeya in Austin at SXSW later this week.

Comments

[Jake McKee]

Welcome aboard, my friend! We're all stoked to have you. And hell, it's only taken what... 6 years? to finally work together? Fantastic that we're here!

Now, where are those deliverables??

[Dave Pecj]

Congrats

[E]

Sounds like a great venture, Chris - Corngrats!!

[christopher carfi]

@jake -- I know, right? And...oh yeah...I got yer deliverables right here.

@dave and @e -- thanks!

[Eric Weaver]

Welcome, Chris! Great to have another ex-Edelman Digital guy on the team!

[christopher carfi]

@weave -- totally thrilled to be here!

[Andrew B Schultz]

Congratulations Chris - it's always good to be moving into an opportunity you're excited about.

[Karen T. Smith]

Awesome, Chris, congrats! You'll have to let me know when y'all need some Chicago-based help, mkay? ;)

[christopher carfi]

@andrew -- thanks!

@karen -- oh, absofrigginlutely.

[Tac Anderson]

Congrats man. Great group. Hope to see you while you're in Seattle. If not I'll track you down at SXSW.

[Maria Ogneva]

Congrats!!! This is so awesome! Ant's Eye View is so full of awesomeness, I don't even know where to start. I remember meeting Jake at SXSW, and chatting with Kira over Twitter and email as she told me an amazing (numbers-driven) story of how humanizing a brand in social media works. Yes, you are right, you can't really NOT get to know these fine folks in the interwebs!

And... did you say Yammer? That's obviously also music to my ears :)

Can't wait to celebrate with you at SXSW!

- Maria

[christopher carfi]

@Tac @Maria -- Thanks! And yes. :-)

[Babbleopia]

Awesome is not enough to describe this.. Congrats!

[David]

You certainly have captivated my attention. I'll have to learn more about Ant's Eye View. Thanks for the summary.