When thinking through who to bring together to generate new ideas, it is more effective to combine specialists from very different and unrelated disciplines rather than a variety of people with different skills sets in the same field.

In the social business marketplace, brands that hope to build loyal and growing communities do so most effectively when they demonstrate their core values and allow a community to build and engage around it.

The United States is at a critical juncture in time. Our government is riddled with historic debt, and the limited resources of philanthropic and non-profit efforts cannot meet the scale of social challenges we face with necessary force.

The launch of Google+ apps sends a powerful signal - the personalized web has begun. What this means is that the way information is structured and accessed will turn on the individual, or rather their personal profile which is a composite of all the data collected on the basis of what they have searched for and shared.

Social media demands a lot of us on top of our already demanding lives. So let's disconnect as we need to and renew our interest and ourselves.

By linking with friends and ultimately strangers and building those relationships, social media is reweaving the social fabric that can then be used to scale your non-profit efforts.

When something works for you or another brand, ask yourself, 'Why?' Then don't copy it but think about what you can do that's unique to you and better.