Brands must have a point of view on that purposeful engagement, whether it's directed towards the environment, poverty, water as a resource or causes such as breast cancer or education. Merely declaring your commitment to a category or cause will not be enough the distinguish your brand sufficiently to see a return on these well-intended efforts.

Since most corporate competitors have the same problems with sustainability and social reputation, it's worth trying to solve them together.

The theory of social contracts extends as far back as Plato. However, it was the great 18th century social philosophers John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau who brought the concept of a social contract between citizens and governments sharply into political thinking, paving the way for popular democracy and constitutional republicanism.

There is a fundamental shift that social media necessitates in business today - the need to transition from 'Me First' to 'We First' thinking.

It is time for corporate America to become 'the third pillar' of social change in our society, complementing the first two pillars of government and philanthropy. We need the entire private sector to begin committing itself not just to making profits, but to fulfilling higher and larger purposes by contributing to building a better world.

Find the human in the technology. The currency marketers trade in has not changed even if the methods have. Emotion is what we exchange.

It is a truly powerful phenomenon when a brand makes a stand for what it believes in.