The global digital leadership team met two weeks ago in Palm Harbor, Florida (right outside Tampa) to discuss strategy for 2009. Each year, the digital team gathers to review past initiatives and plan for the upcoming year. I was happy to see friendly faces from around the network again: Charlie Pownall, B-M’s Lead Digital Strategist for Asia-Pacific, Desiree Collier and Stephanie Bonnet, Co-Lead Digital Strategists for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Felix Leander, Lead Digital Strategist for Latin America and a new face, William Kemp, Lead Digital Strategist for the United States.

Over the course of three days, our regional strategists presented current market findings, potential areas of growth and possibilities for integrating new products and services. We reflected on successful internal campaigns of 2008, most notably Digital in Action, the company’s hyper-targeted digital training program which was rolled out in nine markets (and counting), and Digital Week, showcasing our digital thinking and our new mobile capability. As we move into 2009, and in light of the economy, digital continues to show its full potential in the marketing communications field. Burson-Marsteller’s digital perspective truly revolves around educating our clients on how digital can improve their brand, why investing in relationships with the client’s stakeholders is more important than a singular transaction, placing the impetus on participating and lastly, creating a persistent presence at anywhere and anytime.

I look forward to traveling to our offices worldwide next year and focus on enhancing our global digital capability, ranging from innovative and relative products for Burson-Marsteller and its clients to demonstrating our wide-array of digital expertise in the ever-evolving market.

What are your plans for 2009?

Today’s marks the end of our second annual Digital Week at Burson-Marsteller. It sounds odd to talk about Digital Week when we live in a digital world but I think it is important to stop frequently and think about the implications of digital media on communications in general and our work as communications counselors.

It is not news that digital has changed the way consumers access and absorb information. What continues to evolve however is the way that companies adopt to the changing preferences of their stakeholder groups. I am proud to work for an organization that celebrates these changes and puts resources against creating dialogue with employees, developing training opportunities, and for adapting to our clients’ needs. Despite our great team and passion for digital, things are fluid and it can be tough to stay ahead of the trends. Thus, Digital Week provides an opportunity to get everyone speaking the same language in addition to celebrating great work from our colleagues around the world.

We’ve had a big week. We launched a self-guided training program, unveiled the next iteration of our intranet, hosted special events for employees, launched a mobile marketing program, created a collaborative internal thought leadership environment, and released the next phase of digital content on our corporate website. More importantly than all that though is the fact that we have demonstrated as a company the reality that digital media presents a personal opportunity for all of us to grow our knowledge and value by participating and a professional responsibility to be current on digital trends and strategies for our clients.

I want to send a special shout-out to the digital team that managed all of the content and logistics for this week. Our global digital coordinator David Ambrose has done a wonderful job overseeing this event with a fantastic team including Ashley Finch, Stephanie Bonnet, Desiree Collier, Felix Leander, Charles Pownall, and Tery Spataro - thank you all. Of course there are dozens of other folks who contributed as well, ranging from IT to design and everything in between, and we appreciate your support too. Thank you.

While it may be true that every day is Digital Day in a Digital World, I still think it is smart to take time to step back, consider what is important, and allocate resources against moving forward. For our employees, i hope you enjoyed this week and found it to be a valuable learning experience. And for our clients, I’d ask you to take a moment and reflect on how you are leveraging digital media within your organization and think about ways to be better, faster, and bigger. It will make a difference.