Chris Hughes: From Facebook to The New Republic

As one of the original co-founders of Facebook, Chris Hughes was catapulted into the elite group of young millionaires who made it big with the help of the Internet.  However, Chris went beyond the distinction of being a Facebook co-founder and spokesperson and went on to carve his very own niche in history and society.  

After successfully orchestrating Barack Obama’s online presidential campaign in 2008 and founding Jumo in 2010,  Chris Hughes is now more identified with his political causes and as the new Editor-in-Chief and publisher of The New Republic magazine, which he bought in 2012.  Interestingly, Chris used his wealth from the new media to invest in the traditional media.

Family and Educational Background

Born in November 26, 1983, Chris is the only child of Ray and Brenda Hughes, a sales manager and a math teacher respectively.  Chris was raised in the small town of Hickory, North Carolina as an evangelical Lutheran.  When he was 15 years old, he got accepted to the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts on scholarship.  After excelling academically at Andover, Chris clinched a scholarship to Harvard, where he spent perhaps the most life-changing years of his life.  

Harvard and Facebook

At Harvard, Chris majored in History and Literature.  During his sophomore year, he became roommates with Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, and Dustin Moskovitz.  They later became the four original co-founders of the worldwide phenomenon called Facebook.  Though Chris was not that proficient in computer programming and coding, he became interested in what his roommates were developing and offered suggestions.  Since he is outgoing and articulate, he became their group’s salesman and spokesperson during the early days of Facebook.

Like Eduardo Saverin, Chris refused to drop out from Harvard and move to Palo Alto when Facebook started to gain ground.  He finished his Bachelor of Arts in History and Literature degree from Harvard in 2006 as magna cum laude before working fulltime in Facebook’s product team.  A few months after, he left Facebook.  As Facebook co-founder, Chris Hughes earned around 1% of the company’s stocks, which is estimated to worth at $850 million, making him one of the youngest millionaires in the world when he was barely 23 years old.

MyBarackObama.com, Jumo, and Beyond

Before the 2008 US Presidential Election, then-senator Obama’s personal aide, Reggie Love, asked Chris for help in putting up Obama’s Facebook page.  After leaving Facebook, Chris worked as the director of the presidential campaign’s online organizing for Obama.  He developed and ran the social media operations of Obama’s campaign.  He came up with MyBarackObama.com, the online social networking site for Obama’s presidential campaign, which was Chris’ personal project that he incorporated into Obama’s official site. 

 MyBarackObama was a kind of Facebook network for Obama’s donors, canvassers, and grassroots organizers.  Aside from engaging the young supporters for Obama, this site also helped raise around $30 million for Obama’s campaign.  In April 2009, the Fast Company magazine featured Chris and his work in the Obama campaign with its "The Kid Who Made Obama President: How Facebook Cofounder Chris Hughes Unleashed Barack's Base - and Changed Politics and Marketing Forever" headline.  Chris Hughes was 24 years old when he helped his boss into the White House.

In March 2009, the General Catalyst Partners, a venture capital firm based in Cambridge, Massachusets, named Chris as its Entrepreneur in Residence.  He also worked as Managing Director of MondayCall Solutions, as VP for Marketing of Medivo, and as Board Member of Fancy.

In 2010, he put his social media and political expertise to work by founding Jumo and working as its Executive Director.  Jumo was a non-profit social networking organization that aimed to maximize the social media to help organizations and individuals who want to change the world for the better.  In April 2011, Kerry Dolan of Forbes negotiated with Chris about Jumo and talked about helping small and medium nonprofit organizations to establish interactive online presence.  In August 2011, Jumo merged with GOOD.

Political Causes and The New Republic

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS or UNAIDS appointed Chris Hughes to its High Level Commission, which is composed of 17 members who are renowned politicians, human rights activists, scientists, and business leaders.  In 2011, he went to St. Moritz, Switzerland to attend the Bilderberg Conference, the annual, invitation-only, and very exclusive conference attended by around 120 powerful people from around the world.

Being openly gay, he has also supported the various causes of the LGBT community. He attended the first state dinner hosted by President Barack Obama with his boyfriend Sean Eldridge, who was Freedom To Marry’s Political Director that time.  He married Sean on June 30, 2012.

In March 2012, Chris bought the majority stocks of The New Republic, a highly regarded, albeit struggling, arts and politics magazine with liberal inclination based in Washington DC.  As the Editor-in-Chief and publisher of the magazine, he promised to keep The New Republic up with the latest information technologies while upholding serious journalism.  With Chris, the guy who set off to make a better mark in the world, at the helm, The New Republic has more to celebrate in its forthcoming centennial year.

Brian Solis: Blazing Along The Social Media and Internet Marketing Trail

As one of the trailblazers in the realm of social media and internet marketing, Brian Solis has indeed come a long way.  Currently recognized as one of important and most prominent leaders in the new media industry, he is also an award-winning author, internet marketing guru, digital analyst, futurist, and aspiring social scientist.  Brian Solis is also a leading blogger via his BrianSolis.com blog, which is in Technocrati’s Top 100 business blogs and in AdAge Power 150’s Top 10 marketing blogs, and the host of Revolution, his very popular online video interview series.  He also hosts and curates the yearly Pivot Conference.

After establishing FutureWorks Labs and propelling it to the top, Brian Solis remains as its advisor while serving as one of the principal analysts of the Altimeter Group, a Silicon Valley research-based advisory company.  As he continues to study how new technologies affect human behavior and how the future of the popular culture can present opportunities to improve the relationship and experience of consumers with companies, Brian confesses to find himself assuming the student role once in a while.

CAREER

Early Beginnings.  As a kid, Brian Solis confessed that he was really fascinated with technology and anything related to it.  He learned programming early on and started his career in a Southern Californian technology marketing agency as a database programmer.   Eventually, he found himself switching his interest and focus to advertising and marketing. 

In 1991, he officially entered the field of technology public relations when he worked in the Dodge and Mansfield firm, an agency based in Ventura, California.  He also became Director of Silicon Valley’s The Benjamin Group from 1993 to 1996.  During the 90s, Brian Solis began to become involved in early blogs, message boards, and communities.

Unlike most other marketing strategists, Brian did not believe in fluff, hype, or buzz words.  Instead, he believed in transforming specifications, capabilities, and benefits into timely solutions for the problems and opportunities in the real world.  It was during the mid-90s when he experimented with direct customer/consumer engagement via dedicated technology boards and forums.  From this, he developed new methods to engage people in a more informed and social way while marketing a product. 

FutureWorks Labs.  This eventually led him to start FutureWorks Labs, an agency dedicated to doing interactive marketing, in 1999.  FutureWorks eventually specialized in branding, business strategy, and new media marketing.  Through this company, Brian led the social and interactive programs for notable celebrities, Fortune 500 companies, Web 2.0 startups, and many leading brands. 

Altimeter Group.  In March 2011, Brian Solis joined the Altimeter Group as a principal analyst.  He works on new media frameworks and strategies with businesses in order to connect the companies with consumers, employees, and the other stakeholders. He also specializes in organizational transformation in order to help businesses introduce and implement new media resources, management layers, and systems and processes that respond to the needs of the social consumer.

PUBLISHED WORKS

Brian’s first book, Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Business to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web, was published in 2010.  It became helpful guide for effective social media practices and strategies and an important reference for organizations on how to conduct business and assess their success in the new media.

His latest book that was published in 2011, The End of Business As Usual: Rewire the Way You Work to Succeed in the Consumer Revolution, examines how top companies find success with their connected customers or the Generation C.  Aside from exploring the emergence of the connected customers, the book also looks into how businesses can compete effectively for the consumers’ attention and loyalty, build relationships with them, and improve a business’ relationship with its employees and consumers.

Brian also worked with Deirdre Breakenridge to publish Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, which became one of the communications industry’s important bestsellers.  He also partnered with Geoff Livingston in 2007 to do Now is Gone, a critically-acclaimed book that helped companies know why, how, and where to start in the new Social Media.

He contributed forewords to other published works, including Vincenzo Cosenza’s Social Media ROI, Michael Brito’s Smart Business, Social Business, Becky Carroll’s The Hidden Power of Your Customers, Deirdre Breakenridge’s PR 2.0, Jacob Morgan’s Twittfaced, and Sean Percival’s MySpace Marketing.  He also contributed to BusinessWeek, Fast Company, Mashable, AdAge, and Harvard Business Review.

SOCIAL MEDIA AND INTERNET MARKETING CONTRIBUTIONS

During the early 2000s, Brian realized that big changes were unraveling and that many others like him were finding success with the internet, which was becoming a more social and democratic form of media.  He spent time to share everything he knew and learned via the articles, blog posts, and books he wrote.  He actively wrote about new marketing and businesses, emerging business models, and disruptive technology. 

Brian was also one of the leaders who worked to define and organize the “Social Media” movement, which significantly helped in establishing it as a definite media category.  He also wrote “The Social Media Manifesto” in 2007, a certified worldwide hit that detailed why organizations should rethink their business, service, and marketing strategies in the face of the developments in the social media. 

In 2008, Brian designed an infographic that depicts the various social media categories and called it The Conversation Prism.  In 2011, he came up with another infographic that depicts how brands propagate on the transmedia or digital media landscape.  His admirable work in the emerging social enterprise earned him accolades like the CRM Magazine’s 2010 Influential Leader and SoftwareAdvice’s 2011 Authority of the Year awards.