Firm History

Photo credit: Ken Ohyama
Also see Introduction or CSRA’s Brochure (PDF)

Although I founded CSRA in 2006, the firm has been a long time in the making, so I include some prior formative milestones as well. If you want a briefer treatment, see CSRA’s Facebook Page. If you’re interested in my personal milestones, see Founder Message.

Milestones

• Q1 2017—Launched Drive to Trust, a special program that gives firms the opportunity to be the first in their industries to build trust at scale.

• Q1 2017—Celebrated CSRA’s first decade in business with CSRA 11 Celebration videos in which I share reflections, lessons learned and where we’re going. CSRA Milestones highlights key engagements with some ups and downs of the business climate, 2006-2016.
• Q3 2016—Signed higher education client for social media strategy and pilot engagement that explicitly aims to build trust among their constituents.
• Q4 2015—Published the Social Channel App, beta edition, which shipped with two business applications, Customer Experience and Employee Engagement.
• Q4 2015—Published the first experiential social media case study, validating experiential’s commercial power. Our metrics outperformed best-in-class traditional social media by multiples.
• Q3 2015—Launched the Chief Customer Office, an online competency center that empowers chief customer officers to provide superior customer experience, which also encapsulates employee experience | engagement.
• Q2 2014-Q2 2015—Partnered with digital agency to design and launch their social media practice. Grew their social media capability via mentoring during engagements in consumer goods, commercial real estate, electronics, and healthcare.
• Q1 2014—Formed Social Channel App volunteer editing community, and launched on Google+. Launched SCA’s open community to support users of the app.
• Q2 2013—Launched the Chief Digital Office, an online competency center to support Chief Digital Officers, Chief Executive Officers, and Board of Directors in assessing and executing digital transformation of the organization.
• Q4 2012—Conducted Advisory and Services Firm Social Business Adoption 2012, a detailed analysis of management consultancies’ and digital agencies’ competency with social business and experiential social media. It was published in Q1 2013.
• Q3 2012—Formalized the Social Channel App project by transitioning to full-time to complete my second book, which I designed like an app. Organized the SCA project using the APE the Book methodology.
• Q2 2012—Completed Phase2 of integrating CSRA blogs and websites. Most content created on rollyson.net, which has a structured taxonomy of categories and tags, which syndicate out to our other titles. Also streamlined workflows for Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn and outreach.
• Q1 2012—CSRA launches Social Business Services to focus its strategic services (the Social Network Roadmap) and execution services (the Executive’s Guides) on B2B sales and marketing transformation.
• Q3 2011—CSRA launches the Executive’s Guide to Google+ and presents the disruptive value proposition at conferences and boardrooms nationwide.
• Q3 2011—Completed Phase1 of streamlining CSRA blogs by launching the Executive’s Guide to Social Networks, which integrated content from Executive’s Guides to LinkedIn, Twitter & Blogs and Facebook. It serves executives as corporate/startup leaders and as individuals by showing them how to increase their effectiveness in both contexts.
• Q2 2011—CSRA signs global NGO for social business strategy and numerous pilots. Expanded the Social Network Roadmap to include global comparative analysis. Compared 10+ language markets worldwide.
• Q1 2010—Prominent East Coast local government signs CSRA for social business strategy and numerous pilots. This government was late to market but wanted “to do it right.” The Social Network Roadmap identified numerous business and political risks that management was able to avoid and improve its brand significantly.
• Q1 2010—Global semiconductor manufacturer’s consumer brand hires CSRA for its global social business strategy, focused on the U.S. while considering European expansion.
• Q1 2010—Fortune-50 retailer hires CSRA to use the Social Network Roadmap for social business strategy. Results encouraged additional strategy engagements for numerous businesses.
• Q4 2009—The Executive’s Guide to Facebook launches, with a robust three-phase services framework.
• Q3 2008—Unveiled the Social Network Roadmap(SM) at the Social Networking Conference in San Francisco.
• Q1 2008—The Executive’s Guide to Twitter launches, building off EGLI’s delivery framework.
• Q1 2008—The Executive’s Guide to LinkedIn launches, based on market interest and its B2B focus. The “EGLI” featured a robust enterprise delivery framework, focused on iterative transformation. I designed it with the abstraction to facilitate morphing to other platforms. Made extensive executive presentations nationwide, and launched independent management seminars internationally.
• Q1 2007—Signed Wall Street investment bank to long-term contract for social network vision, transformation and strategy for investment banking and wealth management.
• Q1 2007—The Unofficial LinkedIn User’s Guide for Executives and Professionals is published on St. Patrick’s Day and goes viral globally the following week; the refrain, “I need something like this to explain to execs why they should be on it!”
• Q4 2006—Pervasive Outsourcing morphs into Transourcing, reflecting rapid maturation of “out”sourcing into multisourcing
• Q1 2006—CSRA’s first service offering was Pervasive Outsourcing, whose site launched this quarter, with adoption model and delivery framework; CSRA’s approach focuses on using sourcing strategically to reinvent organizations as networked, collaborative bodies
• Q1 2006—CSRA founded to deliver corporate strategy to global firms
• Q4 2005—Launched the Global Human Capital Journal to decode the powerful disruptive forces of social networks, globalization and finance for CEOs, CMOs and CIOs. Global Human Capital leveraged my background in economics, corporate strategy, global work and living experiences and management/design experience with digital communications. Covered numerous conferences and executive events as press. Interviewed heads of state and global CEOs.