Social Evolution

I recently watched "The Social Network," the fictionalized account of Facebook's rise from a Harvard student's side project to the social media platform that has changed the way many of us communicate. And while the movie was loosely based on the truth, there was one quote from Jesse Isenberg's Mark Zuckerberg that captured the dynamic nature of social media that continues to give us new and interesting ways in which we can connect with each other:

In describing Facebook (then called Thefacebook), he said: "We don't know what it is, we don't know what it can be, we don't know what it will be."

The same can be said of the Independent Grocer Network. Officially launched just last year with just over 100 members, we're now upwards of 600 today and these members are very active in contributing content to the network. Over the past year we've continued to adapt the site to our members information needs, adding features and functions to enhance the user's experience, removing those features that aren't used or that negatively impact the user experience.Oh yeah, we changed the site look just a bit, too...

Now we're entering into a new phase of evolution, in which our members are discovering new ways of leveraging the platform for the benefit of all members.

One such member is Jon Seltzer, a consultant with the Marketing Department at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn., who is working with the National Grocers Association to expand and coordinate student participation in the Association’s annual convention/trade show. Jon and I met at last year's N.G.A. show following the network's launch, and together we built a private group for his use with these student interns.

For this year's show, he came up with a truly innovative idea to leverage the group to enhance these interns' experience at the show in a way that will benefit all of the network's members in the near future.

In his group's discussion forum, Jon posted a forum topic for each of 14 different workshops that will be held during the event. His team of student interns will be attending these workshops, then answering three questions within the relevant forum post: 1) What did you like most about this workshop? 2) How does this workshop relate to some of the classes you have taken? 3) After attending this workshop, what more would you like to learn?

While the group is private, we will be taking some of these students' responses and posting them to the general forum on the main page for all members to see, as it will give you an idea of how our next generation of grocery leaders views the various issues within our industry. Kudos to Jon for taking such a leadership role in using the network!

Another innovative feature came from the network's relationship with its new sponsor-partner Pan-Oston. You may have noticed two new groups on the network: Pan-Oston's Utopia Across America Tour: Route 1 and Pan-Oston's Utopia Across America Tour: Route 2. Once again, the company's Mobile Innovation Centers will be making their way through the country, only this time the trip will feature real-time tracking of each bus and regular coverage of retailers visited along their respective trips.

Each group will feature an RSS feed from Foursquare, so that when the bus "checks in" to a retailer's location on the service, we will know where they are in real-time by checking the feed.

There will also be bi-weekly coverage of retailers that Pan-Oston visits featured in each group, along with comments these retailers post on the comment wall of each group highlighting their experiences with the Mobile Innovation Centers. Photos from these visits will also be added to IGN regularly.

Outside of the network, we'll have in-depth coverage of Pan-Oston's tour in the pages of Progressive Grocer Independent. I'll even be jumping on the bus for a couple of days and reporting from the road!

Look for even more innovations in the coming months, and please feel free to add your own!

I look forward to seeing you in Vegas!

Joe Tarnowski