About


Jacob is widely regarded as a thought leader and community leader in social business.  A key to his success is his strategic vision for both the industry and client projects.  Jacob spends a good amount of time experimenting, researching, and developing ideas and concepts around social business.

Jacob co-founded Chess Media Group with the goal of helping companies understand the business value of employee, partner, and customer collaboration (Enterprise 2.0 and Social CRM).  Chess Media Group is a social business consultancy that is focused on three key practice areas for mid and enterprise size clients:  Social CRM, Enterprise 2.0, and Social Media.  Jacob leads social business strategy at Chess Media Group and provides the vision for how companies can achieve the greatest business value from their social business initiatives. Jacob also develops partnerships, business opportunities, and focuses on long term growth and strategy for Chess Media Group.

Jacob’s book, Twittfaced – Your Toolkit for Understanding and Maximizing Social Media was published in September 2009. Entirely co-authored through online collaboration, the story of how his book came to fruition demonstrates the power of social media and how online communities and collaboration can yield business successes.

Jacob’s blog is ranked among the top 100 most influential marketing blogs in the world by AdAge, and is syndicated by outlets such as: The Social Customer, Social Media Today, Cloud Ave, Forecasting Clouds, Customer Think, The Customer Collective, Social Business One and others.  Jacob is frequently asked to comment on social business by major news outlets and has been featured or interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Inc. Magazine, KRON 4 (NBC’s San Francisco station), Read Write Web, LCI France (a national TV news network), Search CRM, Technewdaily, Edelman Digital, CMSwire, Mediapost, Marketing Profs, and Zdnet.  Jacob has also been recognized as one of the most influential Enterprise 2.0 bloggers by Cloud Ave

Previously Jacob ran another social media startup, an SEO consultancy, and worked for an online marketing agency.  Jacob has worked with brands such as Adobe, Conde Nast, New Horizons Computer Learning Centers, Salesforce, Sandisk, The U.S. Department of State, and Coremetrics.

Jacob is passionate about travel, people, ideas, and chess (hence the name of the company).  Today he maintains a busy schedule of speaking and consulting on the topic of social business.  If you are a fellow traveler you can find out more about his travels and experiences by visiting the travel section of this blog.  If you’re looking a speaker for your next event then please visit Jacob’s speaking page.

Affiliations:

  • Fellow for the Society for New Communications Research
  • Advisor to Attensity 360
  • Advisor to Red Chair Group
  • Advisor to Comity Advisors