The following blog is from Kay Fernandez, Vice President, Strategic Business Development, Konica Minolta Business Solutions

I started in this industry in 1997 after four years at Merrill Lynch, a brief stint in a computer depot repair company, and on the heels of just finishing graduate school. It was at the time when digital copiers were just starting to replace analog and the Motorola DynaTAC “brick” cell phone (quite the status symbol when Michael Douglas wielded it in the movie “Wall Street”) was being replaced by the newer, more compact, Motorola StarTAC flip phone. It was all about hardware and having the latest and greatest gadget, processor, beeper … you name it. Then, with the founding of Netscape, AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe, the internet era took off, proliferating the “world wide web” in households and penetrating the mainstream office environment.

[Tweet “Social media gives us another opportunity to speak directly to our customers #konicaminolta”]

We’ve seen a tremendous amount of change in technology in the past two decades, but more important is that the internet has given us global access to people that’s just a mouse click away. As companies change their marketing strategies to adapt to this new paradigm, the role of social media becomes crucial to the conversation and dealers, as well as market to a much-wider audience in a cost-effective manner. It’s become another way for us to communicate and, when individuals connect online, it gives life to our company and humanizes our brand. Social media allows employees to develop these online personal relationships to become a multi-faceted representation of our company. It’s given us the ability to make the organization more human and create “faces” of the brand like never before.

I’m proud of my company and the products and services it provides to help customers solve their office productivity and document needs. But at the heart of it, I am most proud of our team. I love working with individuals who are smart, passionate and fun.  In addition to what we sell, Konica Minolta is about the people who make up our organization. Social media gives all of us the chance to let the world see the “who” behind the brand.

Join me on twitter @kaydufernandez