Mark Zuckerberg and 900 million of his friends hit Wallstreet with America’s largest IPO and has once again made history. Facebook’s first trade was $42.05 giving the social network a valuation of ~$115 billion.  In the process, Zuckerberg became the 29th-richest man in the world with another half dozen employees also becoming billionaires. It’s also estimated that U2′s Bono will make more from his investment in Facebook than in his entire 30-year music career.

As the stock trades, investors will learn to Like Facebook as long as Mark and Co. continue to perform for those very investors who may or may not actually have a Facebook account and who may or may not even understand the future of media or the evolution of the human network. Zuckerberg has made it clear that he intends to spend his time, energy and that of his team to run Facebook “the hacker way.” Doing so, he believes, will steer Facebook clear from the fate that befell Myspace. To compete for the future, he will invest in the ongoing development of engaging user experiences. As I mentioned in an interview with Al Jazeera, Digital Darwinism threatens every company, including Facebook, “In an era of digital Darwinism you have to compete for relevance in real time, almost faster than real time.”

Certainly Zuckerberg will face challenges of balancing the company’s focus on investor versus user value and as an analyst, I will not only study its progress, I’ll continue to share my thoughts on where the company can invest its new found capital to effectively compete for relevance.

Let’s start here…

1. Mobile: Facebook must communicate its mobile strategy and how it plans to monetize engagement on tablets and smart phones. As of May 2012, time spent on Facebook via mobile devices exceeds that of traditional desktops. Facebook does not monetize mobile and with this stunning shift in Facebook engagement, the time to do so, was well, yesterday. Post IPO, Facebook must convey its vision and supporting business models for a single view, but dual platform community.

2. Search: To compete with Google in traditional search is fruitless. To compete against Google in social search, where the experiences of friends contribute to an evolving customer decision journey is lucrative. I do believe that search becomes an integrated part of a larger experience where Facebook has the potential to become something along the lines of a personal OS. The idea here is that the right information will find you based on how you curate your network with people, apps, and services. It’s where the online experience and all you do, starts on your personal dashboard.

3. Relevance: As you read, I believe that in order to not only survive Digital Darwinism, businesses must lead stakeholders toward new and rewarding markets. To compete for the future starts with competing for relevance. In almost every business interview I’ve conducted about Facebook, I’m asked whether or not Facebook is “cool” anymore. The discussion naturally progresses toward Myspace, which I feel is counter productive. Comparing Myspace with Facebook is like comparing Saab to BMW or Saturn to Ford. Competing for relevance becomes part of the leadership regime and it’s why on the eve of its IPO, Facebook chose to host an all-night hackathon rather than throw the usual rooftop party made popular in the days of Web 1.0. I guess in its own way, Facebook is trying to stay cool, or more importantly, stay true.

4. Building and Shipping: 1 hacker way isn’t just the way of way of life at Facebook, as the official company address, it’s literally the way to Facebook. Zuckerberg is creating a “build it and ship it” culture. This heads down, in the developer zone focus is part of the company’s now famous ability to innovate and execute. It is also now a potential liability as the company moves into the public and investor spotlight. Fail fast and learn isn’t just part of Facebook, it’s a mantra in silicon valley. However, Facebook must focus on more than just user experience, it must focus on people and behavior globally and locally. Google tends to take an algorithmic approach to development. One could argue that seeing the future through a developer lens and not one of digital anthropology, sociology or ethnography is why Google has wrestled with opportunities to socialize new and existing products. While Facebook builds and ships it must also continue to explore the intersection of technology and liberal arts to build and ship in ways that continue to define or redefine how people discover, connect, and share.

Facebook has every potential to truly earn Wall Street as both a friend and a fan. To do so however, will take the company’s continued investment in the social graph and now also the investor graph.

UPDATE 1: Facebook set a new trading volume record for U.S. market debuts, with over 515 million shares changing hands.

UPDATE 2: At 38, the IPO price was equivalent to more than 100 times historical earnings, compared with Apple’s 14x and Google’s 19x.

In honor of Facebook’s IPO and as my way of sharing my thoughts of whether or not Mark Zuckerberg’s attire will affect his ability to run a successful company, here’s a picture of my hoodie:

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The End of Business as Usual is officially here…

Chronic diseases, often referred to as “lifestyle” diseases, including heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and arthritis – are among the most common, costly, and preventable of all health problems in the U.S. and also the leading causes of death and disability. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), four modifiable health risk behaviors—lack of physical activity, poor nutrition, tobacco use, and excessive alcohol consumption—are responsible for much of the illness, suffering, and early death related to chronic diseases. Specifically with regards to obesity, just last week the CDC released a new report published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine warning that 42 percent of the U.S. population will be obese by 2030 – while that may seem to be some time in the future, that’s actually just 18 years away.

But this is not just an issue that afflicts the U.S.; it is a global epidemic estimated to kill 36 million people a year and is so important and acute that in 2011 for only the second time in its history, the United Nations (UN) addressed the prevention of non-communicable diseases, or NCDs, at their General Assembly meeting to set a new international agenda on the prevention of NCDs. The first and only other time that the UN General Assembly met on a health issue was to discuss the world epidemic of AIDS.  World leaders joined Health and Development Ministers in the consensus adoption of a wide-ranging Political Declaration on the prevention and control of NCDs; this Declaration’s implementation will be evaluated in 2014. And progress is already beginning to be benchmarked against it – on May 16, the World Health Organization released new data highlighting increases in hypertension and diabetes incidence around the world in anticipation of the World Health Assembly, to be held in Geneva from 21 to 26 May 2012, which will consider progress made from last Septembers meetings. In addition, the World Health Assembly will continue discussions about developing a global monitoring framework and a set of voluntary targets for prevention and control of these diseases.

While there are many disciplines considering solutions to NCDs, one that should not be ignored is social marketing. As an effective health promotion strategy, social marketing can be, and has been, used to motivate people to use health information and change behavior in ways that promote and maintain good health. And a critical step in creating positive behavior change to impact health is simple, science-based, behavior-focused communication messages on nutrition and health.

On May 1st, the International Food Information Council (IFIC) Foundation announced the publication of the proceedings from its 2011 Global Diet and Physical Activity Communications Summit: “Insights to Motivate Healthful, Active Lifestyles,” in the May 2012 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Nutrition Reviews, stressing again the need for health communicators to be part of the solution in addressing NCDs. As U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina M. Benjamin stated in the keynote address at IFIC Foundation’s Global Summit in September 2011, there is an essential need for communicators of global health to provide clear, simple information based on the latest science, to stress prevention and to employ a comprehensive, holistic approach to combating non-communicable diseases or NCDs.

Along with the release of the Nutrition Reviews article, last week the IFIC Foundation also released a helpful one-page fact sheet entitled, “Communication Strategies to Help Reduce the Prevalence of Non-communicable Diseases.” The fact sheet combines the key findings from the Summit into 10 helpful tips for communicating health messages with consumers.

The top five tips include:
1.    Use easy to understand messages.
2.    Set realistic goals.
3.    Connect with children early in life on how they can succeed.
4.    Focus on “how to do it” instead of “what to do.”
5.    A key message should be “do something.”

When the UN measures progress in 2014, what are your thoughts on how far we will have come?