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So if brands aren’t necessarily going by their EA network score to judge their return on investment, how do they know if their time is well spent? Robert Scoble thinks it’s too early to say whether brands will see a major return on their EA investment. “It’s something fun to play around with, but that’s all I’d be doing right now if I were a company,” Scoble said. “That said, you could get a lot of PR by playing around with services in early stages of the game. Everyone remembers [the companies that were early to] blogging and Twitter. No one cares about the 3,000th one there.”

Intel is seeing results from being an early adopter. “As one of the first Fortune 50 brands on EA, we got first-mover credit,” explained Rhoads. “People noticed we were participating and were able to interact directly through the game with a very active, pre-existing community. It’s very satisfying to invest in that community and I think gratifying and perhaps surprising when a brand re-invests back in you. As far as results are concerned, it’s hard to tell.”

While larger companies are always among first adopters for new social networking sites because they have more resources and staff, the true test will be if smaller companies will flock to EA as they have to Facebook and Twitter. Most companies will likely need harder evidence of return on investment in order to justify getting into the game

ow did this come about? In large part, it is because the payoff for corporate engagement with customers has risen dramatically as a result of social media.

As the brand’s customers become loyal fans, they use their social networks to spread the word about that brand, driving even more new fans to join in. This dynamic may have its initial upfront costs, but it pays off in the end through an extended global audience of buyers and fans.

Transforming a brand into a socially responsible leader doesn’t happen overnight by simply writing new marketing and advertising strategies. It takes effort to identify a vision that your customers will find credible and aligned with their values.

The Seven StagesThe process of becoming a brand leader in the next decades will be an evolutionary one involving at least seven stages.

Unsustainable corporate self-interest

Self-directed engagement

C-suite reflection

Consumer facing self-interest:

Self-directed reform:

Brand leader:

Brand visionary:

Indeed, if we consider the online reach of companies like Facebook and Twitter, the offline reach of companies like Proctor & Gamble, Unilever, Coca-Cola and Walmart, and the fervent consumer loyalty that companies like Apple, Nike and Patagonia inspire, it’s easy to imagine how a web- and social-savvy population could coerce these companies — and any others who want to follow their example — into becoming the leading global brand visionaries of the future.

despite the recession, 75 percent of consumers believe social responsibility is important, and 55 percent of consumers said they would choose a product that supports a particular cause against similar products that don't

That means companies have an opportunity to differentiate themselves if they can communicate clearly how they give back to their employees, communities and the environment, per the survey.

nearly 50 percent of 18-24- and 25-34-year-olds are more likely to take a pay cut to work for a socially responsible company

each of the ten fraternity chapters on campus agreed to sign on and to collaborate on a philanthropic endeavor this semester and in the future

all fraternities will collaborate philanthropically around an agreed upon theme, sharing resources and co-sponsoring fundraising events together

Because fraternities at Tufts are already so busy with their individual chapter philanthropic activities, it was initially challenging to get all the chapters to sign on

However, once everyone came to the understanding that this was not intended to be a burden but rather a supplement to their ongoing activities, things began to develop well.

ollaboration really has great potential for better utilizing our manpower to maximize the effect we can have

hopes the partnership will help change some of the stereotypes about fraternities.  “While the point of this project is to increase the philanthropic activity of chapters, it is also very much to improve recognition of the philanthropic work chapters have been doing for a while now,

reek chapters participate in or host multiple philanthropy events a semester and the campus doesn't always hear about them, so by bringing all of the chapters together it is hoped that awareness of fraternity charitable activity will increase.

"As CSR and sustainability continue to converge into ‘business excellence,' we will see a growing recognition within executive ranks to understand, recognize and leverage the value of a responsible and sustainable work culture. 2012 just might be the year when change management becomes institutionalized as a prerequisite for growth and profitability."

It must have mattered. Look how bad it was. Not only were the pages just ugly, they were peppered with database errors and CSS blowups

. It doesn’t prove design doesn’t matter, but it does suggest design may not be the deciding factor.

Can you see at what point in time we changed design?  No?  Must not have made a difference. Let’s look at time-on-site:

Nothing. But this is all superficial — what Really Matters is the Conversion Rate: are more or fewer people signing up each week:

Hmm. Looks like everything objective is saying “it doesn’t matter.” But as much as I respect and follow Lean Startup theory, objective measurements aren’t the only things that matter. Those customer emails matter too.

The other day we landed a large customer who said they could tell from our website that among our competitors we’re more mature and ready to handle a bigger customer like them. I can tell you — objectively — that we’re among the youngest of our competitors, and although I have a list of reasons why “we’re better,” the truth is that particular customer would probably be served just fine by several of those competitors. Was it the design that gave us that edge? Could be. Didn’t hurt, anyway.

Still, the more I look at the importance of design in the startups in my little career, the less it seems to matter.

Modern Lean Startup theory blares out from the red-tiled rooftops of Stanford: Seek the Data and Ye Shall Find! First the bounce-rate. If our website design was repulsive — literally — the bounce rate should now diminish. Here’s the data:

An even more extreme example comes from my second company ITWatchDogs. I displayed its old homepage at the magnificent Webstock design conference in Wellington earlier this year; the crowd whooped at our violent assault on the visual arts, complete with calliope menubar colors, two broken images tag above the fold, and a layout model that could be seen as a “grid” only after consuming a pillowcase of mushrooms:

But you’re anticipating the punch-line — ITWatchDogs grew every month, made millions of dollars, stole business from competitors with billion-dollar market caps (and professional-looking websites), and had a successful exit.

Of course it’s only fair to also point out some of the many instructive counter-examples: Hipmunk is the same thing as Orbitz or Travelocity — the only difference is amazing design, not just because it looks good but because it’s so useable. In the words of Joel Spoksly — the design “affords usability.” (P.S. Early Hipmunk team member Alexis Ohanian is so cool and smart and rich and funny and successful and good-looking that really he doesn’t deserve to be alive. (P.P.S. Hey flamers, for God’s sake it’s a joke! Don’t you realize I’m just sore from losing the Pecha Kucha competition to him?)) I always use and recommend Amy Hoy’s time zone tool only because it’s just nice to use and look at. (P.S. she also authors a terrific blog aimed at the solo entrepreneur.) Many people credit Mint’s smash success with their terrific design. Considering how many features were broken for how long, it’s hard to argue. 37signals documented — with data — how design changes results directly in more credit-card-swiping customers. It doesn’t get more “business value” than that. So where does that leave us in the “matters / doesn’t matter” question of design?

I think you can go either way, but you must decide whether or not you’re going to value design as core to your startup’s identity, and then act consistently. Here’s what I mean.

It’s clear from the outset that design is the only competitive advantage Hipmunk has over its competition. Specifically, by making the flight-search problem pleasurable and useable instead of feeling like you’re navigating pivot tables from Excel ’98.

They don’t have better data, better branding, better name, better SEO, or more money. Just better design, and not just easily-copyable incremental improvement, but a quantum leap better.

When design is that fundamental to the business — how it acquires and retains customers, garners attention and referrals, and distinguishes itself in the market — obviously design can be the most important thing.

Conversely, at ITWatchDogs the company’s internal and external culture was that we’re low-cost, friendly, approachable, regular guys, who understand exactly what you worry about, exactly what your budget is, and we nail it. The site might have looked bad, but our message couldn’t have been clearer.

But it is useful to decide where you come down on the question of design in your startup, because if it’s important you’d better work on that right now and develop a consistent culture of valuing design through-and-through, and if it’s not important you’d better decide what is important and nail those things all the harder, because you’ll be competing with people who are using superior design to cover up their lack of competency in those same areas.