I recently had the opportunity to participate in a panel discussion about the power of listening and engaging with customers through social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and other Forums.

Leading social innovator, Guy Kawasaki (@GuyKawasaki ) moderated the panel, which was held in conjunction with the release of a Forrester Research study sponsored by Dell. This study looks at how social media outreach is influencing the way that companies do business.

It was exciting to speak with my fellow panelists from Dell (@JasonDatDell), UPS (@DebCM), REI (@JordanCWilliam) and Twitter (@ShaneSteele) about how we use social media tools across our respective companies. From listening and supporting customer inquiries to improved product delivery and organizational process change, social media is one of the biggest catalysts of change in recent business history.

It is clear that we are living in an era where individual customers and communities of people can easily share their voice about any topic using social media technologies. Additionally, social media is now encouraging companies to do more for consumers based on this raw, powerful, and passionate feedback. We are seeing more and more companies beginning to implement proactive changes throughout their organizations, all based on the simple power of a 140 character comment or the click of a "+1" button.

At Comcast, we take the voices of our customers and the feedback they share through social media very seriously. We see it is an incredible opportunity to engage directly with customers as we work to continually enhance their communication and entertainment experiences with Comcast.

In the coming months, you will hear more about Comcast's social engagement efforts from me and the members of our Digital Media Outreach Team. You can also watch the video recording of the panel or read an interview that my colleague, Bill Gerth (@ComcastBill), and I did with Guy.