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| Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies | 
 enlarge | Manufacturer: Harvard Business School Press
Category: EBooks
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $17.79
You Save: $12.16 (41%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  46 reviews
Sales Rank: 458
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Dewey Decimal Number: 303.4833
ASIN: B001B1FDM2
Publication Date: April 14, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 Social Technology Primer May 5, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
It seems only natural to blog (see my blog at thinkingfaster.typepad.com) about a book like Groundswell, a book recently published by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff from Forrester Research. After all, the book is about the growing importance of social networking applications - blogs being a big part of that phenomenon.
Li and Bernoff define the Groundswell as a spontaneous movement of people using online tools to connect, take charge of their own experience and get what they need - from each other instead of from companies. The book looks at the nascent and growing power of informal communication networks using social networking tools - blogs especially, but also social networks and virtual worlds, wikis, online forums, ratings and reviews, tagging and rss feeds. If you've been online lately, you've used one or more of these tools and techniques. What Li and Bernoff are interested in is how these tools and techniques create a completely new dialog between:
* A company and its customers
* The employees within a company
* Customer to customer beyond the scope or control of a company
* Individuals with shared interests
All of this done on the fly, with little centralized control.
The book breaks out into a number of sections. Early in the book, the authors review why the groundswell is taking off and how to participate, and they identify the "tools" - blogs, wikis and so on - that drive the groundswell. Then they introduce the Social Technographic profile, which is meant to provide profiling on how a segment of the population is participating in the groundswell using these tools. Once this platform is built, the authors then look at how to:
* Listen to the groundswell - gain insights from what is written
* Talk to the groundswell - using blogs and communities
* Energize the groundswell - charging up your best online customers
* Embracing the groundswell - including customers as collaborators
Finally, the book looks at a couple of examples of firms that have plunged in head first to gain advantage interacting with these tools and working closely with customers and prospects through the groundswell.
What I like about this book
What's great about this book is that if you and your team know very little about the emerging set of online networking, collaboration and communication tools, the book provides an excellent primer early on, describing what each tool is, how it is used and its benefits. The book is full of excellent examples of firms that have used these tools to advance the interaction between themselves and their customers and prospects.
What I'm skeptical about
The book seems to approach everything from a perspective of "What can the groundswell do for my company?" As a blogger, I tend to think that the "groundswell" - if that's what we are to be called now - expects honest communication and open dialog. The Groundswell to me seems to be more about Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park in London, where anyone with an opinion can bring a soapbox and say what they want to say. If your message is interesting or vital, you'll draw a crowd and grow a network. Many people writing and listening in the "groundswell" are quick to distinguish between "honest" opinion and perspective and "marketing" or PR. I think Groundswell doesn't spend enough time making distinctions between these points. A poorly managed online presence will be quickly sniffed out - especially one where a firm intends to "use" the groundswell for a marketing advantage. It's important to "give" to the groundswell as much as you plan to "get" from it.
This book accurately portrays what any group - a commercial entity, a non-profit, even a government agency - could do leveraging the groundswell. The tools are the easy part - what's hard is opening up to the dialog. Can your organization bear the criticism and questions about its products and services, as well as bask in the positive glow of good feedback?
I was a little disappointed in the wrap up. The authors demonstrate throughout the book deep knowledge of the current state of the groundswell. But as industry analysts and forecasters of future trends, they spend disappointingly little time on the future of the groundswell. Given that almost all of these tools (blogs, wikis, tagging, RSS Feeds) are disaggregated services offered by very small companies or as open source or freeware, what is going to happen? Will we see a consolidation of these tools into some sort of "ERP" for the groundswell? Will I need to turn to del.ici.ous for tagging and Blogger for Blogging and PBWiki for my Wiki, or will these combine? What are larger firms to do that may have concerns about disaggregated, third party solutions run by very small firms that may not be able to demonstrate longevity or the ability to manage critical, sensitive communication links to customers? Given that the two authors make their living as industry analysts, I would have expected a much more detailed look at potential future scenarios.
Conclusion
This book is great if you are just starting out as a "newby" trying to understand how to join the online conversation. Whether you want to tag and aggregate or find interesting feeds or information, or want to actively contribute through ratings, feedback or by blogging, or create an entirely new social network, this book has great advice for you.
 Best book on social media April 11, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Groundswell is the best book I've read on social media (and I should know a few things about social media -- I'm the VP of marketing and direct sales for a social media company!). What makes it so good? There are a few simple reasons:
1. It captures the essence of social media. The term "social media" is foreign and confusing to many people, and this book cuts through the hype and explains the "core" of what it's about.
2. It's full of customer examples. The book illuminates the power -- and importance -- of social media by describing real-world customer examples where social media is being used. In doing so, the book escapes the trap of dwelling on abstract theory and instead gives you a down-to-earth understanding of the ways social media is being used and its benefits.
3. It's easy to read. Josh and Charlene are well-known, experienced analysts, but the book does not read like some academic dissertation. It has a nice cadence, with an easy conversational tone. I honestly don't know how two people could write one book together and maintain such a consistent, smooth style. I buzzed right through it.
4. It's practical. You'll get direct advice about how to "do it right." And, as someone in the business, I can attest to the fact that their advice is worth listening to.
A must read if you are in charge of a merketing organization April 22, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
The book is targeted directly at the marketing executive in a medium to large company who may be seized by a creeping dread that something his happening out there and needs advice what it is and what to do about it. The central message of the book is that the trend towards your customers getting things from each other - the Groundswell - is unstoppable, but that not only can you understand it and live with it but that you can thrive in it.
Anyone who has been working in the social media field will be familiar with the technologies described in the book, such as social networking sites, blogs, wikis and user-generated content, and will recall many of the anecdotes such as the Streisand Effect, but the book also presents a wealth of data on user characteristics and a series of enlightening case studies that derive from the authors (and their colleagues) research at Forrester. Perhaps the most useful contribution is what the book calls the Social Technographics Profile - essentially a way of measuring how the target audience participates in social media, from the Creators who publish a blog through the Critics, Collectors, Joiners, and Spectators and finally the Inactives. By assessing where one's customers fall in this space it is possible to make reasoned judgments about which social technologies will be most appropriate.
The authors also introduce the POST methodology: People, Objectives, Strategy, Technology - assessing where the people one is addressing fall in the previously mentioned profile and the establishing which objectives make the most sense and what strategies and technologies best support those objectives.
The book presents case studies for the four objectives of Talking, Energizing, Supporting, and Embracing one's customers and gives plenty of examples of how to do each, and concludes with chapters on the organizational changes which are necessary and likely to result by applying the provided prescriptions.
In summary, Groundswell provides a comprehensive picture of social technology together with practical advice of how to apply it. If you are in charge of your organizations marketing budget you need to read this before you go out and spend your money on banner ads.
Best business book ever read. Really. May 4, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
You can find more about the actual contents and valuable details about this book in other reviews, what I would like to to add is :
- This book is a great example of writing a business book by telling a story. It's flow is fantastic, I finished it in 3 days when my average time for a business book is 3 months
- This book is full of real world case studies, in different domains, unfortunately most of them outside Europe, describing different needs but perfectly attached to the 5 basic elements of Groundswell strategy : Listening, Talking, Energizing, Self-Supporting, Embracing
- This book gives an excellent and walkable path in defining and executing social media strategies with things you can immediately add in your own efforts, and it worked for me
- I liked also the chapter about the issues you are going to face trying to talk about all these things inside your organization or your client's organization. I think this is one of the biggest issues right now in social media space, especially in places where social media awareness among mainstream business people is low, Greece where I live and work being one of them
- I liked the notes at the end of the book. It could be another short book itself. Detailed with great links and additional information, a real treasure
- Finally I like the way these people are managing the promotion of their book, using all the techniques they are evangelizing inside the book, blogging, twitter, video, slideshare decks, you name it. [...]
A real gem for your social media bookshelf.
Panos Kontopoulos | [...]
This is the One to Understand What's Happening May 22, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Having been in the online industry for almost 20 years, (that's not a typo, it's twenty), I've come across a lot of self-proclaimed pundits.
This is one of the few books out there that's fairly well packed with insight and common sense backed by real research. To be sure, there's some anecdotes filling up some pages, but unlike a lot of recent pundit press, there's way more ideas/facts/analysis then filler.
I'm not saying I wholly agree with everything. The technographics profile has a ton of value, yet at the same time, it's not the only lens things should be seen through. (Not that the authors suggest that mind you; just that this profile is very much applied to most things they look at.)
One thing I really like about the book is how they handle the Enterprise view of the world. In a lot of web conferences and meetings I attend, the digerati spend a lot of time talking to ourselves. Early adopters often forget there's a whole large crowd out there that have issues they've not considered. Li and Bernoff, on the other hand, work both in the Web point x world as well as the real world of traditional business.
To understand what's happening today in online computer mediated communications, the best way to "get it" is to actually participate. Use the social tools, the chat tools, the forum tools, and so on. And to get the high level view there's the seminal Cluetrain Manifesto, Wikinomics, Naked Conversations, anything by John Hagel and more. But if you can only get one book right now to get a sense of social media as it relates to consumers, enterprise, and so on, this is it.
Scott
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