Groundswell

When Josh Bernoff told me that he and Charlene Li were writing a book about social technologies my first question was how were they going to describe something so fast moving as social technologies in a medium as static and slow to produce as a book.  The answer, as evidenced in Groundswell is that they concentrated on the forces and trends behind the individual products and came up with a framework to evaluate new developments as they occur.  The authors also lived up to the principles they espoused in the book by setting up a web site to continue the discussion.  The result is a book that anyone running a business or responsible for marketing a product in the 21st century must read.

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.