Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

Groundswell Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li (based on 53 customer reviews)

(Hardcover)
Edition: 1
Author: Charlene Li
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press

List Price: $29.95
Amazon's Price: $19.77
You save: $10.18 (34%)

click for more info

Most useful review as voted by customers:
42 out of 45 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 4/4/08

A Groundswell of Love for this Book

Groundswell is the best book on social media I've ever read, and it may be the best book ever written on the subject.

Here's why:

1. It's current. Books on social media by nature almost can't be current. Everything is blogged or twittered one day, forgotten the next. Yet this book has some staying power, and you can give it to your boss or your client feeling reassured that even if they don't get around to reading it for six months, it'll still be valuable when they do.

2. Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff write the book like authors, not analysts, even though there's plenty of number-crunching with meaty take-aways. The human stories that illustrate each point provide protagonists you can identify with.

3. If you're new to social media, you'll appreciate a lot of the how-to material. If you're a pro, you'll appreciate how to do it even better and some of the more advanced material in the book.

4. The technographics, discussed frequently on the Groundswell blog and in the analysts' presentations, are useful. I've already used these for planning client campaigns to at least check if I'm on the right track or inspire some new thinking. If you read the book, the technographics tool on the Groundswell site becomes even more intuitive, although the site has enough info to get value out of it. It's amazing how much Forrester's giving away.

5. You get breakdowns of return on investment metrics of an executive's corporate blog, ratings and reviews, and a community support forum, figures which are hard to find elsewhere and can provide good benchmarks for related scenarios you may encounter.

6. The book offers thoughtful answers to some of the more important questions. How can you tell if a new technology has staying power? Why do people participate with social media? How do you energize your customers? When should you use blogs, social networks, and other media technologies?

The one thing the book doesn't do enough of is describe why some campaigns go awry. They mention a Special K community on weight management that had a promising start but soon fizzled. Why?

I'm reminded of the chapter heading from Richard Farson's Management of the Absurd: "We learn not from our failures but from our successes - and the failures of others." Farson goes on, "While we may think we are motivated by hearing about the successes of others, believe it or not, little is more encouraging or energizing than learning about or witnessing another's failure, especially if it is an expert who is failing." I wish there were a few more failures to learn from along with the hits.

Outside of that though, this book's an outright success, one I'll be recommending to colleagues, clients, and anyone else who will listen.

15 out of 15 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 5/5/08

Social Technology Primer

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.

10 out of 13 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 4/6/08

A well written and researched book on Web 2.0 and how companies should approach getting on board with it.

Groundswell encompasses blogs, wikis, podcasts, YouTube, and book reviewers at Amazon. Basically, groundswell is the same as Web 2.0. According to a Wikipedia post it "is the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and Web design that aims to facilitate creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users."

This was a wonderful book. My only problem with it was its title. I had no idea what "Groundswell" was when I pulled it from the shelf at the bookstore. I didn't really know what it was about when I turned to the Table of Contents either. But as I started to read the book I quickly figured it out. And because I had a problem with the term "groundswell," I started this review off with a definition. At least something close to its definition.

The book has 12 chapters as follows:

I. Understanding the groundswell (Chapters 1-3)
II. Tapping the groundswell (Chapters 4-9)
III. The groundswell transforms (Chapters 10-12)

1. Why the groundswell - and why now?
2. Jujitsu and the technologies of the groundswell
3. The social technographics profile
4. Strategies for tapping the groundswell
5. Listening to the groundswell
6. Talking with the groundswell
7. Energizing the groundswell
8. Helping the groundswell support itself
9. Embracing the groundswell
10. How connecting with the groundswell transforms your company
11. The groundswell inside your company
12. The future of the groundswell

The author says "Groundswell is a social trend in which people use technology to get the things they need from each other instead of from the companies." And this book was written so companies can try to get in the mix and influence their prospects and customers to either buy or continue to buy their products and/or services. Hopefully by reading this book the business person will be well on their way to mastering the new dynamics of social media.

The authors cite 25 case studies inside this book to show how companies are gaining insights, generating revenues, saving money and jumpstarting their customers into action. A very worthwhile read for any professional or business person interested in getting a handle on Internet marketing as it exists today and will be existing tomorrow. 5 stars!

9 out of 12 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 4/21/08

Data Driven Yet Reader Friendly - A Much Needed Primer On Online Social Marketing

The authors define a Groundswell as "a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions".

This book demonstrates through quantifiable research that the market is indeed changing (as if we didn't know that) and they show you exactly how you can leverage those changes in your favor.

Using very easy to understand and enjoyable to read language the authors walk you through multiple case studies that not only identify key concepts, but demonstrate exactly how you can use them in your business.

I think one of the most intersting things about this book is that it doesn't focus on the fringe, it focuses on the meaty middle. What I mean by that is that they don't try and demonstrate how much they know about things you've never heard about, they focus on showing you how to use the tools that work today.

I think that this book is a must read for any marketer who is scratching their head and wondering where their ad dollars should go or wondering how to get a handle on online social media.

I had multiple ah-ha moments while reading this book.

Dave Lakhani
Subliminal Persuasion: Influence & Marketing Secrets They Don't Want You To Know
Persuasion: The Art of Getting What You Want

9 out of 9 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 5/3/08

How groundswell thinking can help to achieve success in a "flat world"

What Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff characterize as "the groundswell" is "a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other instead of from companies. If you're in a company, this is a challenge...[This trend] has created s permanent, long-lasting shift in the way the world works. This book exists to help companies deal with the trend, [begin italics] regardless of how the individual technology pieces change [end italics]."More specifically, Li and Bernoff respond to questions such as these:

What unique threats does the groundswell pose?
How to turn it to competitive advantage, "like a jujitsu master"?
What are its component technologies?
What is The Social Technologies Profile and what does it offer?
What is the four-step POST process for creating strategies?
What are the five primary objectives for a groundswell strategy?
How to create customers who are evangelists for you?
How to establish and support relationships between and among your customers?
How can the same trends that empower customers also empower employees?

Throughout their narrative, drawing upon a wealth of data accumulated by Forrester Research as well as their own studies, Li and Bernoff include a number of real-world examples - in the form of mini-case studies -- that demonstrate key points. They offer lessons to be learned from Mini USA, the American arm of BMW's Mini Cooper brand (how to listen through brand monitoring, Pages 89-93), Ernst & Young (how to communicate in social networks, Pages 104-106), Hewlett-Packard (how to communicate with customers through blogging, Pages 108-112), eBags (how to energize with customer ratings and reviews, Pages134-140), Constant Contact (how to energize by creating a community, Pages 140-145), the Lego Group (how to energize an existing community, Pages 145-147), and BearingPoint (how to use a wiki to reassure clients, Pages 165-168). Granted, not all of these lessons are directly relevant to a reader's own organization. However, they help to create a context for each key point as well as a frame of reference for what Li and Bernoff describe as a "permanent, long-lasting shift in the way the world works."

They conclude this brilliant book by offering some advice, not on what to do but on how to be: ever-mindful that the groundswell is about person-to-person activity, a good listener, patient, opportunistic, flexible, collaborative, and humble. Guided and informed by the information and counsel provided by Li and Bernoff, readers will be able to formulate and then execute strategies to achieve a competitive advantage. "You'll be able to build on your successes, both with customers and within your own company. And then, as the groundswell rises and becomes ubiquitous, you will be ready."

Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out Rob Cross and Andrew Parker's The Hidden Power of Networks: Understanding How Work Really Gets Done in Organizations. Also Gary Hamel's The Future of Management (with Bill Breen) and Ram Charan's Leaders At All Levels as well as Enterprise Architecture as Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution co-authored by Jeanne Ross, Peter Weill, and David Robertson, Richard Ogle's Smart World: Breakthrough Creativity and the New Science of Ideas, and Global Brain co-authored by Satish Nambisan and Mohanbir Sawhney.

5 out of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 4/18/08

Best business book of the year

Not only is this the best book written on social media as others have said, this is the best business book that I have read this year. Well written in an easy, conversational style with many takeaways that can be implemented in your company right away. The real world story-telling are current, in fact many of the people mentioned you will see active on Twitter.

With detailed explanations and ROI models, followed up with calculators and other nuggets on the blog, you will learn how to implement a social media strategy whether blog, wiki, or community successfully.

Buying this book will be like getting Forrester's expert advice for just $20, an investment sure to pay off for anyone.

4 out of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 4/11/08

Best book on social media

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.

Books

(display all categories)

Adjust text size.