I recently finished reading Groundswell by Forrester’s Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li. I was particularly excited about it because about a year ago I was interviewed by Josh Bernoff for it as an active participant of Constant Contact’s user community. (The company I worked for was major business partner of CC) At the time I was just starting to get excited about social media as a business function and I was dying to know what these top notch analysts had to say about it. Especially since a big challenge of social media so far is (in my opinion) some excuse a lot of it for noise or time-wasting, and have a hard time seeing business value.
Well what else can I say but “Wow!” Josh and Charlene not only clearly explained theories, strategies and tactics, but also assembled a fantastic mix of real life case studies. I was even happy to see a few Canadian examples in there–Bell Canada and Loblaws.
I also love how they’ve put some easy to remember names for developing strategies, like the POST method. (Stands for People, Objectives, Strategy and Technology and dictates the method & particular order for developing successful social media strategies). Also the book flows in the different stages of interacting with the Groundswell — First you listen, then you engage, then energize. (I think I’m missing some steps, but you’ll have to read the book to fully understand anyway)
One thing that really irked me, however, is that throughout the book they really pump up the social technologies profiling tool, developed by Forrester, and available free on the site. Sounds fantastic? Well it looks like it is, until you realize while it includes data from South Korea, Italy, Australia… There’s no Canada! Almost insulting as we are one of the more connected countries (ahead of the US!) and that I would suspect we have a proportionally higher ‘creator’ population (just my hunch though). Plus, of course, being attached to the US we do have a bit of a complex.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Jay Moonah of Toronto actually spoke up in the Groundswell discussion board. Josh replied and said that because of bad timing they were unable to include Canadian data, but it’s coming… Keep your eyes peeled!
Overall, however, a fantastic book I recommend picking up. Have you read it? What do you think? Let me know!
5 Responses to “The Groundswell: Are you listening?”
I promise — Canada is important to us and Canada data is coming soon.
I’m reading it now and I absolutely love when I read and agree and take notes when reading a book. it means you get it, you understand it and it’s in “your space”. This is one of those books for me.
Kelly, I’m glad to hear that you enjoyed the Groundswell book as much as I did! We really appreciated your participation on our behalf for this book and are pleased that you mentioned our community in your blog. I too was excited and energized when reading the book and refer to it quite a bit when we develop plans for the future of ConnectUp! at Constant Contact. I look forward to connecting with you more in the future as it’s great to getting to know others who really “get” community. Thanks again!
Maureen Royal
Director of Customer Experience, Constant Contact
http://community.constantcontact.com/
@josh bernoff - Glad to hear, I can’t wait to see it!
@Marc Meyer haha yea I’ve got a gazillion folded pages.
@Maureen Royal Absolutely! Also my biggest apologies for losing touch with the Constant Contact community. The truth is I moved jobs and now don’t have access to the account anymore. It devastated me! Though at least I’m sure Ron is still there to answer any questions and keep the conversations flowing.
Kelly -
Thanks to your rec and @guykawasaki’s endorsement - http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2008/04/the-impact-of-s.html - i picked up my copy this past weekend. loving it already…2 chapters in.
dj at bronto