Product Description

Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff define "the groundswell" as a social structure in which technology puts power into the hands of individuals and communities, not institutions. We see examples of this all around us: Second Life, You Tube, Twitter, etc. The technology that is enabling this has created a permanent, long lasting shift in the way the world works. This compelling and research-based book will not only identify the emerging components of this shift, but will also help companies build their businesses around it, regardless of what specific new technologies come along.

The word on social computing has been out for a while. It's game changing. Books like Wikinomics begin to describe what the networked world has become. But institutions of all kinds need more than descriptive context. They need tools to navigate the shift in power that social computing and web communities have created. They need data on how their customers use and perceive new media, and guidance about what it means to their business. More than that, they need sophisticated advice that tells them how to turn this new reality to their advantage. This book provides that data and advice.

Li and Bernoff, well-known thought leaders in the area of social technology, have used their considerable resources at Forrester Research to generate hard consumer data that quantifies a viable business opportunity. Based on their work with dozens of companies presented in the book, the authors are able to credibly describe how business can participate in the new social medium in order to communicate with, energize, support, and learn from their customers. More importantly, their work offers proof that prepared organizations can reap significant financial benefits in product development, marketing, PR, sales, and customer retention. They will use their own proprietary data and additional survey research to illuminate the strategies appropriate for specific brands, media, outlets, institutions, and nations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22732 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Financial Times, 21 May 2008
`for Groundswell's intended audience ... the emphasis on data and analytics is not a bug - it's a feature.'

IT Week, May 9, 2008
Readable and clearly argued ...Any organisation thinking of taking advantage of social networking will find plenty of food for thought.

Putting People First - Experientia blog, May 4, 2008
This business strategy book is set to help people see UGC not as a threat, but an opportunity to communicate.

Customer Reviews

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 by 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.

Guide to web 2.0 for people who don't use the internet.
The book is pretty much as described above. So it's okay, at the very least. But most of the cast studies are pretty banal - if you actually use the internet yourself.

And even if you don't use the internet and this information is in some sense new, then you might be far better off using the three hours or so it takes to read this book visiting so-called web 2.0 sites yourself.

Reading this book - which exhorts everyone to get involved in the web revolution sweeping the globe woo ha yeah - seems to me a deferral activity rather than engagement.

Groundswell - A must for businesses looking to exploit social media
For many businesses who have still yet to venture into the world of social media. "Groundswell" is a must read. The book cites a number of case studies which illustrate how companies are gaining insights, increasing revenues, lowering costs and engaging their customers within today's Web 2.0 world.

Forrester analysts, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff have produced the most up-to-book on the subject and present their findings in a clear and easy to understand format. Both demonstrate their expertise as analysts and writers and provide numerous data examples throughout the book.

What is a Groundswell?

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

The authors discuss why it important to participate in the "Groundswell" and why the "Groundswell" is happening now. The book begins with an overview into what "social media" actually is, and discusses many of the successes and the pitfalls that a company can go through during its journey. The book then offers steps that a business should follow to implement a successful social media strategy.

The book essentially examines how such tools threaten institutional power, and how individuals can use them to empower themselves and their businesses.

Many businesses foolishly believe that participating in social media is as simple as creating a blog, or being active in Facebook. Groundswell does a great job at explaining that creating a successful social media strategy is probably one of the most difficult things that a business can do and takes time and commitment

Hopefully by reading this book the business person will be well on their way to mastering the new dynamics of social media.

Truly, a well presented and written book that is a must read for anyone who wants to learn and utilise Internet marketing, as it exists today and will exist tomorrow.

So much so, I would say this is the most important book to be released since The Cluetrain Manifesto and Naked Conversations.

Buy it!