Groundswell

Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

By: Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff

Narrated by: Josh Bernoff

Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

A groundswell is sweeping through your customers. Right now, they are writing about your products on blogs and recutting your commercials on YouTube. They're defining you on Wikipedia and ganging up on you in social-networking sites like Facebook. These are all elements of a social phenomenon - the groundswell - that has created a permanent shift in the way the world works. Most companies see it as a threat.

It's time to see it an opportunity.

In Groundswell, two of Forrester Research's top analysts tell listeners how to turn the force of customers connecting to their own advantage. With 25 vivid cases from around the world - from health care to retail to consumer goods to business services - Li and Bernoff show how leading companies are gaining insights, generating revenue, saving money, and energizing their own customers. Whether listeners are in marketing, research, support, sales, development, or even running the whole enterprise, there's targeted advice here for them, backed up with real-world ROI to prove it works.

Groundswell is based on hard consumer data and experience with dozens of companies. The listener will hear how the marketers of Procter & Gamble proved that subtle marketing within a community was four times as effective as television...how Best Buy taps into the intelligence of over a thousand of its employees with its own social network...how Dell has transformed itself by embracing customer insights in nearly every department...and how a South African winery boosted its sales tenfold by tapping into the power of bloggers, YouTube, Facebook, and every other tool in the social technology arsenal.

This trend cannot be ignored. Listeners must learn how to ride the wave. There's no going back.

©2008 Forrester Research (P)2008 Gildan Media Corp

Big Impact on My Thinking

I read this book mostly with an eye towards assigning it in the e-commerce and Web 2.0 classes I teach. An excellent primer on social technologies and their impact on marketing, research, customer relations and corporate culture. I wish the authors had license to take a more critical stance...as they are consultants for Forrester Research (Li has since left) and therefore appear sensitive against offending. This is not the book to learn about Web 2.0 technologies if you are already immersed - but perhaps one to give (or assign) to those folks who need to understand the basics of the trends and tools - and begin to see Web 2 can impact cultures.

I wish all my clients...

As a web developer, I wish all my clients would listen to this work. Unlike the vast majority of books about the "net", this one actually "gets it"; it has many useful insights and goes beyond the obvious to provide practical suggestions, and by example, processes to implement them.

Excellent

If you want to read one book about how your business can benefit from the web, this is it. In the midst of all hype, these guys offer a simple and obvious, yet powerful method to figure out what your company should do. As the authors say, so many people get involved with web 2.0 just because "everyone is there", without knowing whether and why they should be there, too. The book also offers multitudes of useful examples.

A Great Introduction

This book is for managers who are asking "should I get into the virual community?" Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff start at the beginning and walk each reader through the current electronic mine field. If you have some understanding of what is happening with (say) Facebook, the first couple of chapters will drag some. Otherwise, this is one great timely tome. They inform the ready about RSS, wikis, blogs and emergent media. There is a lot of hand holding here so listen without fear.

The good news is that this book is timely so read it now. The bad news is, perhaps, they spend little time speculating about where this media will go. That is not what I would have them to do because (1) they have done a wonderful service telling us where we are and (2) this book will be outdated soon and I need them to spend time bringing out their next book.

The writing is to the point, easily followed, and without digressions. The reading by co-author Josh Bernoff is very good.

Interesting material ... if you can listen

Bueller ... Bueller... Okay, maybe it's not that bad but listening to the narrator (and author) is challenging. Although fairly new to non-fiction audio books, I know there is better (e.g. Freakonomics). The material is interesting and well laid out in general. At 30+ min in, it is just hard to maintain focus with the monotonously pleasant tones spiked with too rare periodic inflections, rhythm changes, etc given Mr Bernoff's particular voice.

Awful narration

I was so looking forward to listening to this book. I travel a lot, so I plugged in my iPhone and hit the road only to be SEVERELY disappointed. The information is probably good but the narrator (author) is wooden. He reads as if he is reading a report in front of his 7th grade class. In this case it would have been good to hire professional talent. I won't finish this audiobook, which means I wasted my money. I'll buy it though, and read it myself.

Web Business only

When I got this book I was expecting something totally different. Even though it wasnt what I was looking for, I still find myself using the information as I find it interesting.
My business is a local service company that would not be using the "Groundswell" marketing of web marketing. The description does not fully reveal a true insights of what is in the book.
If you plan to market your products or business world wide or to at least millions of people, I think you would find what is in this book as very insightful and a good read.
Make sure you listen to the content with the sample before you purchase

Very dissapointing

What disappointed you about Groundswell?

The book offered no insights that I did not already know. I found it very frustrating.

What was most disappointing about Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff ’s story?

I found this book did not captures the digital reality, rarther it is something I would expect from a research company that learns about the real world through hindsight garnered through consultancy; to address problems that fast moving companies learn through fast, immediate, mistake led action. A book for those of the big corporate past.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Communicated in the manner of a consultatnt, rather than someone who actually lives the reality of the digital moment.