groundswell

“Winning in a world transformed by social technologies.”

I just finished this new book by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, two VP analysts at Forrester Research. This is a very readable and very balanced look at the increasing impact of social media on business. There are several sections that address how healthcare institutions have tapped into the social media dynamic and increased customer satisfaction and - potentially - improved outcomes. There are several other books that I have read that cover this same terrain (Now Is Gone: A Primer on New Media for Executives and Entrepreneurs by Geoff Livingston; The New Influencers: A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media
by Paul Gillin and Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business by Larry Weber.) and more on the way (Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky). Groundswell is much less a cheerleading book and much more of a business analysis of what is happening and what you can do with your organization to take advantage of the trends occurring as the social media world unfolds. Highly recommended if you want a sober, balanced look at the playing field.

Randale