Book Review: Groundswell by Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff

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”. mmm that sounds like an important thing to know about if you think you're a traditional institution, or if you think you're breaking new ground, or if you're a consumer wondering why you're starting to feel left out the loop.

What I liked about the book was the examples and case studies. Usually I skip these, however, I foudn these ones riveting reading. Who needs thriller novels when the business world presents us with such chaotic and roller coaster events. Fabulous.

I also found the way the book was constructed and organised to be very helpful, especially when faced with a disconcerting topic. Far from being disorganised, the underlying structure helped get the message through.

Read this book and it will move you on from thinking about "all we need to do is have the odd blog and a fancy web 2.0 website" and get you into strategising about your social media presence. I have always been convinced that social media is not just for the youngesters and this book has all the examples and conceptuals models to help you create some of your own thinking for your business to prove it is for everyone.

The book has, as you would expect, a great website. http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/index.html It is good to see them practising what they preach. They have a blog and there is also a social media profiling tool you can download and use.

I'm not one for giving 5 stars to a book, but this one deserves it. I might just read it a second time.

Blogging policies and blogging in healthcare

Over the last few months I have been meeting up with groups and organisations who want to dip their toe into the social media soup yet are concerned they have need a policy and/or are worried about what is /isn't kosher when it comes to blogging and twitter etc. I acknowledge the need to develop some guidelines that both enable the best of blogging yet manage corporate requirements.

This reminds me of the early days of email when some organisations felt email was very risky and clamped down on it with many rules and regulations. As time went on, the wisdom of the crowd took over and a "norm" was established. The book "Groundswell" - see my book review blog for a review if you're interested http://www.mybookblurb.blogspot.com/ - has a page http://blogs.forrester.com/groundswell/2004/11/blogging_policy.html listing Blogger Code of ethics which I like.

There are also some links in there to publically available corporate blogging policies, like Harvard University, Sun Microsystems.

The BBC has a simple page that makes sense to me as being sufficiently practical without being onerous http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/advice/personalweb/blogging.shtml

Working in healthcare and think that blogging isn't relevant? Check out 100 Best Health Care Policy blogs and see what is on offer and the potential impact they are having http://www.rncentral.com/nursing-library/careplans/100_best_health_care_policy_blogs

Or if you need a more research based approach then have a look here http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2008/12/15/research-papers-on-business-blogging/

If email is your only means of electronic communication then maybe now is the time to test something new to add to your skill base.