Regardless of your position within an organization, if you want to see change you need to institute change. Small steps often lead to big change. You have the ability to encourage others to have the confidence and courage to follow. The one thing that I find helps is arming myself with knowledge. You don't know what you don't know, right? One of the things I turn to broaden my knowledge are books. It's amazing what you can learn at such a minimal cost, if you just put the time and effort into it.
Social Media:
- Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies - by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
- Social Pollination: Escape the Hype of Social Media and Join the Companies Winning At It - by Monica L. O'Brien
- Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business - by Larry Weber
- The New Influencers: A Marketer's Guide to the New Social Media - by Paul Gillin
- Blogging for Business: Everything You Need to Know and Why You Should Care - by Shel Holtz and Ted Demopoulos
- The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right - by Debbie Weil
- Social Media Metrics: How to Measure and Optimize Your Marketing Investment - by Jim Sterne
Marketing:
- microMARKETING - by Greg Verdino
- The New Rules of Marketing & PR - by David Meerman Scott
- IMC, The Next Generation : Five Steps For Delivering Value and Measuring Financial Returns - by Don Schultz & Heidi Schultz
- The Buying Brain: Secrets for Selling to the Subconscious Mind - by A. K. Pradeep [Neuromarketing]
Public Relations:
- Measuring Public Relationships: The Data-Driven Communicator's Guide to Success - by Katie D. Payne
- PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences - by Deidre Breakenridge
- Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR - by Deidre Breakenridge and Brian Solis
[NOTE: It's apparent that the PR community needs to step up and get to work sharing "new" knowledge in today's PR space. Antiquated tactics just don't work today. Any takers?]
Business:
- Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones - by Joseph Jaffe
- Tactical Transparency: How Leaders Can Leverage Social Media to Maximize Value and Build their Brand - by Shel Holtz & John Havens
- Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back - by Rohit Bhargava
- Confessions of a Public Speaker - by Scott Berkun [Because whether you like it or not, you are publicly speaking every day, in every meeting...]
- Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard - by Dan and Chip Heath
- Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead - by Charlene Li
- Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business - by Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler
- Sticks and Stones: How Digital Business Reputations Are Created Over Time and Lost in a Click - by Larry Weber
- Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less - by Barry Schwartz
- Rework - by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
What book recommendations would you add? But more importantly, why?