The big day has arrived - our first book is officially out and can be purchased at Amazon.com (Borders and Barnes & Noble still show the old release dates for some reason).
Needless to say that this is a moment that I am very proud off.
Over the next couple of weeks and months, I will write about some of the principles that we developed as part of the book. Many of those posts will be repeat topics as I tested a lot of those concepts as we were writing the book.
The writing of the book and the sense-making that came with it has had a profound impact on my thinking - so deep in fact, that I am repositioning my company around it. I had hoped to re-launch my business before the book was out, but that was preempted by the early release of the book by Amazon. Stay tuned for an update on that in a few weeks.
The book has three parts to it. The first part deals with the fact that if you want to understand this current wave of innovation - powered by social media, social computing, or social networking - you are in fact better off understanding what we termed the Human 1.0, which has been around for tens of thousands of years, rather than the Web 2.0 tools. We describe the main elements of the Human 1.0, including reciprocity, our innate sense of fairness, our need to look cool and to attain status and power, and other human quirkiness that can explain a lot of what is happening in business today.
The second part of the book deals with the fact that companies that are successful in harnessing the power of Social Media, Communities, or the Web 2.0, think differently about their business and they act differently. They focus on Tribes and Knowledge Networks instead of the more traditional Market Segments and Information Channels, and they are human-centric to a fault, ditching the old company and product-centricity.
The third part of the book talks about what successful companies actually do differently: they turn all their business processes into social processes and they embrace the messiness that comes with the social. In our research we have found examples of companies turning every business process into a social process except two - finance and legal.
I have not frequently asked for help, and have focused most of my work on this blog on providing value. Today I will ask for your help. Please buy the book, help promote it if you like it, and help us develop a better second book. Here are some ways in which you could help:
- Buy the book - for now the best way is on Amazon.com - http://amzn.to/9hRSok
- Become a fan of our Hyper-Social organization fan page on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/hypersocialorg
- Sign up for our upcoming webinar about the book - https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/558348201
- Leave us comments, write reviews, and let your friends know.
We have many more endorsements of the book, but for now I will leave you with what Barry Judge, Chief Marketing Officer for BestBuy had to say: "To the extent that we can be human with what we know, and share it as freely as we possibly can, we'll go a long way towards gaining a higher or stronger level of trust with our consumers. The authors of the Hyper-Social Enterprise not only explain why that happens - they also provide a roadmap for how to embed it in all your customer-facing processes."
THANK YOU!