Greg Verdino

What an enchanting Guy...

This must be book review month here at gregverdino.com, because my mail has been overflowing with freebies and my posts are full of read this, buy that, download the other one for free. Next up, Guy Kawasaki's new book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions.

You'll find full reviews elsewhere - my buddy C.C. Chapman gave it a rave, and Guy has compiled a long list of reviews from blogs and the mainstream press. So rather than post yet another plain vanilla review, I reached out to Guy and asked him a few questions about the book. In addition to giving him the opportunity to chat about some of the ideas in Enchantment, this should help you decide if you're enchanted enough to buy yourself a copy.

Q: Hey Guy! As I read Enchantment I couldn't help thinking that a lot of the advice is common sense (smile, shake hands, be honest, make a good product) but then remembered that old adage, "The problem with common sense is it isn't so common anymore." Which brings me to my first question - what was the inspiration for Enchantment and why did you decide to write this particular book?

There are two answers to this question. First, I was in a two-book contract, and my editor wanted the second book. :-) Second, I've been evangelizing things for twenty-five years now. It's required trying to enchant, influence, and persuade people, so I've become a student of these techniques. Dale Carnegie and Robert Cialdini inspired me. I wanted to document and distribute everything I've learned about the subject.

Q: In the book, you seem to place equal weight on how the reader can be more enchanting as a person and how the reader can create a more enchanting company. Do you see this as a necessary one-two punch? In other words, can a disenchanting leader create a wonderfully enchanting company? Can an enchanting leader have success at the helm of a business that is inherently disenchanting?

It's hard to imagine an enchanting company with a disenchanting leader or a disenchanting company with an enchanting leader. It's possible, but I suggest that companies not try to explore whether it can be done and strive for both. There's an old saying that when a fish gets rotten, the head stinks first, so I would recommend that you start at the top.

An enchanting leader will have enchanting employees who will in turn enchant customers. That's the ideal model.

Q: The CEO of a company that has suffered a major moment of disenchantment - let's say BP - calls you in and asks for help. Can a company like this become enchanting? And what's the most important piece of advice you'd offer?

The most important piece of advice is, "Make your reality enchanting." That is, enchantment is not about putting lipstick on a pig. Step one is to fix the pig. After that, work on likability and trustworthiness. Enchantment is not "spin"--it's reality.

Q: On the flipside, let's take a look at a current social media darling - Groupon. They've had some stumbles (the controversy over their Super Bowl spot for example), might be a bit arrogant (turning down Google's billion dollar offer), and I know a number of small business owners who gripe about their business model (most sellers take a loss on the deal and few can definitively say they got repeat customers as a result). Yet people love Groupon and the company has gotten a ton of positive press. Do you think Groupon is enchanting? If so, what makes it enchanting and what can other start-ups learn from it?

It's too early to tell. A company can achieve commercial success and not be enchanting. I can name a dozen tech companies that fall into this category. But suffice it to say that no enchanting company would run a spoof about Tibet. That was shockingly stupid. It created a crater, not just a hole, that Groupon has to dig itself out of.

Want more? Guy offers a handy-dandy infographic that provides a snapshot of all his advice for how to be enchanting in both life and work, a nifty quiz to test how enchanting you are today, and if you want to see what enchantment looks like to other readers to show Guy what enchantment looks like to you be sure to check out the Nikon-sponsored Enchantment photo competition too.

Have Guy and his ideas enchanted you? Ready to get your crow's feet on? Pick up a copy of Enchantment wherever books are sold.

Jay and Amber's new rules for the NOW revolution

Search Amazon for books about social media and the site offers up more than 140,000 choices. I haven't read them all, but I'd wager that most focus on social from a marketer's perspective: how to use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, influencer engagement and all sorts of social goodness to reach consumers and sell them stuff. Soooo along come my friends Jay Baer and Amber Naslund, throwing their words in the ring with their new book The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter and More Social (disclosure: Jay and Amber's publisher - Wiley - provided me with a free review copy).

The basic premise? Consumers are more connected than ever, are always on, and demand more from the companies they bless with their business and bucks. Now those companies had better get in gear and change the way they operate. The book has plenty of brass-tacks tips for setting up a listening and response program, dealing with crises and measuring impact. But the real difference between this book and I'd wager most of the other 140,000 is that it isn't really about "doing" social - it's about "being" social.

The best parts of this book aim to convince you (yes you) why you need to lead the charge in making your companies more social at its very core. Jay and Amber advise companies to begin not with showy social marketing tactics but with wholesale cultural and organizational shift (a tall order, but the right starting point for businesses that see social as a driver for something greater than itsy bitsy incremental improvements), and offer practical tips for how to hire the right types of people, models for organizing for success and empowering employees to be part of the shift, and garner the right kinds of support.

Recently, I chit chatted (over email) with Jay and Amber about The NOW Revolution. Read on to learn more about the book and why you may want to read it.

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Q: As a blogger turned author, I'm always interested in why other bloggers went traditional... So let's start with: why this book? Why now?

Jay: As social practitioners, we hear so often questions about tools and tactics, when in reality social success is more about culture and sociology. There are so many books about how to "do" social media - and some of them are great. We figured it was time to write a book about how to "be" social as a company.

Q: One of the key premises in the book is that revolution comes from witihin - that to truly realize the potential inherent in realtime and social, an organization needs to start by building a culture around those principles. I believe you're 100% right but I also hear the voices of countless client-side worker bees crying that they CAN'T affect this kind of change, they really just need a Facebook tab right now. Why is the first step so difficult and what are your top tricks for getting over the hump?

Amber: The truth is that *anyone* can affect change if they're willing to stick their neck out a bit to do it. There's no question that culture shift can be difficult, and slow-going, especially if the business is established in processes and protocols that have been developed over years and years. The trick is that culture change has to be wanted - at every level - and not just endorsed from the top, but believed in at the top as well. Organizations need more than buy-in, they need intent to actually act on and engineer change, and they need volunteers to do the nitty gritty work. Sometimes that means having some difficult conversations in meetings and on the phone about fundamental value disconnects. Those are the things we can't attach to our P&L directly, so we hesitate to spend time on them. But the power of a simple set of conversations around shared values and company purpose - aside from any operational strategies - can be a good jumping off point to translate beliefs into purposeful plans.

Q: In the book, you're essentially talking about what Dachis Group calls social business design - the intentional creation of culture, organization, systems and filters that allow your company to be more social in both how it connects its workforce and engages its outside constituents (consumers, business partners, supply chain, etc). Do you believe that all businesses will need to become social businesses? And why?

Jay: Exactly... Indeed, all businesses will need to become social eventually - customers will simply demand it. It's not too different from customers demanding businesses have a phone, or a website, or an email address. But, the one big difference now is that every customer is a reporter, and every employee is a potential marketer. Social business is an imperative - eventually - for all. But there hasn't been much of a playbook for getting there, so we wrote one.

Q: The NOW Revolution is packed with case studies - including stories about big companies who are making the shifts. Among these companies, which one would you say is furthest along the path and why?

Amber: If I have to pick one company that really embody the principles we lay out in the book, I'm going to go with ThinkGeek. They're not a "big" company so to speak, but they've got the culture and hiring thing down, which I think is so very fundamental, plus they're actively out there listening and engaging with their community, and building and growing their business to bake that stuff right in. I'm also super excited about what larger companies like H&R Block and Autodesk have done to organize cross functional teams to steward company-wide social strategy; that's really how you get started treating social as more than just a marketing channel, and it's quite an accomplishment to rethink your organizational design and progressively keep up with the shifts brought about by real-time business.

Q: You use Microsoft Tag throughout the book to link readers to enhanced content and additional material. How have readers reacted to the blend of traditional and mobile/digital?

Jay: Of all the pieces in the book, the use of Microsoft Tag has probably gotten the most chatter. To some degree, that's intentional. Very few books have incorporated Tag (or its cousin, QR codes) as comprehensively as we have. There are 22 Tags in the book, each unlocking videos, PDFs, lists, downloadable infographics and other stuff that extends the book's impact. Truthfully, some people absolutely love the idea. Some people think it's a bridge too far and wish we just put URLs in the text. Other people love the notion, but prefer QR over Tag. The good news is that people are talking about it, and thinking about how meta content of this type can be utilized in their own companies. If Tag starts to take off (and USA Today just incorporated it in the printed paper), we'll be happy to take credit. ;)

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Sound like your cup of tea? Visit the NOW Revolution site to learn more and download a free chapter, visit your favorite bookseller to buy a copy now, or if you'd like a shot at winning a freebie drop a comment on this post. Monday morning, I'll pick one random commenter and mail off my own copy to you.

Image Credit: ReachCast Blog