GroundswellWinning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

Making sense of the brave (and bewildering) world of Web 2.0
With the explosion of social technologies — blogs, social networks, user-generated content like YouTube, wikis and customer reviews — major companies are facing a do-or-die situation. No matter if companies produce dog food or laptops, deliver pizza or cancer care, they have no choice but to embrace Web 2.0. Technology analysts Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff call this brave new world the "groundswell," and their book helps companies adapt with grace.

The authors wisely avoid technical speak; after all, technologies change. Instead, Groundswell focuses on something much more fundamental: people. When individual customers can upload edited commercials to YouTube, review products and circumvent traditional media with blogs, the balance of power shifts. But this shift doesn't have to spell disaster. With tools such as brand monitoring ("listening" to what people say online about a brand) and social technographic profiles (profiling how particular demographics use social technologies), companies can implement strategies to energize customers, speed product development, improve customer relations, save money, and more.

Bernoff narrates most of the recording, and his deliberate pacing makes it easy to follow sometimes-complex data. Even skeptics will find themselves converted — and inspired.