Top Shelf Reading Picks:

I recently took on a role that’s more “salesy,” so I went through my stacks of books and found a really short one called The Golden 120 Seconds of Every Sales Call: A Fresh Innovative Look at the Sales Process by Peter G. Dennis.  Now, I’m not so sure I took away anything fresh and innovative, but it was a nice, quick reminder that a lot of sales is plain, old common sense.

Basically, the Golden 120 Seconds of any sales pitch is that critical juncture when you make the sale.  This can happen at any time: before the presentation, at the end of a call or afterward in the parking lot.  But you can’t get to that 120 seconds if you never make the call, take that lunch meeting, go to that networking event.

The author defines proactive selling as:

• Making the cold call
• Attending networking events and making contacts
• Calling current customers to ask for referrals
• Calling past customers, asking them for referrals and inviting them to be customers again
• Using electronic networking tools and sites
• Belonging to at least four vibrant, energetic networking organizations
• Contributing your time and talents to those networking organizations to help them grow and prosper
• Committing yourself to spend two hours a day, four days a week on prospecting.  Truly prospecting, which means shutting everything else out

I liked this list, but I beg to differ on a few points unless you are truly in a “sales” role. Then the above is your job description.  For us entrepreneurs, “sales” is often only part of our day job.  Hence, I would say you can only be in one to two networking organizations, but you better be a regular or volunteering on a committee.  And I would look at true prospecting on a monthly basis (i.e., 20 hours a month).

I also noticed the emphasis on referrals is similar to a theme in The Connectors, which I reviewed previously.

Other items that struck me:

“Sales is the only profession in which you’re already a professional on the first day you start working.”  It’s true. I spent three years learning to be a lawyer, but when I took a sales job, they handed me a phone book and a phone.  The author’s lesson here is that we need to act professional from Day One.  This is where the common sense comes in.

My LOL moment in the book occurred in the section about body language.  He goes through everything from fingernails to business cards.  The one that made me laugh had to do with a reminder “not to touch your groin or anyone else’s.”  Being a gal, this is usually not an issue, but I have to admit, I’ve seen guys do it and then try to shake my hand . . . ick.

One point I did take away from this section was to have a nice diary or scheduling book to write in.  He recommends not having a notepad where you tear off pages, as we know those pieces of paper go into the trash, but rather something that’s bound and says to the client, “I plan on keeping these notes.”  It’s a small detail, but I totally get how it makes a difference.

Another good common- sense list was elements that should be included in your sales call preparation:

• Research the prospect beforehand.
• Determine objectives for the meeting.
• Know who will be there.
• Develop the meeting collaterals.
• Set the agenda and forward it to your prospect before the meeting.

Again, a no-brainer for a formal sales pitch, but we often forget.  Sometimes meetings aren’t this formal, but I thought it made for a good mental checklist.

My favorite tip:  Be sure you incorporate the “Why You?” part of your selling story in the first 120 seconds of your sales presentation.  I totally agree with the author that people often leave this until the very end, and by then they’ve already bored their audience with all their “client lists” and “accomplishments.”

Top Shelf Bottom Line: Nothing too new here, but a good refresher, and probably an excellent book to hand your new sales team on Day One. The book practices what it preaches–it was short and to the point, and underscored the fact that in today’s world we don’t have time to bore our audience with irrelevant details.

Yesterday I looked at how the Coakley campaign ignored social media to their detriment.  Continuing my deconstruction of social media and the Massachusetts US Senate race, today I’m focusing on the Brown campaign.  Why am I writing about this in an entrepreneurial column?  In this election, Scott Brown was a true entrepreneur and used social media to throw out the traditional campaign playbook.

Disclosure:  I was closely monitoring the Brown/Coakley online race, as well as volunteering my time on behalf of Martha Coakley.

I’m not going to cover the specific stats that show Brown had way more followers and fans than Coakley.  There are a ton of articles online about that.  What I had was a front row, participatory seat from October 2009 through Jan. 19^th; and what I saw from the Brown Brigade was both impressive and beyond what even President Obama had done in 2008, i.e., the “Good”.  However, some of it crossed the line of appropriateness into “the Bad and the Ugly.”  Nevertheless, I think lessons can be learned from all of it.

The Good

Lesson 1: Numbers still matter, although not because they necessarily translate into votes.

A lot has been made about Scott Brown’s enormous numbers on Twitter and Facebook.  On its face the two sides can make different arguments about the statistics.  On one hand, Brown had more fans and followers and therefore that should translate into more votes.  But, we all know in business that just because we have 5,000 followers on Twitter, doesn’t mean we’re making 5,000 sales!

On the other hand, Brown’s followers and fans were mostly out-of-state Tea Partiers and clearly not voters – as borne out by the fact that the race was close despite the huge discrepancy in online support numbers.   Yet, a large number of online supporters, even if they don’t correlate with actual voters, has other cumulative effects.

• Rapid growth in numbers shows momentum. It helps people feel like they are part of a movement.  In fact, the Brown Brigade did a great job of literally promoting their candidate as a “movement.”   This helped increase fans among the voting set, may have resulted in a bit of a “jump on the bandwagon” effect, and is right out of the Obama playbook.  In addition, by making this a movement around a single issue (the 41^st vote), supporters were able to deflect/ignore any philosophical differences between the Tea Party, GOP, Independent and pissed off Liberal voters.  All these groups could come together under a single issue to create an online force.
• Large numbers meant that the Brown Brigade dominated the social media dialogues. They controlled the conversation.  They could spread bad press about Coakley and define her in the public’s mind.  While the few Coakley tweeters and Facebook fans tried to direct the conversation away from those points and back to the issues, they were not provided enough ammunition and were generally outnumbered by the Brown Brigade.
• Large numbers meant massive online donations. On their “moneybomb” day, Brown was hoping for $500,000 – they passed that by noon and continued to bring in large amounts of out-of-state money online for the remainder of the election.  As noted yesterday, these were likely small amounts from people around the country.

The Brown campaign brilliantly used their online momentum to their advantage.

Lesson 2:  TV ads aren’t the only game in town.

The Brown campaign ran ads on every site including Huffpo and other liberal sites.  It added to his online omnipresence.  The Coakley team did not have much of an online advertising campaign (if any?); they focused on TV.  However, Brown’s TV ads were also circulated online via his much larger social networks and therefore he had many more eyeballs/ad that didn’t cost the campaign a single advertising dollar.

Lesson 3:  Social Networks are used differently by different groups.

Up until this campaign, I had only used Twitter in a business capacity.  Advocacy groups and political campaigns use it very differently.  If you are new to an online community, as I was to the political ones, you need to take some time and learn the lingo and the lay of the land.  Here are two big differences I noticed right off.

• Activists do not generally use their real name. This is completely different from the business realm where people want to be identified.  On Twitter, the bulk of the activists tweet under aliases.  Those who tweet under their real name tend to be journalists and the actual politicians.
• Activists organize not just their content, but themselves via hashtags. I had to look up a few (http://tagdef.com/).  In addition to the #MaSen tag which was used for the MA Senate Race, the other ones that people added to their tweets were: #TCOT (Top Conservatives on Twitter); #SGP (Smart Girl Politics); #Ocra (Organized Conservative Resistance Alliance); #p2 (Progressives); #HCR (Health Care Reform); and #41^st (41^st vote).

Lesson 4: Give your followers something to re-tweet about.

The Brown campaign did a terrific job of giving his supporters items to tweet about. They had a rallying cry “it’s the People’s seat” (reminiscent of Obama’s “Yes, we can!”) and good press (Boston Herald and Fox news).  They also had an organized group, www.resistnet.com to feed them information to tweet and directions on how to re-tweet them.  Now I don’t have a problem with a campaign feeding supporters information to tweet about or with news outlets running pro-candidate stories.  But, unfortunately, this can be abused, and this is something that businesses, and campaigns, have to be mindful of and it brings me to the next two lessons.

The Bad

Lesson 5: Without fact and source checking, social media can become the online National Enquirer.

My most surreal moment of this wacky campaign was being told by out-of-state Brown supporters via Twitter that I’m a liar and not really at the Obama rally from which I was reporting and posting pictures in real time.  At first I thought this merely odd, but then it continued.  Anything I put was “re-tweeted” by Brown supporters labeling them as lies.

On the day that President Obama came to Northeastern University to speak, I had gone down to live tweet from the event  only to find that thousands of people had been in line for hours and unable to get in because they had limited attendance to 1,700 in a small auditorium.  While I’m sure the secret service had a reason for the small size, it left thousands to watch in overflow rooms and still more who stayed outside or left to catch the speech live elsewhere.

From the event, Fox news reporter, Carl Cameron went on air and falsely reported that “Obama can’t even fill a small hall.” The Brown Brigaders took that as fact and ran with it.  Anyone who dared state something differently was shouted down as a liar (and I say that because they TEND TO USE ALL CAPS a lot).

Other related tweets that I saw flying around was that the few people we got there were bused in from out of state.  Well, I walked all over that campus and spoke to dozens of people.  I didn’t see any busses nor did I meet anyone from out of state.  By contrast, the same Brown supporters celebrated their own out-of-state supporters at rallies and online.

My takeaway is that using Twitter to disseminate false or misleading information diminishes the value of Twitter.  I think that upset me even more than being called a liar or the fact that Fox calls itself a news station.

Lesson 6:  Walking that fine spam line can be tricky.

The Brown campaign relied on tweeting information provided by http://www.resistnet.com.  As mentioned, pre-packaged info is fine, but what really walks the fine line is  promulgating lists of tweets with the following instructions:

These are short lists – 45 Tweets Each. We suggest that you tweet 1 list, switch to a backup account, tweet the next list, and switch accounts again. With 3 accounts you should be able to tweet all day without being thrown into Twitmo or being screened. Every tweet is different so you will not be penalized for repetition.

This type of tweeting breaks every social media rule for business.  But, I realize advocacy and politics are different than business.  However, my question is whether this will ultimately devalue Twitter going forward, or will Twitter eventually decide this violates their policies?

Lesson 7: Mob rule isn’t a good thing, especially when done anonymously.

On January 3^rd, when the sudden influx of thousands of “not your typical Massachusetts voters” joined as followers of Scott Brown on Twitter, I posted a simple tweet stating that 80% of Scott Brown’s new followers were from out-of-state.  My reason for doing this was to alert the media if anyone were to misinterpret what was happening.  A few others did the same.

What happened next was a  name calling pile-on.  For that single tweet and the fact that I had an icon supporting Martha Coakley,  I was called a socialist, commie, statist, and accused of being anti-American and anti-freedom (and that’s all I feel comfortable reprinting on a family-friendly website).

I responded to a few of them that “the freedom to have a different opinion is actually quite American.” I didn’t hear back from a bunch.  I did have a handful of intelligent twitter conversations with a few Brown supporters where we agreed to disagree.  However, the majority of what I got was extreme negative ranting.  Similar experiences were enough to scare a few colleagues away from this public forum, and in fact, made me nervous that I had used my real name.

To add to the namecalling, when they did their ranting, they would put my “@name” at the end of their tweet, rather than at the beginning like a normal Twitter conversation.  This is a move that traditional spammers do because it makes a comment more public rather than addressed solely to the person at the other end of the conversation (i.e. “Buy laptops cheap. @yourname, @your friendsname, @morerandomnames.”)  It’s a way of publicly “calling a person out” and even making it appear as if you are endorsing the tweet.

However, it’s not that just one person who would do this.  Many of the Brown Brigaders are set up to “auto-retweet” each other, so that it’s suddenly dozens of Brown supporters “calling you out” in this manner and clogging up your “@” stream in this pile-on.

I did get a bit up in arms about this because I didn’t want to see Twitter abused, nor did I want to see it become a platform for cyberbulling.  Unfortunately, the potential to bully or spam wasn’t the only problem, which brings me to the final category.

The Ugly

Lesson 8:  Twitter needs to add a “report offensive comment” button (not just spam or block).

During the primaries, those of us following the #MAsen hashtag stream kept it pretty civil.  It was noticeable the day after the primaries, that the #MAsen tweetstream suddenly went negative.  And it took a much worse turn after Jan. 3^rd when the Tea Party showed up.  Sure there was some negative tweeting on the Coakley campaign side, but these were few and Coakley tweeters only made up about 25% of the conversation.

Some of the “ugly” tweets I saw personally (which went beyond disrespectful or PG-ratings) included death threats to Joe Kennedy, graphic details about abortion and child abuse,  and rape jokes about Martha.  In fact before this campaign, I never knew anyone could consider violence against women a joke.  I’m sure there are going to be contentious campaigns over the next year that will follow this Brown playbook, and it would be nice if Twitter installed a “potentially offensive comment” button.

However, the bigger issue is how social media can prevent the combination of mob mentality and anonymity  from breeding truly anti-social behavior.  This is the dark side of social media.

Top Shelf Bottom line. The Brown online campaign was incredibly well-organized and clearly had a social media champion with a strong background in social media and politics.  They ran a very entrepreneurial campaign by making up a whole new playbook.  It showed how social media is an essential tool in any campaign, and as a result, no local campaign will ever be truly local again.  However, it also spotlighted how social media’s effectiveness can be potentially diminished if used improperly.

One final thought.

Will Mr. Brown’s entrepreneurial campaign carry over into success in DC?  This remains to be seen.  Generally, running a campaign is very different than actually governing.  The former is more like a start-up company – it’s fun, people are energized, you have lots of money to toss around (if you’re funded), you can throw a lot of things up in the air and see what sticks.  The latter is more about payback, coalition building within a set structure, and attempting to maneuver around obstacles that are constantly thrown in your path. There is a reason many start-up companies toss out their founders when they grow up. It’s a totally different skill set.

In retrospect, I never was a huge Ted Kennedy fan, but now that I write this, I realize why he was so special:  he was the rare individual who could do it all.

Next week – Back to the books.  We’ll be talking about sales tips, women in politics (sorry, I have to wean myself off politics), and why the best book I read over the holidays was by a tennis player.

I know this is a book review column, but I haven’t read much lately, as my past three weeks were usurped by the wacky campaign for U.S. Senate here in Massachusetts.  We had a perfect storm of internal and external forces that changed the face of politics in Massachusetts–and possibly the country.  Social media was one of the elements that enabled national involvement, making the campaign unlike any that had come before.

Many lessons can be learned from both the Martha Coakley and Scott Brown campaigns with regard to social media for both politicians and entrepreneurs.

Full disclosure–I volunteered to assist the new media team of the Martha Coakley campaign and closely monitored the online activity of both campaigns throughout the election.

Lesson 1:  Doing things the same old way won’t cut it anymore in politics or business.

I will always remember something I heard while in New Orleans shortly after Hurricane Katrina. Tim Williamson, founder of Idea Village, said: “The government isn’t coming. We need entrepreneurs to get us out of this mess.”  Two improbable elections later (President Obama and newly elected Sen. Brown from Massachusetts), I’d say the same thing for politics and political campaigns.  In Massachusetts, both campaigns (Coakley and Brown) started out politics as usual but ended when the most entrepreneurial campaign won.  Running a political campaign is an entrepreneurial venture, and the Brown campaign incorporated social media to write a new playbook.  While social media wasn’t the only reason for the Brown win, it played a big role in a close election.

Lesson 2:  Social media affects everything.

Whenever I hear a business (and now a political campaign) claim it is not affected by Facebook or Twitter, or doesn’t incorporate them in some way, I just shake my head.

• Would you run a business without telephones? Social media platforms are nothing more than communication tools, like e-mail and the phone.  They are a way to reach an audience who may not have landlines or think e-mail is “old school.”  The Coakley campaign did not capitalize on the fact that social media is akin to a phone bank–a way to communicate with potential donors and voters.

• Would you run a business without customer feedback? Trust me, whether you want it or not, feedback is being given online– if not about you, about your competition and your industry.  If you’re not monitoring it, you could find yourself like the Coakley campaign, not recognizing until too late that it was in a national election with only a locally based plan.  Social media provides real-time feedback.  That would have been helpful in a six-week election campaign.

• Would you run a business without watching or quickly adapting to major trends? Social media is not only a major trend; it’s a way to spot major trends.  On Jan. 3, while I was monitoring Twitter, thousands of out-of-state Brown supporters suddenly showed up using the #MAsen tag and identifying themselves as Palin supporters (avatars have a pink or blue P), Tea Partiers and even the “Guns & God squad.” I felt like Paul Revere trying to alert the Coakley campaign, liberal bloggers and anyone connected with the DNC that the Tea Party is coming, the Tea Party is coming . . . which leads me to my next point.

Lesson 3: No election (or business) will ever be local again.

Of the thousands of supporters for Scott Brown online, less than one-third were in-state voters. One might want to dismiss them, but their impact on fundraising, spreading information (true and questionable), and influencing the media and potential voters cannot be denied.  I expect this will happen at every single congressional election in the next year or two.  Anyone using the standard “local” playbook needs to be aware of this.

Lesson 4:  Social media can be used (at no cost) to accomplish a number of campaign objectives.

Social media remained an afterthought for the Coakley campaign.  In its defense, the majority of her core supporters were Baby Boomer working women, attorneys and seniors. None of these groups has a huge presence online.  In a normal election (i.e., the primaries), not allocating resources or incorporating it into her strategy didn’t matter. She won in a landslide despite one candidate, Alan Khazei, having a much better social media strategy and presence.  However, in the much closer general election, social media could have made a difference in the following ways:

• Fundraising. Scott Brown raised more than $1 million per day online. Average donations were $75, from what I understand, which meant there were a lot of $25 donations offset by a few large ones.
• Wooing the under-40 crowd and diversity groups.
• Softening Coakley’s public image/making her more personable and accessible.
• Defining Scott Brown
• Test-driving campaign ads/messages
• Monitoring and counteracting negative or misinformation being spread by the opposition. (This is what I spent the majority of my time doing.)
• Getting more airtime/eyeballs for TV ads.
• Promulgating positive, issue-laden messages. (Another large portion of my time–live tweeting events, circulating articles that spoke about issues.)
• Engaging and energizing supporters by responding to requests (”Where do I get signs?”) and making them feel like they’re part of a “movement.”
• Better organizing for rallies and the get-out-the-vote campaign. (My entire last two days–getting voter/volunteer info out to various communities that might not be reached via phone bank or TV; getting issue info to undecideds.)

Lesson 5: To do social media right, it’s not just about strategy; it’s about proper staffing and allocation of resources.

The Coakley campaign had a couple of people assigned to new media, but there was no “social media champion.” In other words, no one with a high level of experience in either social media or a hard-fought national campaign (again, in Coakley’s defense, no one thought this would end up being a national referendum, and social media hasn’t been in the political realm for that long).  But if there is not a senior member assigned to be the new media champion, then the campaign won’t have have the influence it needs to get resources (online advertising dollars and staff) from the campaign.

As outlined above, social media touches almost every aspect of the campaign, from messaging to fundraising to getting out the vote, yet within the Coakley campaign these groups appeared to be in separate silos.  This is what happens in many organizations. They either ignore social media altogether or hire a young kid who has a Facebook page and then don’t give him or her the cross-organizational support, resources and/or input he or she would need to really run with it.

Lesson 6:  Just because you innovated once doesn’t make you an innovator for life.

We all heard ad nauseum how President Obama used social media to fundraise and get out the vote.  Yet that was when social networks were in their infancy for the general population. In fact, most adults never really interacted with Facebook until CNN introduced it as a tool during President Obama’s inauguration last year.  The Tea Party is now the group using social media more innovatively and strategically for its Revolution to Take Back America in 2010.

Yes, when Organizing for America was activated in the last days of the campaign, it made a huge difference in getting out the vote for Martha Coakley, but it was mostly by e-mail and telephone.  Nevertheless, we managed to get a hard core group on election day tweeting about where volunteers were needed and how to find your polling place. This included my lame attempts to tweet in Spanish and locate Hispanic hashtags (thank you all who helped!), but there’s much more we could’ve done with proper preparation and resources.

Would all of the above have swung the election?  Maybe not . . . but who knows?

Top Shelf Bottom Line: The traditional campaign playbook needs to be tossed out the window.  Running a campaign is an entrepreneurial endeavor, and entrepreneurs don’t abide by traditional playbooks. Any campaign that is run without social media–including candidate and senior level buy-in, a budget for social media consultants and an allocation of resources–is going to be a losing one.  And the same goes for business plans.

OK, that’s enough picking apart the Coakley campaign. . . .

Coming next:  The Political Entrepreneur: Scott Brown and Social Media–the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

I’m reviewing The Connectors: How the World’s Most Successful Businesspeople Build Relationships and Win Clients for Fife by Maribeth Kuzemeski, for two reasons:

1. I liked the idea that it’s not about “networking” but about “connecting.”   2010 is a decade where connecting and engaging will be far more important than collecting names (see my 2010 Networking Ins and Outs list).
2. The request to review this book was such a good example of PR done well that I just couldn’t say no.

But to get to the book:  The focus of The Connectors is on getting referrals. In the introduction, the author sets out her model for getting referrals.

1. Delight clients.
2. Acquire referrals.
3. Invite referrals to educational workshops.
4. Acquire clients.
5. Repeat process from No. 1.

Kuzmeski claims that it’s a simple process, but not easy.  In fact, the key to the whole system is to “delight clients.”  And you do this by truly “connecting.”   This concept especially rang true to me as we are moving out of the era of mass marketing and broadcasting to engagement and cultivation.

I enjoyed the first chapter:  The Common Denominator of Greatness and Success: It’s not money, it’s people!  I loved that it was not something I expected to be covered in a book that I assumed was going to be another standard networking book.  She sums it up as greatness is measured by “the impact we’ve made on others, by the way we’ve connected with them, touched them personally, brought them along with us and perhaps inspired their best contributions.”‘

I also like her “Connecter IQ Assessment.”  I took the test and ended up as an “Energy Connector.”  This is completely accurate.  Most people would likely assume that as the founder of a women’s networking group that I would be a Power Networker.  But an Energy Connector is someone who: “reaches out ot others, but probably not on a daily basis.  . . .  others reach out to connect with you as frequently as or more than you reach out to them.”  It goes on to talk about how I get the importance of connecting but I don’t focus on it every day.  This differs from a power connector, whose whole focus is making connections.

In Chapter 4, Kuzmeski has a list of the 5 “Red Zone” Connector Traits (she later goes through each trait):

1. Develop a true “what’s in it for them” mentality: Focusing on others brings more for you.
2. Listen–curiously listen:  Connecting is not about being a great talker.
3. Important questions to ask that attract connections: Getting others to do the work!
4. Get the sale to close itself: Using creative strategies to sell without pushing what you have
5. Create a memorable experience: Differentiating yourself by the impact you leave on others

I seemed to make the most notes in the section about getting the sale to close itself.  Some good points:

• It’s not about features and benefits; it’s about how prospective buyers believe the product will make them feel.
• If a salesperson begins even just by inferring that the prospect has made poor choices in the past . . .  the potential buyer will be less likely to listen.
• The author provides some great ways to work all the reasons your firm is better into innocuous questions.

Toward the end, there’s a section on how to get referrals. Kuzmeski says that if you are not getting referrals, you need to ask yourself the following questions:

1. Have you taken the time to develop a relationship?
2. Do people have something unique to say to others about you?
3. Are you truly referable or could you be more referable?

Under her discussion of the first questions regarding developing a relationship, Kusmeski outlines her VCP Process (Visibility, Credibility and Profitability):

1. Visibility: This part of the process is about being recognized and making other people aware of you. “Visibility must be actively maintained and developed; without it you cannot move on to the next level: credibility.”
2. Credibility: “Credibility grows when expectations are met.”
3. Profitability: “Profitability in a referral relationship is not found by bargain hunting; it must be cultivated, and this takes patience.”

This brings me back to the beginning of this review by underscoring why social media is going to be an important part of getting referrals today and in the future.  Here’s an example.  If someone were to ask me if I knew of a justice of the peace or a graphic designer, I’m likely to scratch my head and say, “Hey, I know some, but can’t think of their company name/website, but I know they are in my LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook networks.” And I would know this only if they were active members.  Even if there might be someone who may be the best person for them, if I can’t get their contact info easily, then I’m not going to be able to make that referral.

As for giving people something unique to talk about, I like Kuzmeski’s discussion of why you need to exceed expectations.  “If you perform up to the minimum expectations of the client–in other words, you give them exactly what they feel they are paying you for and nothing more–then there is not much to talk about.  There is no experience.  But if you exceed their expectations, they will have something unique to share.”

Top Shelf Bottom Line: The Connectors was not only timely (a book that underscores the usefulness of social media without even discussing social media), but it also exceeded my expectations.  I got more than just networking,  and now I’m referring it to you.

Reposted from the Downtown Women’s Club womensDISH blog.

One of our Downtown Women’s Club members tagged me on a Facebook note re: my favorite book picks for the year.  “Favorite books” is sometimes tough to decide.  However, I use this term when I find myself referring to a book or recommending it to others long after I’ve read it. (As opposed to a few books that I might have stayed up way to late to finish but a week later can’t remember the name or author.)

This year there were seven books that met this standard.  So just in case you’re looking for last-minute gifts or something to read at the airport this week, here you go:

Fiction Picks:

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbary. Set in Paris, this book won numerous awards in France. It follows the lives of a “prickly” concierge and a handful of tenants in her building. Definitely for the “literary-minded.” I liken it to almost a modern-day Jane Austen novel.  Click here for my full review.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larrson (and the two sequels). Set in Sweden, this smart “whodunit” trilogy follows a journalist and a computer whiz kid through several adventures that expose corrupt public officials, sex trafficking, abuse and instances of extreme brutality against women.

Nonfiction Business Picks:

Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. Of all the social media books, this was the best for both “newbies” as well as the more experienced social media user. Click here for my full review.

The Facebook Era by Clara Shih–Still think Facebook is for kids or a fad?  This was one of the first books to look at business marketing on Facebook and give some insight into the future of Facebook in a business context. Click here to read my full review.

Twitterville by Shel Israel. For anyone who can’t see the point of Twitter, this is an engaging read about the founding of the company and also provides concrete examples of the many ways companies are using Twitter to improve their customer service, marketing research and bottom line. Click here to read my full review.

Nonfiction Miscellaneous Picks:

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis. This is the book that launched the movie and possibly Sandra Bullock’s best shot at an Oscar.  I haven’t seen the movie yet, but what I liked best about the book were the chapters on the evolution of football as a business. It gave me a whole new appreciation for the game. Click here for my full review.

Bad Mother by Ayalet Waldman. For any mom who has ever felt like a total failure for not living up to some ridiculous standard of motherhood perfection, this book is a nice dope slap to the head to remind you that it’s OK to drop the ball sometimes . . . the world (and your kids) won’t be irreparably damaged.  Click here for my full review.

Do you have your own book recommendations for 2009?  Please share them below!

When I picked up The Blind Side, I was simply following my “Read the book before the movie’ rule.  I didn’t intend to include it in a business book review column.  Yet there were a lot of “business” lessons that jumped out at me.  By now everyone knows the story of Michael Oher and has glimpsed Sandra “This is as close to an Oscar as I’m ever going to get” Bullock telling him to “Protect the QB like he was family.”

However, unlike the new movie-related version, the original book carried the subtitle: Evolution of a Game and was equal parts Michael Oher and the business of football. This review focuses on the latter and how the position of left tackle rose out of obscurity to become one of the highest-paid positions in football. In essence–to use Chris Brogan and Julien Smith’s term: The left tackle was a “gate-jumper” that changed the way football was run as a business.

A few caveats. First, I probably liked the book because the evolution of left tackle began with Lawrence Taylor. Like many of my fellow Washington Redskins fans, he figured prominently in my life. In fact, I can tell you exactly where I was and what I was doing the moment LT broke Joe Theismann’s leg. I was at Colgate University on a freezing cold night in a bar named Hickey’s. It was Monday Night Quart Night and it was only $1.75 for a quart of beer, and I was cheering for the Skins in the midst of a sea of Giants’ fans. The game was playing on the barroom TV and, even in those non-HD days, one cringed at the replays of Theismann’s leg break.

My leg tingles even today just writing about Theismann. But perhaps that “bad break” stood out in my mind because it wasn’t too many years earlier that my soccer career ended with a massively broken leg. Injuries aside, I was just an average football fan, yet I knew I was witnessing a change in football. Why is this relevant to business, especially entrepreneurs? Because LT was a game-changer. One individual changed the way football players are recruited and compensated.

Note for the non-football fanatics. The left tackle is the position that protects a right-handed QB when he is  throwing the ball and can’t see over his left shoulder. When you pay millions for a QB, you don’t want someone like LT to break his leg like a toothpick. This is why the left tackle went from an obscure lineman to one of the highest-paid positions in football.

Lesson 1:  Fill a void and you become an expert.

Most of the pages I bookmarked for review had to do with Tom Lemming. Lemming was not a left tackle. He was a young guy who, for whatever reason, decided to create a guide to the top high school football players. No one else was doing this. It was in the days before the internet and the ability to upload films online, so Lemming had to drive around the country, often sleeping in his car. Overnight he became the leading authority on U.S. high school football by creating a product that didn’t exist and for which there was a hungry audience of college recruiters.

Lesson 2:  Step back, look at the big picture, and you might find a new market.

Lemming noticed in the late ’80s that the difference between college football (which used to be based on a running game) and pro football (more throwing) was eroding. Therefore, his high school guide started becoming valuable to a new market: professional teams.

Lesson 3:  Being an expert does not necessarily = profitability.

It took seven years for Lemming to be profitable with this venture. Hence you have to be tenacious and have a passion for what you are doing.

Lesson 4: No one is indispensible–and get that chip off your shoulder.

There was an interesting story about how Coach Bill Walsh of the 49ers had a promising left tackle in Ron Singleton.  But Singleton was one of the first left tackles to decide he was worth a lot more money than the rest. Coach Walsh refused (having not yet realized that this was the wave of the future), and Singleton claimed it was because he was black.  This infuriated Walsh, who fired Singleton immediately. People want results, not excuses.

Lesson 5:  Always be prepared because when an opportunity comes, you want to be ready.

Walsh and his 49ers still needed to stop LT, so he brought in a quiet, unassuming left guard, John Ayers. Ayers, a cowboy in the off season, stepped up and stopped LT. But what probably helped was that in the off-season Ayers trained by harnessing himself to a 6-foot-tall tractor tire and hauled it sideways behind him for miles around a freshly plowed field.

Lesson 6:  Adapt your training to fit your talent.

This skips back to the Michael Oher story. Due to his lack of education, he could learn from pictures but not from words or charts. X’s and O’s on a chalkboard meant nothing to him. I see some parallels to the issues with training younger employees. If your old-school methods don’t work with younger employees, it doesn’t mean they are less talented; it just means it’s time to try something new.

Lesson 7:  If you don’t help others notice your talent/expertise, no one will.

I loved the story about Steve Wallace, a left tackle for the 49ers. For the most part, left tackles go unnoticed. They stop the QB from getting sacked, so the QB makes a throw or a handoff, and the QB and the receiver/running back get all the credit. Wallace decided “enough was enough.” He wanted part of the spotlight, too. So as his running back Roger Craig ran 80 yards for a TD in a big game, Wallace, who had made the first block to set him free, was right behind him: THE WHOLE 80 YARDS! John Madden was up in the booth not screaming about the TD, but about Steve Wallace being the first guy in the end zone with Craig to celebrate.

Top Shelf Bottom Line: Terrific holiday present for the football fans in your life. Some may like the Michael Oher parts better than the football, but I think the two struck a great balance.

Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities and Occasional Moments of Grace by Ayelet Waldman is not typically a book I would review in a blog for entrepreneurs, but I bet that more than a few of my readers have become entrepreneurs as a direct result of the “kid factor.” And others may be married to a woman struggling with the “kid factor.” Personally, I loved this book because she touched on almost every facet of being a mother/wife/daughter/daughter-in-law and also the difficulties of being the breadwinner, then opting out to be a stay-at-home mom and, finally, to be a work-at-home mom.

My liking the book doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with all of the author’s choices or child-rearing strategies, or could even relate to her personally (on the other hand, I did have a strong affinity for her husband . . . more on that below). Yet, the following are some parts of the book that stuck with me, gave me a laugh or helped me look at my own situation in a slightly different manner.

Mothers hold themselves and their peers to a much higher standard than fathers (and mothers) hold fathers. Basically, mothers themselves set the “mother bar”–i.e., the standard of what makes for a “good mother”–at a mythical level that is impossible to achieve. By contrast, the “father bar” is set at “just show up on occasion.” I thought her analogy was apt: Women blaming themselves for falling short of their view of what makes for a good (i.e., perfect) mother is like an Olympic swimmer feeling like a failure for not being able to keep up with a mermaid. In other words, “lighten up on yourselves, ladies.”

Sometimes the ball drops. This concept was frighteningly simple. Mothers are jugglers. Even professional jugglers drop the ball on occasion. What do they do? They pick up the ball and go back to juggling. What a concept. No beating themselves up? No feeling like a total failure because you drop a ball every once in a while? Wow.

You will be a different kind of mother at different times in your life. I thought her comments about how she was a different kind of mother for her first child- stay-at-home, paranoid, aspiring for perfection–than for her fourth child–working mom to whom the other mothers in day-care would say, “Oh . . . you finally showed up for something” with just a hint of “what a neglectful mother you are for working.” I loved that the author was candid enough to admit that she once was one of the stay-at-homes who did the same to the lone working mom.

Want a happy marriage? Marry a man who had a copy of Free to be You and Me. Remember the Carol Channing bit about housework?

“Your mommy hates housework.
Your daddy hates housework.
And, when you grow up, you’ll hate housework too.

. . . If you want all the days of your lives
To seem sunny as summer weather,
Make sure, when there’s housework to do,
That you do it together!”

This story/song brought to light the fact that what most women desire in a marriage is an equal division of housework. I couldn’t relate more.

When I remarried and my family of two became a family of six, the only time I can recall crying in the first full year of marriage was when I faced a mountain of laundry each week that was more than I would have ever done in three months of my former life. As Waldman points out, laundry and housework are not something you can ever conquer. They will never go away. So ladies, if your man was not raised by feminists who would have given him his copy of the Marlo Thomas classic, then outsource. As for the guys, a way to a woman’s heart may just be as simple as folding the laundry.

Sometimes you don’t put the children first. Waldman was made infamous a few years ago for an essay where she professed to loving her husband more than her children. For anyone in an unhappy marriage, it might be hard to stomach the praise she heaps on her husband throughout the book.  However, in general, I do agree that often we let kids run the show, and that doesn’t do them or us any favors.

As for her husband, it didn’t surprise me to learn that he was author Michael Chabon, who grew up in my hometown of Columbia, Md. She even addresses the whole “Utopian/Columbia” bit.

For those of you not in urban planning or not from the area, Columbia was a town designed to promote equality of race, religion and class. There were no country clubs; there were town pools and tennis courts. There were no churches; we had interfaith centers. Affordable apartments and townhouses blended with the single-family homes. And looking at all the photos from my childhood that keep popping up on Facebook these days, I’m not sure one could find another place where ethnicities blended seamlessly together in the classroom, in activities and on the playing fields.

Yes, it was an incredibly special place to grow up, and it doesn’t surprise me to hear that Chabon had his own copy of Free to Be You and Me. We had a lot of feminist moms in town!

But, I digress . . .  back to the book.

Top Shelf Bottom Line: Bad Mother is a great book for anyone struggling with motherhood in any number of capacities. That’s especially true for anyone trying to come to terms with work/family issues orsomoene like me, who has a hatred for housework.  Note of warning: There is a heartbreaking section on abortion and lots of liberal banter (the author does live in Berkeley), so I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone who sits on the conservative end of the spectrum.

She’s a very kinky girl … the kind you don’t bring home to mother …

Couldn’t help myself. That’s the tune that comes to mind every time I look at the cover of Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

She will never let your spirits down … once you get her off the streets … yow!

And, in fact, that tune was quite apropos, as the most interesting part of the book was the economics behind prostitution.  But more about that in a minute.

While I found the authors’ first book, Freakonomics, extremely thought-provoking, this one didn’t quite rise to that level.  However, it was interesting, and I had a few, “hmmm” moments, despite the fact that some of it felt like I’d read it before.  But some of it was really fascinating, such as the section on the economics of  prostitution  (and no . . . not thinking about giving up my day job).

Re: prostitution. It’s an interesting look at how, if we want to eliminate it, we need to take away the financial incentive AND put the Johns in jail and not poor Jane, who is just trying to make a living.  Yet that’s not how we’re approaching the problem.  While reading this part, I couldn’t help but think about the movie Hustle & Flow …

You know it’s hard out here for a pimp
When he tryin to get this money for the rent
For the Cadillacs and gas money spent
Because a whole lot of bitches talkin’ sh*t

But enough about that . . . on to global warming.  The one big concept with regard to global warming was contained in the statement on page 11: “But Humankind has a great capacity for finding technological solutions to seemingly intractable problems, and this will likely be the case for global warming.”  The authors provide historical examples where we were facing what seemed like insurmountable issues but where we managed to find technological solutions.  They even go on to talk about some of the potential solutions in the works that could cost less/be more effective than the Al Gore model.

I also bookmarked the page where they talk about sports and how your birth month can affect your abilities (a topic covered in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers).  While this seemed a bit of a retread, there was a slight differentiating point with regard to practice:  It’s not just about the 10,000 hours of practice, but it’s about “deliberate practice:  setting specific goals, obtaining immediate feedback and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome.”

Another good discussion was on the gender wage gap.  Very timely, as this has recently been in the news because it’s moving in the wrong direction.  The discussion ended up with a conclusion that perhaps the traditional male definition of success (money/power) isn’t a meaningful incentive for women–even highly educated, fast-tracked ones.

This conclusion was key because if there is one clear theme throughout, it’s that we are often wrong as to what will be an incentive to get people to do something.  The starkest example of this was how difficult it has been for hospitals to get doctors and hospital staff to wash their hands.  It wasn’t until they came up with a gross visual screen saver that showed the growth of germs on a hand before they got to 100 percent compliance.

This made me consider the different incentives my company has implemented over the years.   We’ve tried a lot of things to get women to invest in their careers and build networks.  We’ve had giveaways, written technology how-to guides with Jane Austen themes, thrown shopping nights, tried cold hard facts,  guilt,  economics, etc.  I’m still trying to find the magic incentive formula!  Any ideas?  I’m open to them.

Top Shelf Bottom Line: If you loved Freakonomics and want more of the same, then worth the read.  If you are interested in how thinking “differently” could solve some of the world’s problems then this, too, could make it a worthwhile read.  Or if you need to step back and think differently about your company, this might be a good primer.

This week I read Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah.  It was ironic that I was reading this while watching Don Draper and crew on TV’s Mad Men adjust to a whole new world of television advertising and other changes.  Why is it ironic?  Because we are undergoing a similarly huge shift in how we market, and the name that seems to have stuck is “Inbound Marketing.”

This book, Inbound Marketing, is meant for marketers.  Some of the other books I’ve reviewed are a bit more theoretical and great for all senior management.  This book is tactical and even includes checklists at the end of each chapter.  The theory of the book is that the world is no longer limited to “outbound” marketing: i.e., direct-mail campaigns and advertisements.  Instead you need to be out there attracting your customers and bringing them back to you via the internet– i.e., inbound marketing.

Admittedly the book is a bit of a “shill” for HubSpot.com, the authors’ company.  However, this didn’t distract from the content, and since HubSpot is where the authors gained their expertise, it made sense. In addition, HubSpot does have some good products to help small-business owners with their inbound marketing, some of which is included in the following list of tips and tidbits that I found useful in the book.

Your Website Inbound Marketing Effectiveness

One useful tool promoted in the book is the free website.grader.com, which reviews your web page and rates it for “inbound marketing effectiveness.”

The authors emphasize that title tags are important for search engine optimization.  Each page should have a unique title, and it should be about 70 words long with the most important term first.

Implementation Note: I immediately tested the website grader with the Downtown Women’s Club and was pleased to receive a 97/100 and a list of small tweaks I could do to improve it even more.  While I didn’t agree with all of the recommendations (a quick Google answered my question as to whether paying to be listed in the Yahoo Directory was worth the cost; survey said = no), most made sense.  Per website.grader.com, my title tags were too long.  Will fix ASAP.

Your Blog Inbound Marketing Effectiveness

Incorporate your blog into your site because a blog will improve your search engine rankings by adding more pages to your site.  The more pages Google has, the more your site shows up in search engine results pages for dozens of keywords.

Blog posts should not be more than one page.

Put important keywords in the titles to your blogs and links back to your main site within the blogs. They even recommend going back and putting links/keywords into old blog posts.

Implementation note:  Per their suggestions, I moved our blog back under my main domain; it’s still the Women’s Dish, but you can get at it from http://blog.downtownwomensclub.com. And there, I just included a link back to my site!  As for the one-page blogs, I break this rule all the time on this particular blog, but I figure I’m attracting a demographic that likes to read.

Your Google/Social Media Inbound Marketing Effectiveness

The section explaining how Google works is very helpful to the new website/blog/e-commerce entrepreneurs.  As a more experienced social media user, I still picked up some great ideas.  I really liked the way they presented the whole Google search/SEO discussion–they even explained Page Rank.

Implementation note:  Via the tips in the book, I found that my Google Page Rank was 5, which was pretty good, but I really want to move it higher–time to work on more qualified links.

Basically it boils down to “Ranking = relevance + authority.”

• Relevance = how close of a match a given web page is to the term being searched.
• Authority = The measure of how important and authoritative that given page is in the eyes of Google (i.e. Page Rank).

Their discussion of “qualified links” and how many sites/blog comments are using “no follow” links to defeat the spammers was insightful.

And I thought the authors did a good job explaining how “tricking” Google with dubious SEO tactics is not going to be effective: “The purpose of inbound marketing is not just to get more traffic to your website, but to convert more of that traffic into qualified leads and customers.”

Note to readers:  It’s no longer about the number of eyeballs that come to your page; it’s about actually engaging your visitors to join your mailing list, purchase a product or become a member.  Much of this book focuses on getting “qualified” links and “interested” visitors to your website.

The sections on how to use social media for inbound marketing are all very good and, I believe, easy to understand for even the novice online marketer. They even included some good rules of thumb, i.e., a 1 percent conversion rate on untargeted traffic is a good baseline.

People often say that social media impact can’t be measured, but I think the authors present enough tools and baselines that you can actually measure an impact over the long run (see the chapter on “patience”).

Your Inbound Marketing Team’s Effectiveness

I particularly liked the section on hiring people both internally and for your external PR team based on their social media skills.  If you are a marketer looking for a job, or in the PR and marketing consulting fields, you should read this section. If you are a company whose PR or marketing teams don’t measure up to these lists . . .  you might need to rethink, rewire or rehire.

Why Now?

This is the question the authors answer very convincingly in the final chapter.  Just as we watch the ad guys on Mad Men adjust to a new era of television and mass marketing, we are going through our own metamorphosis.  Those who adapt will survive and thrive; those who continue to fight or ignore it, well . . . I’m really not sure what to tell you.

Top Shelf Bottom line: In the first chapter, where the authors describe this shift, they have the best title of any subsection: “Who moved my customers?”  If you still think your customers are waiting at home by the mailbox for your next direct-mail piece or will read your ad in a magazine to which they no longer subscribe, you might want to pick up this book.  Even if you are more experienced, there were lots of tweaks that can only help you improve your inbound marketing.

I’ll be honest. having just read Trust Agents and a couple of other books about social media, I was hesitant to dive into yet another one. However, Twitterville: How Businesses can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods by Shel Israel was different than expected. It’s less of a “how to tweet” and more about the evolution of the era of microblogging.

Why would anyone tweet?

From the forward by Charlene Li:

“Twitter is made for my mom. That’s because she’s always infinitely interested in what I am doing and thinking, no matter how mundane–or inane.” Then Li goes on to say that is probably the reason for skepticism about Twitter. However, in her mind, “Twitter is less about what you are doing and more about what you are paying attention to and willing to share.”

I fall under the latter camp. For me, Twitter has always been the nonstop cocktail party where you can pop into conversations and learn what people are thinking, reading, learning and laughing about. I want to know what the experts are focused on and share the highlights with my followers.

In general, I think everyone should have a Tweeting strategy–if you follow me at http://twitter.com/downtownwoman, you’ll read a lot about what the Downtown Women’s Club is up to, what’s going on with social media and women networking, what books I’m reading/reviewing and, of course, whatever article of clothing or numerous bizarre items my 90-lb Bernese Mountain Dog has eaten, buried and/or thrown up on.

Israel’s book doesn’t tell readers how to build their own strategy, but he covers some of the famous Twitter incidents that have caused people and companies to start paying attention. These include:

• The arrest tweeted around the world. James Buck’s tweet “Arrested” sent from Egypt rapidly made its way around Twitterville and played a large role in his ability to later tweet the word “Free.”

• The Motrin Moms getting an ad canceled. Despite not having an opinion one way or the other about baby slings, I had a personal attachment to this one, as one of our Downtown Women’s Club bloggers at the time was part of the vocal group.

• The Pepsi suicide ad. This was a story I hadn’t heard much about, and Israel points out that Pepsi acted quickly via Twitter, made its apologies sincere and even put a personal face on the apology–an employee whose sibling had committed suicide and who was disturbed by an ad Pepsi ran mocking suicide. (Note that as I wrote this Pepsi had another incidence of poor taste with its Pepsi Amp iPhone app encouraging men to keep score of the women they picked up . . . which then led to another Twitter apology.)

Some lessons beyond Twitter

However, the book wasn’t limited to stories unfolding on Twitter. Israel covers how Twitter came into being, including its origin as an internal tool used to locate a virtual work force. In these sections, I found some interesting business advice that went beyond Twitterville, including:

Ev Williams, one of the founders of Twitter, said that he learned two things from his tenure at Google, where he worked for a year and a half, 2003 to 2004:

1. Get the product right and make users happy before you worry about making money.
2. Focus is everything. Every company has to choose between what it can do and what it should do.

Twitter as a business strategy

Israel outlines a wide variety of strategic uses of Twitter.

• Dell Outlet–used Twitter to employ an old retail tactic: coupons.
• Dell Inc. had a different strategy–trolling for mentions of Dell and hoping to resolve problems by jumping into conversations.

Like Dell, Israel comes down on the side of corporations letting individuals tweet with their own pictures/name. Other tips from the Dell section of the book: Per Bob Pearson, who at the time was the highest-ranking member of Dell’s social media team: “Social media becomes even more important during tough financial times because it is not that expensive and it gets you closer to the customer.”

Recently there’s been a lot written about the push back from corporations against social media. Most of that is due to the fact that it’s harder to measure ROI. However, Israel gives some solid examples of ROI, such as JetBlue adding new flights to get to the SXSW conference after reading on Twitter about the lack of flights.

“The internet has been flattening corporate structures for some time now. Social media has accelerated the process, and the recession has speeded up the process still further.”

Back to corporate examples:

• Best Buy has a smart strategy. “It may be one of the companies that realizes it is not in control of its destiny. Their customers are in control. Their future depends on how close they can get to their customers, and how fast they can learn what their customers want from them in terms of both goods and services.”

• Ford Motor Co. found out that Twitter is crucial in solving PR crises. In the old days you might have a week to resolve a crisis; today you have mere hours.

• H&R Block is using Twitter to find new business. The company realized that its core client–folks who frequented strip malls–weren’t going to replenish themselves. H&R Block sent employees online to Twitterville to learn how they might implement an online strategy and cultivate a new client base.

• Zappos makes it part of the customer service culture.

Twitter and Customer Service

This last example is just as important as all the marketing examples because Twitter is a curious blend of marketing and customer service. People don’t call customer support to complain anymore; they get on Twitter and rail about it.

In fact, I recently blogged about a great customer service experience I had with a vendor on Twitter. And I have a few other examples of companies that have responded to tweets that led to me doing business (iRobot), keeping my business (Eventbrite, Comcast) and, in one case, stopping me from lambasting the company (Charter Communications. In this case, I had complained through Charter’s website, by e-mail, by phone, by instant chat, etc. Nothing resolved the issue until I tweeted about it and heard from the eRep., who seems to have resolved the issue.)

Israel is a big proponent of putting a personal face on corporate and disagrees with Whole Foods’ strategy of not putting faces to its tweeters. While the Whole Foods reps have a fairly successful strategy and put forth some good reasons for not having humanized tweeters, I’m still with Israel on the human bit–it makes a company more transparent and authentic.

Twitter and PR

Twitter has also changed the way PR functions. To quote a PR professional from the book:

“Today I send a press release out on Business Wire . . . I also send it to media and bloggers using e-mail. Then I post it on PitchEngine.com as a social media release; post it on our company website; tweet about it; cross-post to Facebook; and if it involves a commercial, post it on YouTube. Things have sure changed.”

Random notes of interest

Throughout the book, Israel includes random tweets. Some I found just plain odd, others made me wish I had more info. I bookmarked one because it stated something I’d been thinking about recently with regard to social media:

@TomTravel2: Think about it, none of us follow the exact same people so we all see a unique set of Tweets no one else sees. Twowflakes of a sort.

When it comes to reading newsfeeds, whether on Twitter or Facebook, everyone is seeing something different. And this is what defines a social media user’s experience. But it’s bigger than that. We all used to read the same newspaper and see the same ads. How do we market in a world where everyone customizes and personalizes the information that they see? Certainly not by trying to blast traditional marketing messages at them via social networks.

If there’s one takeaway from this book, it’s that what worked before in another medium is not likely to work here. Think back to radio and TV. What might work well on radio–a catchy jingle–does not transfer to television unless you add some visuals.

Top Shelf Must Read Pick for 2009. If you don’t get Twitter and are in any way connected to your company’s management, marketing or customer support, you need to read this book. If you are already tweeting but without much of a strategy, you also need to read this book. There are plenty examples of large and small B2C and B2B companies using Twitter throughout. If you finish the book and still see Twitter as something your company can live without, please write me, because I’d love to hear the other side.

When pal Alexandra Levit sent me an advance copy of her book, New Job, New You: A Guide to Reinventing Yourself in a Bright New Career, I thought it was quite timely. With the economy still stagnant and the unemployment rate bumping up against double digits, many individuals have to reinvent themselves to find employment. For some this may mean moving in a whole new direction, for others, it may mean it’s time to step back and reprioritize.

Levit centers the book on seven motivators for change (listed below). Then throughout the book, she uses individual stories as examples for why and how people made successful career changes. At the end of each chapter there are tests to see whether this could be a motivator for you and also tips on how to get started making the change.

Here are a few interesting tidbits I picked up in my reading:

1. Family: When true work/life balance becomes a necessity
Two of her examples in this section were men.

One vignette that stood out was when Erica came home from work to find her children happily playing with her husband in their pool and realizing she was going to work every day to afford a life of which she wasn’t even a part. This was somewhat similar to my first career change (from law to marketing). A friend summed it up nicely when she explained her reason for leaving: “I understand that if I prioritize my kids, even if I produce the same results as the next associate, I will be passed over and never make partner in a big law firm. While I could probably handle it for a while and continue to remind myself that I’m doing it for my kids, I would still be totally pissed off . . . and pissed off is not how I want to go through life.”

Levit includes some good advice about flextime, work-at-home careers and how to include your entire family in the decision.

2. Independence: When you’ve been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug
If you’re reading this review, it’s likely that this section will resonate the most. The common theme among the examples was how analytical these individuals were. While many were driven to become entrepreneurs by their right side of the brain (the creative/intuitive side), what made them successful was their more logical left side.

3. Learning: When your bookish, curious side takes over
When it comes to going back to school, one of Levit’s examples said, “Don’t worry about how old you are, and ask the right questions of the right people.”

As in other sections, Levit points out the financial risks you are taking, like how much debt the average person takes on to go back to school.

4. Money: When an increase in earning potential is on the horizon

5. Passion: When you yearn to do what you love with all of your heart
I liked this quote from one of her examples: “I realized that you can have all the talent in the world, but you still have to be willing to get your hands dirty and be disciplined and eager to grow. It’s dangerous to think you have it all figured out.”

6. Setback: When one door closes, another one opens

7. Talent: When you’re too good at something not to give it a shot
With all of these motivators, Levit provides both interesting and varied examples, as well as hard-core advice and a decent dose of reality. Career changes aren’t easy. In fact, Levit identifies the four key factors you need to be successful at the end: Persistence, courage, self-confidence and business savvy. This is why I would highly recommend this book. It will help you with all four of those aspects as well as in identifying your reasons for the change and how to garner the support of family and friends.

Top Shelf Bottom Line: If you are considering a career change, this is the guide to help you motivate, plan and decide whether you are really up for it.

Most of what I read about social media is geared to audiences that either need to be converted or need to convert others, and who potentially have budgets in the tens of thousands to spend on social media. However, Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith is the first social media book that I found helpful for newbies as well as active users, no matter what size the budget.

I’m going to gloss over all the “here are more reasons why you can no longer ignore social media,” and focus on items that are more tactical or a unique way of looking at social media.

One has to appreciate a social media book that opens with a totally non-techie intro. In this case, the authors use a story about an undercover FBI agent infiltrating the mob to paint a compelling picture about how it takes time and patience to build a reputation as a trust agent. I thought this was a great point because I could just see non-social-media-savvy managers mandating their marketing departments to start being “trust agents.” Much like a marketing department can’t make a viral video because it’s the public that decides what goes viral, it’s also the public that decides who is a “trust agent.”

So, what is a trust agent?
The definition of a trust agent: “digital natives using the web to be genuine and to humanize their business.” Need more than that? Here’s another definition from the book:

Trust agents build networks almost reflexively by being helpful, by promoting the good work that others do, by sharing even their best stuff without hesitation, and by finding ways to deliver even more value on top of all that without asking for anything in return. Instead of sucking up to the big guys . . . trust agents reach out to the up-and-comers.

The 6 Characteristics of Trust Agents:

1. Make your own game (i.e., stand out by being different).
2. One of us (you are not above your market; you are part of your market).
3. The Archimedes effect (it’s all about the leverage).
4. Agent Zero (start your networks before you do actual business).
5. Human artist (learning the soft skills).
6. Build an army (you can’t do it alone).

What’s so great about writing stuff on the internet?
“Writing everything online, where it’s eternally visible to everyone, forever, has value.” I totally agree with this for two reasons:

• Just the other day, someone stumbled (http://www.stumbleupon.com) upon an old blog post of mine and put it in the feminism category. It’s led to a steady stream of traffic to our DWC Women’s Dish blog.
• Brogan and Smith also point out that if someone asks a question, you could answer it by e-mail OR you could post your answer on the blog and help not just that one person but many others who may be Googling the same issue. I’ve found that you also help yourself when you do this because it saves you from responding to the same question over and over again–you can just direct people to your blog.

Jumping gates and playing games
I liked the section on gatejumpers, but if I were to totally gush over everything, then who would take me seriously? One minor flaw of the book, which isn’t necessarily a flaw–as it could possibly be an entirely separate book–is that sometimes the authors will drop names of gamechangers such as Perez Hilton, but not talk about the actual steps they took to become gamechangers.

There is a good example of how Timothy Ferriss used the term “lifestyle design” to jump his gate. He used this term instead of work/life balance and time management. Note to self: Come up with a new term for “women’s business group that helps do-it-yourselfers do it themselves.” I’m open to suggestions!

To be a gatejumper, “figure out who the gatekeepers are, then decide which rules you can break to make yourself a gatejumper.”

I also liked the section on viewing the world as a game because games have concrete goals and simple ways to measure what’s working and what’s not. The focus is on beating the system, not other people. “Once you have the system figured out, ask yourself which rules can be ignored, changed, modified.” I thought this is a great section for all women to read, because too often we are still playing the “good girl” role and not taking enough calculated risks. Social media is about putting yourself out there . . . and women are such great communicators, we should be all over this new medium.

Social Media and Trust
Social media is about selling the same thing as everyone else–only differently.

Social media can be about tinkering–it’s a great way to test new things without too much expense.

But make sure your connectors still work. This brief section resonated hugely with me. If you are going to be a gatejumper and start doing things differently, you have to still be able to plug back into a market where everyone may still be doing things the traditional way. This was a bit of my problem with the Downtown Women’s Club. We moved online a bit prematurely for our core audience. This meant we spent a year marketing something that our core audience (thirty- and fortysomething businesswomen) didn’t know or care about. We finally figured this out and have continued to market along a dual track. Ironically, more recently, our focus on our digital offerings and virtual teleclasses has brought us a whole new audience–boomer women. While there were many organizations geared to senior women who wanted to network in person, there weren’t many that focused on teaching them social media and other online networking skills.

I noted that this section was followed by one about the importance of moving first! LOL– it’s all about moving early but staying connected to the status quo.

“Despite all the changes on the web, the basis of trust is still the same; it’s the signals that have changed. Having credibility is a major factor, but credibility is established through what other people think.” One of the best tidbits was the one on pages 83 and 84, which talks about signals of trust on the web: from design to longevity to what you have on your “About” page (I had identical thoughts about “why the about page is the most important page of your website”).

The Business Value of Friends
Brogan and Smith hit on something that those of us who use social media get and non-users don’t. “These ‘friends’ we’re discussing aren’t the ‘move your couch’ friends. They’re people you know online, and you value their opinion and respect the relationship.”

• Becoming friends means that we’ve accepted your network connection. It means we’re at least curious about who you are.
• Consider “friends” to mean that you can pay attention to what we’re doing and try to find a conversational entry point.
• Marketing to a new friend will almost always result in unfriending–and possibly an angry blog post.
• It’s simple: This is like saying hi at a party to someone you don’t exactly know. It’s a good start, but what you stay next is probably more important.
• Reveal little things, naturally, without making them a focal point, and people will develop a more complete view of you as a person and respect you more for it.

I also thought the example of GM’s two social media marketing examples was noteworthy: asking people to make videos for them to use in their marketing backfired (environmentalists were all over it with negative videos); but asking people to share their passions about their GM cars was successful.

It’s Not Too Late to Start
Six games you could have made and still can:

1. Write a content marketing blog about a passion of yours.
2. Build a small, powerful network.
3. Become the name brand of a specialty.
4. Master leverage and use it for good.
5. Sell by generating human trust.
6. Make an army to power your change.

I actually thought the ending hid the most illuminating statement:

All this humanizing is normal; in fact, the only reason we think that it’s crazy is because most of us were born in the brief period where mass media was the only game in town. But, remember, that’s only been the case for a few decades; for the rest of the time, people have communicated mostly with other people in small groups.

I agree with this statement wholeheartedly, especially as I see a rise in network marketing (in a good way) and small businesses.

Top shelf bottom line: Trust Agents is a must read for both the social media novice AND the more experienced user, no matter what size the business or level of social media expertise. It’s also an easy and fun book because of the conversational voice and the pop culture references.

P.S. I’m headed to the Inbound Marketing Summit on Oct. 7 and 8 in Foxborough, Mass. (although only for Oct. 7). If you’re going, please try to find me and say hi! If you haven’t signed up yet, what are you waiting for? Visit: http://city.inboundmarketingsummit.com/boston/.