The Modern Journalist

Book Review: Groundswell (Part 1)

Image by glenn.batuyong via Flickr

Note: Groundswell is a wonderful road map for how — and why — you should implement social technologies. This review both pulls out some pertinent facts that I find relevant and has stories specific to newspapers that I think would be helpful for those working in online news operations. To get the full scope of this, though, you really need to read the whole book.

Part 2 of my review is here.

When I was a reporter with Wired and Wired News, I spent a fair amount of time talking with analysts for story. One of those, Josh Bernoff, worked at Forrester Research.

Truth be told, analyst firms are a bit of a joke in the reporting industry — at least they were during the boom. When I was running TechnologyReview.com, I banned the use of any statistical information from places like Forrester exactly because of the speculative nature of it.

I’m telling you this for a reason: I just finished Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Bernoff and Charlene Li, two Forrester analysists, and it’s the most comprehensive, data-driven book about implementating social technologies in business that I’ve read.

For anyone who has struggled with convincing management to move into the social media sphere or anyone who has sat through LONG meetings where gun-shy executives prattle on about their experiences with technology and use that as a weapon to avoid implementing new user-driven tools, this book is a must.

But it’s also a great roadmap for those people who are confused by the landscape, yet know it’s important to get involved.

Repeatedly I found myself wishing I had access to the case studies, the data and the step-by-step analysis and implementation processes described in the book when I was trying to push through change at Technology Review.

To quote Fast Times at Ridgemont High: Learn it. Know it. Live it.

My thoughts on the book follow.

For those who have worked in the social media sphere, you’ll have to slog through the first three chapters. They are extremely basic in their descriptions (which gave me some pause — and almost caused me to put it down; however, I felt like I needed to read the book for my research. Get through these chapters, though, and you’re in for an education).

Chapter 3, even though it’s part of this first section, is important as it lays out the foundation for the research and implementation that comes later. It’s a quick read, but for those who have any understaning of blogging, wikis, Twitter and social networks, it might be worthwhile to start with this chapter.

Here’s what I learned:

People, not technologies, should define what you do: The book repeatedly emphasis that social media is useless unless you understand what your user-base does and what your company hopes to get out of it. This is tantamount — and those companies that have seen failure are likely to have missed one of those two points.

There is no getting around this.

In the groundswell, relationships are everything. The way people connect with each other — the community that is created — determines how the power shifts. (p18)

There are six types of people: Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, Spectators and Inactives. Companies must determine who their audience is, what they can expect in terms of response and how they will court — and manage — those people. (pp41-47)

There are nine reasons people contribute to communities: Friendships, New Friends, Social Pressure, Help, Altruism, Pruient, Creative, Validation, Affinity. (pp59-62)

I spent a great deal of time following this meme through the book — although the authors don’t necessarily make a direct connection — because I’ve been working out the rules I think everyone needs to be engaged in as they are building a community.

This is also an extension of what Surowiecki discussed in The Wisdom of Crowds, which I reviewed. Particularly his analysis that People Fall Into Three Categories.

It’s also important to include this in my 8 Rules to Build an Online Community. I’m going to do a blog post in the next few days that incorporates all of this thinking in one place, which I imagine will become an important part of my book.

Game Companies Have Understood the Groundswell before The Groundswell Existed: Repeatedly in the book, I made notes about game companies ability to create, foster and run successful communities that both allow players to connect with each other, air problems and promote products. They do a wonderful job. I was disappointed that the book didn’t include these as case studies, although I suspect that was done because business types don’t want to take their cues from gamers.

If You Engage, Put Someone Important in Charge of the Effort (p72): This seems like such an obvious lesson, but most newspaper companies I’ve come in contact with make one of these two mistakes: the person overseeing their new media operation doesen’t have a background in technology and/or that person, if they are technical, is likely under 30 and reports to someone who doesn’t understand technology.

The book looks at successful case studies where, thanks to a decision from management, innovative ideas were implementing within a month or two — sometimes within weeks — because the cost for most of these social media tools is minimal or nil.

If you have someone who you trust, you understand your customers (and the book gives you a way to roughly analyze) and you have a clear goal — it’s not difficult to build a community in terms of money and resources. What IS difficult is realizing that you must start small, listen, respond, encourage your community, support them and ultimately embrace them.

And ultimately, you can’t abandon them if they do something you don’t like. That is worse than not engaging at all. (pp65-75)