"The End of Business As Usual" by Brian Solis.

This past week, Orange County had the pleasure of welcoming author and digital media expert Brian Solis to town.  This was another excellent event offered by LinkedOC, a LinkedIn community group run by Bryan Eliott who always brings the highest caliber marketing and new media experts to the Orange County area.

Solis presented on the topic of his most recent book, “The End of Business as Usual”.   While the book talks about engagement in this digital world, it’s really still about building relationships. The relationships we build on-line, from our personal profiles and our business networks, really help to create and enhance a whole new world of consumer influence.

I wouldn’t really say the book is dedicated to social media per se, but rather focused on what we should all be attentive to – the customer experience.  That’s what people will remember, and that’s what people will talk about and tell others about.

Solis discussed the difference between the traditional consumer who actually pays for information, the digital consumer who believes all information should be free and finally, the connected consumer who has an audience.  As a business, you are now marketing to an audience with an audience so you’re speaking to and through people.  With that in mind, we need to think like the customer.

I think the most important words from Solis were that we have to think about what our vision of customer relationship looks like and what do people expect to get out of that relationship with our company.   Sadly, most companies end up designing their digital strategy for the medium, rather than the experience.  Simply having a presence isn’t a strategy.  Attention is precious so design for the experience.

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A relatively short and practical paperback from someone with real experience playing with social networks.

We couldn’t have asked for this book to come from a better source than Chris Brogan — someone with real experience playing with social networks and understanding how to use a network like this for business.  And that’s really the value of this book and that’s exactly what I wanted to know.

As a business owner, I certainly don’t need another thing to do and neither do you, but Brogan’s comments about Google itself and its potential for relationships to the other Google tools certainly make some sense.  And I’m much more interested in relationship-minded business as opposed to transactional business.  Driving home the point about sharing a taste of your personal life hits home for me because I could probably do a little more in that regard.

I wanted to understand why anyone would say Google+ for business might be better than several other well known social tools.  Brogan’s point is driven home when he talks about combining this tool with Google’s position as a search engine.  With that in mind, having a Google+ page for your business makes even more sense, especially knowing that you can simply go to Google search and key in “+” next to a business name and you’ll find the branded business page on Google+.

Something else I really like about this book is that Brogan consulted several users who shared their Google+ routine and he also provided some fictitious day-in-the-life of suggestions as to how a number of other businesses and professionals could use the tool.  For me, it’s important to understand the practical nature of any tool and these examples demonstrate a number of simple ways to use the tool to develop and nurture online relationships.

One of the key mentions Brogan makes toward the end of the book suggests that, again, with a social tool like this, those that are early to the party are sure to get the biggest benefit.  And I, too, think that’s very true.

If you’re still trying to figure out what all the fuss is about, take a quick read through this relatively short and practical paperback.

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“Do The Work” by Steven Pressfield

A colleague of mine recently suggested reading “Do The Work” by Steven Pressfield. While I don’t think I’m that much of a procrastinator, the truth is that we can all use a dose of reality every now and again and that’s what this book is. I love that Pressfield is very candid about his challenges along the way and he captures the essence of the issue—Resistance. “Do The Work” helps you to understand who your allies are and helps you to understand how to rally and use them in your creativity. I like that it’s got some quality messaging, regardless of the task at hand, and you can read it one sitting—an hour and half at the very most.

I highly recommend this book to help you get motivated to move forward. And particularly if you’re a writer, this is a great one if you’re having trouble moving along your path.

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