Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business
I missed the free Kindle download that 14,000 people got, but I got something better: a dinner with Josh Bernoff and Social Media Chicago friends at Boka.
Are you like me? I’m kind of a somewhat, make that a huge fan/author groupie who goes out of the way to meet the writers behind books I like. So, when I got an email asking if Social Media Club Chicago would like to invite our board to dinner with Josh Bernoff, co-author of Empowered, I immediately replied yes. Special thanks to Beth Gwazdosky and Rusty Shelton of Shelton Interactive for the invitation.
As a recently published author myself [I’m the LinkedIn author in Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars], I’m studying what works in book promotion.
I like the idea of a private dinner with key influencers.
What was Josh like? He said he liked our SMC group in Chicago, he wished he had time to go to a Cubs game [he will be at US Cellular tonight] and cut us off from tweeting a few comments that I would write here, but I promised not to. Let’s just say that Chicago knows how to roll out the welcome mat and he did say our end of the table was the most interesting. That’s what you get when you talk to enthusiastic PR and effervescent social media types.
“Empowered: unleash your employees, energize your customers, transform your business” starts out with dirty laundry. Make that Dooce’s washing machine repair horror story. Josh told me he wanted to mix a business book with personal stories, like this this and the one about @interactiveamy and her husband @joshkorin‘s experience with Best Buy. As a storyteller, I love this approach and I enjoyed hearing Josh Bernoff retell the stories in his book about companies like RentVillas.com.
Want to know more about Empowered? Here are a few resources for you.
Harvard Business Review Empowered Announcement
Far better than trying to prevent such activity is to acknowledge that your employees have technology power.
Strategic Generosity: Who How and Why to Give Out Free Stuff
Here’s the lesson for marketers. Concentrate on the customers most likely to talk – Twitter users, bloggers, social network denizens – and give them advance access to your products and ways to find the greatness in it. Then they’ll do a lot of the marketing for you. – or write blog posts.
Two Key Concepts from EMPOWERED: IDEA and the HERO Compact
The Four-step IDEA process from Empowered by Josh Bernoff and Ted Schindler
1. Identify the mass influencers. Concentrate on the people most likely to spread messages about your company.
2. Deliver groundswell customer service. Reach out through groundswell’s channels – twitter, blogs, YouTube, Facebook, for example and serve these vocal and influential customers.
3. Empower your customers with information, especially mobile information. Keep people happy by surrounding them with the inforamtion they need, thoruhg mobile technologies like text messaging, moblie sties, and smartphone apps.
4. Amplify your fans. Find the people who love you, and boost the impact they have on their peers. This section includes a five-step method for amplifying world of mouth.
Adapted from Empowered by Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler, Harvard Business Review Press, September 2010, thanks to Cave Henricks Communications for the content via a press release.
Forbes Video Interview with Josh Bernoff
According to Josh, companies need three groups to be successful
HEROES – in line with strategy
IT – doesn’t own technology and support HEROES
Management – has to support the HEROES and work with IT to manage risks
Have you read Empowered? What did you think?
Images: Josh Korin and Amy Ravit Korin with Josh Bernoff and Barbara Rozgonyi with Josh Bernoff September 14, 2010 – thanks to Josh for the picture and the book!
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