Book Recommendations
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Delivering Happiness: Zappos Story
Author: Tony Hsieh
Who would have ever thought that a company could master selling shoes on the Internet. Tony Tsieh and his team have done it @ Zappos. In “Delivering Happiness,” Tony shares the tales of how they built the company, their relentless focus on values and culture that has had a profound impact on the success of the business. I really enjoyed reading this book.
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Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform The Way You Lead
Author: Charlene Li
Charlene Li has developed a successful analyst practice at Altimeter (a firm she founded) and Forrester Research. Charlene is a true digital citizen that has adopted and embraced the use of many social technologies like Facebook, Twitter, Blogging and more. From this point of view of a practitioner and a network of executives she is in close contact with, she provides a very authentic view on the topic of Open Leadership. This is very important for all leaders today. Practical read that was well done.
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Inspired: How To Build Products Consumers Love
Author: Marty Cagan
Marty Cagan knows how to build products from his work at Netscape, AOL and eBay. Marty is now offering his counsel through his firm Silicon Valley Products Group and has written “Inspired” to share all of his work. “Inspired” is a great guide for anyone who runs a company focused on consumer products. This book will become the Bible for consumer product managers as well.
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Scavengers Manifesto
Authors: Anneli Rufus and Kristan Lawson
“The Scavenger’s Manifesto,” looks at the concepts of salvaging, swapping, repurposing, reusing and recycling over the ages. There has been a very strong psychological movement in our societies that has driven the culture of “excessive” consumption which has powered economies, but it has also generated massive consumer debt and poor ecological practices. I found this a good and timely read.
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Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs
Authors: Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah
Inbound Marketing is for real. It is transforming how everyone markets products, services and themselves in this world. It is changing the game radically right now. Beyond their great work at HubSpot, Brian and Dharmesh have teamed to write a book called “Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs.” It is a very good guide to what is happening, how anyone can become proficient and compete in this new era.
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Join The Conversation
Author: Joseph Jaffe
“Join The 
Conversation,” and found it to be a excellent overview of the cultural and technology shifts that are powering social media today and flipping traditional views of media and advertising on their heads. In “Join The Conversation,” Jaffe speaks to individuals and brands, giving a recipe that will allow for effective communication and engagement in this connected world.
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Marketing 2.0: Bridging the Gap Between Seller and Buyer Through
Social Media Marketing
Author: Bernie Borges
The world of marketing has changed. Buyers dont want to be sold through traditionally loud marketing methods. The Internet has enabled much of this change through access to information, use of passive yet targeted advertising and social communities of like minded people coming together. Bernie Borges links all of these factors with a recipe for companies to follow for advertising in this new era. Forward for this book by Mike Volpe of Hubspot Marketing.
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Connect: Marketing In Social Media Era
Author: Jeff Caswell edited contributions from 100 Authors
Connect is a collaborative effort of 100 leaders in social media that have written 400 word essays about thier experiences with social media today. It is a wonderful collaboration of entrepreneurs, executives and bloggers that are fully emersed in the social media ecosystem daily. This collaboration was led by Jeff Caswell. All of the profits from Connect will go to a great cause, the Susan G. Koman for the Cure foundation which is raising monies to fight cancer.
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Marketing To The Social Web, Second Edition
Author: Larry Weber
Larry has updated his very popular “Marketing to the Social Web,” to take advantage of the fast moving companies and trends that persist in social media. Of particular importance, Larry addresses the key areas of “reputation management” and also ways to leverage existing or build your own “online communities” in the second edition. I have been an advocate of the power of online communities in the market process for a long time and see this in practice daily in my work with NameMedia social media sites like Photo.Net, Craftster.Org, DavesGarden.Com. Larry stresses brands can plug into these existing communities or they can invest in the work to build their own. Marketing to the Social Web, Second Edition, is a nice extension of Larry’s first book on this topic and surely provides enhanced background and road map for how brands can tap into this huge opportunity.
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Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputation Online
Authors: Andy Beal and Judy Strauss
In a world where there is an instant news cycle and the Internet enables the social connection of millions – reputation 
management is very important. Companies, organizations and individuals must be take an active role in managing and protecting their reputations. Radically Transparent
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Groundswell: Winning In A World Tranformed By Social Technologies
Authors: Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff have been tracking on the development and impact of social technologies for years. In Groundswell, Li and Bernoff address the struggle that corporate executives face trying to understand how people are using online social technologies (blogs, social networking sites, YouTube, podcasts) to discuss products and companies, write their own news, and find their own deals. This groundswell is global, it s unstoppable, it affects every industry and it s utterly foreign to the powerful companies running things now. Li and Bernoff explain how to turn this threat into an opportunity.
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Marketing To The Social Web
Author: Larry Weber
Larry has developed a powerful set of experiences in his career focusing on marketing and technology and he is a valued thought leader. In this book Weber states that there are enormous opportunities for companies to interact with current and prospective customers by connecting via the social web. Networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Flickr and the vertically targeted communities (like Photo.net, DavesGarden and Craftster) are the perfect forums for new dialog. Marketing to the Social Web provides background and road map for how to tap into this huge opportunity.
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Born Digital – Understanding The First Generation of Digital Natives
Authors: John Palfrey and Urs Gasser
John and Urs write about a phenomena we are all grappling with right now – how the first generation of humans who are growing up in the digital world are living, what are the good and bad about this new lifestyle and what will the world be like going forward as the result of this. We can not avoid the fact that interacting, managing, incenting and living with this generation formed by the digital world will offer many challenges and opportunities. It is essential reading for parents, teachers and confused adults who want to understand the digital world of today and tomorrow.
