Tuned In book review

We all have books in our summer reading que. Some are business related, some are to help us escape reality and others are the carryovers from last summer's reading pile. Among the books in my que are The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles recommended by John Moore, Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing (I realize I'm behind the curve on this one, as evidenced by the bargain basement price of $5.49 on Amazon) and Tuned In , which I received as part of a blogger outreach post on Web Ink Now.

Summer also coincides with my company's planning session so Tuned In made it off the pile first. I was hoping to find some inspiration to get the brainstorming started and in some aspects I did. Though like many who will read this book I realized there is a lot more work to be done before becoming "Tuned In."

Tuned In is a new book on the market written by Craig Stull, Phil Myers and David Meerman Scott. It "argues that the key to business success lies in understanding and connecting with what consumers and markets want most." It's a quick read and gives a good overview of what companies need to embrace to become tuned in. To give you an overview of the book I'll share with you the book's Top Ten Actions to Create a Tuned In Culture.

1. Get out of your comfortable office and talk with buyers about their unresolved problems.
2. Identify your buyer personas. In order to make them real for you and your colleagues, name each buyer persona, build a profile for each and cut a representative photo from a magazine to represent them.
   
3. Define your distinctive competence. Make certain everyone on your team understands what it is.
   
4. Don't go to an internal meeting if you're only going to give your own opinion. Instead, be the person who goes to the meeting armed with data.
   
5. Always ask where "facts" come from to disqualify mere opinions from your decision making process.
   
6. Map your products and services on the Tuned In Impact-Continuum. Build a plan to increase the impact.
7. Communicate directly the problems you solve for customers, not what your product or service does.
   
8. Count the number of times you say "our" and "we" on your website. Write for your buyers by using "you" and "your" instead.
   
9. Remove corporate gobbledygook such as mission statements from your external communications.
10. Become a thought leader in your market and industry.
    

If this list has peaked your interest or if you're unconvinced by anything on the list then pick up the book. Or start with a free excerpt from the Tuned In website.

A book review - Join the Conversation by Joseph Jaffe

I started reading Join the Conversation by Joseph Jaffe in December. It’s now March and I’ve completed it. I usually pour through a book within a week or two, but this book was different. And not in a good way. The book has good information, but it’s hidden in between sophomoric humor, euphemism crammed sentences and a self-congratulatory tone, making it hard to become engaged with the text. My advice - if you plan on reading this book start at chapter 18 (page 246). That’s where the real information begins.

I’d like to take a step back and explain why I’m writing this review. If it was any other book it would have been added to my pile of partially read books back at chapter 3. But Jaffe’s activities leading up to the book launch made me want to “join the conversation.” I happily blogged about bumrushing Amazon (the post was on an Emerson College class blog which has since been taken down. However, the text of the post is below) and I purchased the book from Amazon during the bumrush. I was excited about reading it and I recommended it to numerous people. But after reading it I felt let down.

The bottom line - Jaffe’s embracement of new media and his use of it is refreshing and awe inspiring. I still believe the marketing community has a lot to learn from him. That is where my real disappointment in Join the Conversation lies. The book wasn't able to live up to my impression of Jaffe.


Original Join the Conversation post

Posted: 18 Oct 2007 09:52 AM EST

I always find the best way of learning is by reinforcing the taught concept with a real world example, that’s why I’m so impressed with a piece of Joseph Jaffe’s Join the Conversation book promotion. In his new book Join the Conversation Jaffe writes about how to use social media to “bumrush the charts.” He uses examples, Black Lab’s climb in iTunes and Scott Sigler’s book Ancestor’s climb to #4 on Amazon.com’s top 10 listing. Taking inspiration from his writing, Jaffe, through his blog Jaffe Juice, has rallied his audience to purchase Join the Conversation through Amazon.com on October 21, 2007. The more people that purchase that day the higher Join the Conversation will climb. Join the Conversation looks like a great book, and the perfect catalyst for our Interactive & eCommerce class, with that in mind this post is your invitation from me to “join the conversation” on October 21st.

Valerie Conyngham