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Inside Apple. How America’s most advanced- and secretive – company really works. Adam Lashinsky. 2012. ISBN 9781455512171. (e-book).  Unlike the recent  Steve Jobs bio, this is a fact filled book on the company and the players (as well as Steve Jobs)  that should be on every Apple shareholder and traders reading list. The author is a long time Fortune reporter ( a magazine that Steve Jobs often favored with information over others). You will learn more about the inner workings, strengths and above all the culture of Apple.  As a journalist, Lashinsky writes clear concise copy making the book a good read.   He succeeds in helping pull back the veil in this company.  Highly recommended.

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The Now Revolution. 7 Shifts to make your business faster, smarter, and more social. Jay Baer & Amber Naslund.  2011. ISBN 9780470923276.  This book has been sitting waiting for me to get to it and I am glad I finally did.  It is a mix of an analysis of what the world is like now plus some serious do it now tips.  Some key takeaways:

• The transition from 50 to 100 employees has big impacts on holding onto the company culture
• If your company is not already “social” in its culture you will have a reduced chance of success in the social media space.
• There are quickly changing requirements for the talent you need in your company, what worked before will not work now in your hiring process.
• You need an army to use social media – starting with a heavy emphasis on customer service, and empowering many many employees to contribute to your social media initiatives.
• You need to use a new telephone to listen for buyer, customer, competitor  and employee “keywords” .
• How you respond to this challenge and how you measure results requires some serious analysis – its not  something you hand off to an intern.

Very cool use of QR/ tagging codes in the book, making it more interactive.  Check it out at nowrevolutionbook.com. As ever, some of the Microsoft stuff does not play nice with Android, ie when they send you to a document and not a webpage.

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The End of Business as Usual. Brian Solis.  2012. ISBN 9781118171561.   This is the epitome of a very current marketing academic book that is eminently practical.  This does not make it an easy read because Brian is concise and direct in his analysis and expects the reader to do some work as well.  The book is full of aha moments, and my Kindle highlights are legion.  This is the book for you if you are a current practicing marketer and or academic.  I especially appreciated that Brian was able to skillfully weave the entire marketing skill set into all aspects of the company.   If you want to learn and earn in this space, you will need to read this book.  Full disclosure- I bought this book and it is on all my Kindles.   Check out his terrific blog http://www.briansolis.com/

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The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success. Wayne Breitbarth. 2011. ISBN 9781608320936.  This is a true how to do book, with enough why attached that the reader can understand the power of this tool.  A comment I picked up on was:  ignoring LinkedIn now  is like 10 years ago ignoring email. There is only one way to learn to find out how useful it can be.  He  splits the book in two, first making yourself easy to find ( fill in a proper profile)  and then how to find and approach others on LinkedIn.  Every person in any business can make good use of this book.  Buy it, read it and use it. Well written and a quick read.

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• Do the Work! Overcome resistance and get out of your own way. Steven Pressfield. (regnordman.com)

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The Marketing High Ground. The essential playbook for B2B marketing practitioners everywhere. J. Michael Gospe Jr. 2011. ISBN 9781456439804.  I really liked this book, reading it in one sitting.  He was an engineer, but unlike me  instead of turning to sales, he went into marketing of high tech. And the man can write! You will recognize the players/politics of the tech world with his clear grasp of the industry reality.  I thought  my partner, Geoffrey Hansen could have written this book as Gospe looks at the world with a very good grasp of process. (This is likely due to his grounding at HP and Sun )  His experience allows him to simply and clarify marketing to its essence.  This makes this a very useful book to help any marketer grab the high ground earning more respect from his colleagues.  The beginner through to the master marketer can learn much from this book. He also lays out common frustrations and traces them back to the source. His approach is customer based, using that knowledge for  segmentation, positioning and creating personas. He provides a step by step process for doing this. I especially appreciated his sage advice for young marketers to not get sidetracked by fads ( e.g. social marketing) and neglect the basics. Buy it, read it and keep it close.   His website is  http://marketinghighground.wordpress.com

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The Secrets of Word of Mouth Marketing. 2nd ed.  How to trigger exponential sales through runaway word of mouth. George Silverman.2011. ISBN 9780814416686.  This book is full of extremely current material applicable to content marketing. Silverman “invented”  WoM marketing and has been at it  longer than anyone.  His idea of impact is to shorten buying decision times.
He has the stories and ideas to prove it.   Some tidbits:

1. In a believability ranking ( from 1 -21)  , a statement from a trusted adviser  ranked 1, whereas a company president giving an sales  infomercial,  ranked 18.
2. Make your message simple – so its easy to deliver
3. Make the client decisions easy
4. Use real people and real stories
5. How easy is your referral system?
6. Customer service is part of marketing
7. Are you creating raving fans?
8. When in doubt ask , what would Google or Apple do?

This is a must buy for any marketer.  Its your step by step guide to success.

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Killing Giants. 10 strategies to topple the Goliath in your industry. Stephen Denny. 2011. ISBN 9781591843832.  The author has put down 33 first hand stories  ( Eg Vibram barefoot runners, Dunking Donuts taste test,  Jetblue) organized under ten different strategies.   This is a book that should be in hands of every small business owner or small division owner. The stories are compelling, recognizable and very well organized  (The author has a strategy for that as well)  Smaller companies should be more nimble and market responsive than the giants.   Great line that I extracted, over time incumbent companies grow to resemble their markets ( like owners look like their dogs) .  Large companies acquire habits that smaller firms can get around and find opportunities.  Good read and well put together.

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Launch. How to quickly propel your business beyond the competition. Michael Stelzner. 2011. ISBN 9781118027233.  Wow.

So much packed into a reasonable read.

1. How Stelzner built and drove to incredible success two completely different web businesses. White papers (http://www.stelzner.com/copy-HowTo-whitepapers.php)  and social media (socialmediaexaminer.com )  From that comes online events, research papers, books and deep valuable content.
2. More than a how to do it, he also shows you why things work, the details on how to build great content, and simple progressive methods to grow any business, and when to turn down the volume.
3. Case studies, examples of best practice and personal experiences are threaded through this book.
4. Plus he refers to lots of other great content you can use to grow your expertise and success.

If you market or sell anything- this is the book on todays methods.  Its educational, thoughtful and inspirational.  He is a good writer, so  its a fine read.

I rate this a must buy.

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Voice of the Customer Marketing. A revolutionary five-step process to create customers who care, spend and stay. Ernan Roman. 2011. ISBN 9780071740838. This is a good complement to companies who wish to use buyers’ language and buyer behaviors to drive their own growth in content marketing.  Roman is very experienced in Voice Of the Customer (VOC) work and this book is immediately useful to you.  He is a pragmatist with lots of street cred in this area. Each chapter has clear and useful case studies. Some points:

• At the end of the day companies do not change because of data,. They change because of VOC.
• 68 % of customer defection takes place because customers feel poorly treated.
• 95 % of complaining customers will do business with you again if you resolve the complaint instantly.
• Are you guilty of customer manipulation? (You can’t get this data until you fill in this form and allow us to drown you in untargeted emails.)
• Companies that outsourced their call centers often fail faster .

Very good addition to your marketing library. It will prevent you from making some serious blunders.

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Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead. What every business can learn from the most iconic band in history. David Meerman  Scott & Brian Halligan. 2010. ISBN 9780470900529.   This is  more than a story about the Grateful Dead from two Deadheads.  It really does draw lessons from the Dead that are very applicable to today.  David Meerman Scott really knows todays marketing “stuff” and Brain Halligan is a founder of Hubspot.  Short but not a book to dismiss this is a very good read at the same time.

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