Book reviews: Kawasaki and Klososky

I’ve been fortunate to receive a few books to review, and I’d like to share some quick thoughts about two of them.  My gratitude goes to the authors and publishers who so kindly shared the books and asked nothing in return (only to be rewarded with a slow-as-molasses review). Being an avid reader, I was excited for the opportunity to learn from the authors. Being an avid reader, I have a truck-sized load of books on hand every day. Or so the nice librarian reminds me during her frequent voice mails.

Today we’re going to look at one by Guy Kawasaki and another by Scott Klososky.

Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions

Gotta say, I’m a Kawasaki fan. I’ve read Reality Check and The Art of the Start, and enjoyed them immensely. I had high hopes for Enchantment and it didn’t let me down. The author systematically built a well-supported thesis for the power of magical moments between brand experiences and those who are enveloped within them. That kind of power evokes disruptive change from status quo transactions.

Put another way, Kawasaki examines the soft, irrational, and emotional reasons why we align ourselves with a product, a cause, or a movement. Moreover, the art of enchantment isn’t so much a marketing strategy as it is a commitment to learn what your audiences are thinking, feeling, and believing. While knowing these things will undoubtedly help  marketers craft winning messages that helps stuff sell, the kind of insight gained through the commitment will lead to better-performing, more relevant, and useful products. Enchanting brands surprise and delight.

In a lot of ways, Kawasaki tells us how to get back to the business of connecting and serving people, without all the high-falutin salesmanship stuff clogging the path to relationships.

I liked this book for its content, its readability, and the injection of real-world examples from big-name brands and little-known organizations. It’s written with humor and clear language. And the quotes? Great punctuation throughout the story.

Enterprise Social Technology

I struggled quite a bit with this book, I’m sorry to say. On the tactical side, it just wasn’t very readable to me. It’s lengthy and dense with long “preachy” paragraphs, two traits that seem incongruous with the image I hold of social media and multi-channel connectivity. There were no visuals to support key ideas or concepts.

The book was crowdsourced, and harnessed thoughts from many different sources to construct individual chapters. I read a reference that many hours were spent editing to ensure consistent tone, voice, and style throughout the book. Unfortunately, I think the heavy editing squashed the unique quality an array of author voices would have brought to the table.

Maybe its a by-product of multiple authors (in that case, perhaps something the editing should have weeded out?), but I also felt message threads were repeated, annoyingly so. Is the book for a newbie or experienced professional? The repetition says “newbie” but I sense the book aspires to be much more lofty than that. In my opinion, other social business books have done a much better job at covering the shifts in culture required when a company commits to forging and maintaining direct relationships with customers.

Lastly, I was troubled by the repeated use of the term “social technology” and “social tech.” It felt contrived and intentional. I just don’t think we need another term to muddy the waters.

But maybe I’m not the right target for this book, or perhaps put off early by a few things that prevented me from receiving the intended messages. If anyone else read and liked this book, I’d love to hear your thoughts to learn what I missed.

Side note to PR reps, publicity folks, and publishing people

Just a thought, but when you send out a book (they’re not cheap!) to a blogger, include some sort of documentation along with it. A simple letter explaining why the author felt it important to write about his or her topic, a bit of background on the research and writing process, etc. Links to multimedia resources – images, infographics, videos, etc. – that help illustrate key points can help the interested blogger learn more about the topic and the author’s passion for writing about it.  When you send a book in a box with nothing else, and no follow up email, I can’t help but feel like the author’s been let down by his/her representation. Why bother if you’re just going to drop the book in my hands and then leave me to my own devices? This is even more remarkable when the book in question is about social media.

 

Editors note: I was sent these two books by their respective publishing houses free of charge. I did not solicit the books, nor did I commit to providing favorable reviews in exchange for compensation of any sort. I simply got a book, and in exchange made no promise to read, much less write a post about, said book.

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