I had just read it and recommended it to my friend Gillian, because I knew that she was determined to climb the new media mountain and was pursuing every avenue she could find to educate herself and devise a strategy that would keep her ahead of the game.
I was inspired by the possibilities. I could see lots of ideas for my clients (I am a fundraising consultant) and I was filled with enthusiasm about what was in it for others.
The idea for a Women's Business Book Club came up at Gillian's Christmas party. She always has fabulous parties, full of interesting people who do fascinating things, and wonderful conversations.
We talked about starting a book club, then somehow the conversation came round to business books. The response and interest in a business book club was overwhelming, so we began with just a handful of people.
One member works in advertising. Another creates high quality and custom stationery products. Another is in publishing and another has a wonderful shop full of beautiful things. The final member is a consultant mediator.
I was hungry to work out how to apply the ideas I found in Groundswell. It was full of things about how to use social media, what social media was and lots of juicy case studies about how other people were using it.
A friend of mine heads up a major health charity. I was dying to send him the book so he could read about the online communities set up by similar charities in the US.
Some of us were familiar with most of the practical information about what social media was and how to use it. But some had never come across it, and the possibilities it presented for their work and their businesses was mind blowing.
The retail shop full of gorgeous things need no longer just have a Sydney audience. It could be marketing around the world, taking advantage of the "long tail".
The specialist stationery business could be building communities of people using the products, discussing how they use them and recounting stories relating to them.
The mediator was struggling, trying to come to grips with the idea of setting up an initial website.
The publisher, whose business is profoundly affected by the move from offline to online, was deeply attentive, grappling with how to apply these issues to her business.
The member whose home we were meeting in blew in late, having come from a wonderful Greek wedding (unfortunately no plate smashing) to join us and dive into the discussion.
Our conclusion was that the book was interesting, fascinating even, and marked the beginning of something big for us. Next book: Crowdsourcing, by Jeff Howe.
No comments:
Post a Comment