Chris Brogan | Social Media University, Global (SMUG)

Despite the decidedly social media nature of SMUG (“social media” is part of our name, after all), I’m still a big believer in books. They enable authors to make an extended argument and deal with a topic in more depth than the blog format allows.

I’ve written several book reviews here on SMUG, but it’s time for me to catch up, based on several more I’ve read or listened to via Audible.com. And I thought it would be helpful to develop a more comprehensive list of books that receive the SMUG Seal of Approval. As soon as I’ve finished adding related reviews and links to this post, I will be using it as the basis for a remodeled SMUG Bookstore.

Of course, everything about SMUG is voluntary, and tuition is free, so I can’t really say these are “required reading” for SMUGgles. As I get the reviews done, I will add links to the list of SMUG textbooks below. And if you have recommendations of books I’ve missed that you think would be helpful, please add them in the comments.

Personal Productivity

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen. GTD-related posts were among the earliest subjects of this blog in the pre-SMUG days, but the life lessons are clearly applicable for SMUGgles. Buy the book here.
The 4-Hour Workweek, by Timothy Ferris

Social Media Theory and Philosophy

Groundswell, by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, by Clay Shirky
Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust, by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith
What Would Google Do?, by Jeff Jarvis
Wikinomics, by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams
Made to Stick, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Twitterville, by Shel Israel
The Corporate Blogging Book, by Debbie Weil

Business and Innovation

The Innovator’s Dilemma, by Clayton Christensen
The Innovator’s Solution, by Clayton Christensen
Our Iceberg is Melting, by John Kotter
Death by Meeting, by Patrick Lencioni
Blue Ocean Strategy, by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne
Free: The Future of a Radical Price, by Chris Anderson. You can download this for free if you have an Audible.com account.
Seeing What’s Next, by Clayton Christensen
Rules to Break and Laws to Follow, by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers
The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki
Selling the Dream, by Guy Kawasaki

The Gladwell Grouping

Malcolm Gladwell’s books defy easy categorization, but he has a wonderful writing style and has a thought-provoking approach to all sorts of topics. If he wrote it, you should read it.

Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell
Blink! The Power of Thinking without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell
The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell
What the Dog Saw, by Malcolm Gladwell

The Seth Section

Like Gladwell, Seth Godin deserves a section of his own. These are all somewhat related to marketing, particularly as it is understood as designing delivery of your products or services in a way that enhances customer satisfaction and word-of-mouth.

Tribes, by Seth Godin
Purple Cow, by Seth Godin
Free Prize Inside, by Seth Godin
Meatball Sundae, by Seth Godin
The Dip, by Seth Godin
Small is the New Big, by Seth Godin

Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust, by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith.

I got to have dinner with Chris Brogan at a conference in May in San Francisco, and from our conversation (and his blog) I was pretty sure this book would be good, but this is one of those books that had me nodding in agreement almost from the start.

I particularly liked the chapter called “Make Your Own Game,” which is about seeing your life and career as a game, and progressing from playing to “hacking” to programming, and is similar to what I call “The MacGyver Mindset.” It’s about understanding the rules of social media so you can help develop the rules for your own game, tinkering with tools and seeing how they can let you do your work in a new way, and maybe even create a whole new business.

Here’s how Brogan and Smith define what a trust agent is:

Trust agents have established themselves as being non-sales-oriented, non-high-pressure marketers. Instead, they are digital natives using the Web to be genuine and to humanize their business. They’re interested in people (prospective customers, employees, colleagues, and more), and they have realized that these tools that enable more unique, robust communication also allow more business opportunities for everyone.

Who, exactly, are trust agents? They are the power users of the new tools of the Web, educated more by way of their own experiences and experiments than from the core of their professional experiences. They speak online technology fluently. They learn by trying, so they are bold in their efforts to try new applications and devices…. Trust agents use today’s Web tools to spread their influence faster, wider and deeper than a typical company’s PR or marketing department might be capable of achieving, and with more genuine interest in people, too.

I added some emphasis on elements in the above that embody the SMUG philosophy, but would just take issue with the “digital native” descriptor. I don’t think you need to have grown up with digital tools to become a trust agent. It’s perfectly fine to be a naturalized digital citizen. But that’s a minor quibble with an otherwise excellent book that has the SMUG textbook seal of approval.