Groundswell: Social Networks for Business, but With a Broad Value to Business Leaders

Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies is an unusual thing: a great business book.

First, it contains valuable insights that are not obvious.

Second, it has information for all parts of the business world: sales and marketing, production, finance, R&D.

Third, it give realistic advice rather than encouraging everyone to do more and more in the authors' pet areas.

The book is about social media, which is obviously of interest to modern marketers.  The authors also explain how the new tools can be used for internal collaboration and productivity improvement.  They see these new tools as just that: tools.  They don't tell every executive to Twitter and blog, but they do explain the strengths and appropriate uses of all the new techniques.

One of my popular speeches is about "The 20-Teens," what business leaders should be doing today to get ready for the next decade.  I've been talking about using LinkedIn and Wikis.  Now I'll add Groundswell as a highly recommended resource for more information.