books: one for the reading list

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

My old boss at Weber Shandwick, now CEO at Edelman – David Brain has a new book coming out. Here’s the official blurb…looks like it will be a good read. Buy it here:

“Welcome to the world of the crowd surfer: a world in which a new generation of business and political leaders have learned how to harness the energy, ideas and enthusiasm of today’s empowered consumers. Crowd surfers have been smart enough to recognise that people all over the world – emboldened by a new spirit of enquiry and self expression, and powered by the internet – have changed the rules of the game. They realise that surrendering complete control, by giving their customer, partners and employees a greater say in the way that their organisation’s operate, is actually the most effective way to manage their destiny.

In Crowd Surfing, Martin Thomas and David Brain explore the lessons we can all learn from the corporate and political surfers, including Barack Obama’s campaign for the Democratic Party nomination in the US presidential election, why Dell went to hell and back before learning how to embrace the crowd, and why a Blue Monster has come to symbolise Microsoft’s new spirit of openness. They also analyse the leadership skills required in this new era of participation and dialogue and ask what these changes mean for marketers and managers everywhere.”

communicators….who inspires me?

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

Thank you kindly to Stephen for tagging me in the personal communicators meme started here by Andrew Wake.

“The idea’s simple. We’re asking you to list the three communicators living or dead who have most influenced your way of thinking professionally and perhaps personally too. Who do you think the real innovators are? Who’s been most responsible for kicking the industry forward? And just who are the communication PRunks?”

Here goes my top three…

Anita Roddick for managing to adhere to and communicate such strong brand vales whilst achieving commercial success for such a long time. Roddick was a trailblazer for ethical supply chains way before CSR was even on the fashion radar. A leader, a mother and an inspirational businesswoman.

My absolute favourite teacher of all time Mr Mumford. A slightly batty but immensely passionate history teacher, who regularly popped out of lessons for a crafty fag. Mr Mumford persuaded me to study the subject for far longer than I planned due to his infectious passion and amazing narrative around the topic. The single most important thing I remember he taught me was about how to identify bias and value your information source. He tried for years to persuade me to become an archivist but I opted for PR instead…not sure quite what he’d make of that really!

My Dad. Dad was a teacher (and now tutors privately) so my upbringing was highly educational (*example* the one and only game I was bought for my first ever computer, aged about 10, was a grammar game where you had to shoot words with different weapons based on whether they were nouns, adjectives or verbs…no wonder I spent the rest of the time programming code out of massive thick books and screaming in distress at the masses of syntax error line 54 messages I used to get….and all that to get HELLO scrolling across the page…hardly worth it really!) Anyway, I digress, Dad taught me the most important skill of all…how to conduct a well researched argument backed up with facts and how to use what you know to help you with what you don’t. Basically, how to win a (verbal) fight and how to blag your way out of anything…..two skills which have got me out of many a situation so thanks Dad.

So Steve Earl, Drew Benvie, Colin Byrne and David Brain – here are your tags….what you think?