Book Reviews

If you are running your own company or if you have been charged with running the digital assets of your employer, you have probably, in desperation, sought knowledge in “social media books.” Inevitably, you ran into the story of “United Breaks Guitars” and Comcast. The problem, though, is that your company probably is not as big as United or Comcast. You probably do not attract the same levels of viral negativity if something goes wrong, and you probably do not attract the same levels of viral praise (hey, Ellen DeGeneres, did you hear that…) if something goes right. These social media books may have offered some interesting tidbits, but you may have felt they didn’t really apply to you. How can you have silos between sales and marketing if YOU are sales and marketing in one single package?

Seek no further. I have the Holy Grail of marketing and business development for you. It’s The Ultimate Field Guide to Digital Program Management (not an affiliate link), authored by Daniel Newman and Olivier Blanchard.

This is not a “sit on your butt and read” book

Much like John Jantsch’s Referral Engine (not an affiliate link), this book is not a book you want to sit down and read in front of the fire on a cold winter’s day. In fact, reading this book should not be a solitary affair. Here is my recommendation.

Form a book club at work, even if it’s just you and your one partner. Read a few pages the night before, make notes, and get together the next day to discuss and work towards some actionable goals. That’s the kind of book this is. You will want to start thinking about what the authors talk about as it relates specifically to your company right from the star. For example, what are your business objectives? The authors ask you to consider this question, and if you realize with a start that you don’t have a good answer, you will want to stop reading and start brainstorming right away.

The book takes you from the stages of defining your business objectives to building tactics to help reach those objectives. Per the name, many of the proposed tactics reside in the digital world – Facebook, Twitter, video development, etc. However, and this is where the major difference is between this book and “social media books,” this is not just a “how to get Chris Brogan to follow you” study (nothing against Chris Brogan, of course). This is a “How to use as many different tactics and channels as possible to acquire customers, retain customers, and grow your business.

B2B Marketers, Take Heart

Another thing you may have noticed in pursuing “social media books” is that most of them are geared towards the consumer world. The ones that claim to incorporate B2B examples may have used companies like IBM or Citrix. These aren’t exactly “mom and pop” shops, and if you are, say, a medical device manufacturer, these examples are not going to guide you much. The Field Guide, however, covers the spectrum from oncology departments to Starbucks (really!). The information and guidance presented is fairly universal, but I applaud the authors in giving a nod to the types of companies that many other social media experts have sort of overlooked in the past.

Just one criticism

I unequivocally suggest you invest in this book. My only criticism is one which unfortunately must be commonly voiced in the industry. There are more proofreading errors than I usually like to see in a published book. I am a stickler for proofreading and content perfection in professionally published works. These errors do not get in the way of the content, but they are noticeable.

Full disclosure: The authors sent me this book to review. However, that did not sway me from offering an honest review. In my opinion, this book is a must for anyone striving to develop business and a strong customer base today.

What do you think of when you hear the name Swat Valley? If you are like me, you might conjure images of violence and drone attacks or, perhaps, the search for Osama Bin Laden.

What do you think of when you hear the name Pakistan? Perhaps it’s a similar litany of images. It’s the country where Bin Laden was found. It’s a shadowy place that we don’t really understand, it seems.

When I decided to read Malala Yousafzai, I figured I would read about her struggle for education, her battle back from being shot in the head, and her calling out of the Taliban. Indeed, those facets are in there. What I did not expect, however, was to realize how completely ignorant I am about all things Pakistani.

Malala describes the Swat as if it was a Garden of Eden. Not perfect, of course. She talks about the constant blood battles between families, the consistent frailty of the leadership, and children so poor they were going through garbage trying to find things to sell. The overriding image, however, is beauty. The snowy mountains, the amazing diversity of fruit trees, the flat roofs on which children could play, and the socializing her mother did with the other women of their village.

Some Hard Truths

As an American, reading I am Malala is morally challenging. For me, I realized how much I had been influenced by the media in terms of understanding Pakistan. On a broader scale, however, you learn about how the CIA distributed text books that framed everything in war terms. “If you kill x number of the enemy, how many are left out of the total?” The attack on Bin Laden is also covered harshly by Malala. She points out that the Pakistani government and the Pakistani people were not informed about the action. This made Pakistan feel that the US did not trust them, which in turn built more mistrust.

The Personal Struggle

More than anything, I recommend reading this book because Malala so beautifully brings home to the reader the struggle she, her family, and almost everyone she knew faced for years as the Taliban slowly started to infiltrate every part of their society. She describes her father’s tears after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the family’s increasing fear as people close to them were killed by the Taliban, and ultimately, of course, her own shooting.

For us, in the world outside of Malala’s existence, she was shot, we heard about her, and then she became famous. But in time between her shooting and her speaking at the UN she went through excruciating pain, both physical and emotional. Her family was not able to join her at the hospital in Birmingham for about two weeks due to bureaucratic confusion. She had nightmares that her father had been shot and that was why he wasn’t there. She had nightmares that her family wouldn’t be able to pay the medical bills so they were staying away for shame. She talks about seeing herself in the mirror for the first time, the left side of her face sagging and most of her hair gone. Her description of finally reuniting with her family moved me to tears.

A Bright Beacon

It is hard, very hard, to believe that this young woman just turned 18. She has already been an activist for over five years, at least. Today’s world gives us much to ponder that is ghastly, negative, barren of hope, and shameful. Against that background, Malala is a modern day hero – the kind we long for and dream about. Read her story. Do not be afraid to learn. Do not be afraid to feel. I couldn’t possibly recommend this book more.

 

To be honest, when I heard that a new Harper Lee novel was coming out, I was not euphoric. I of course read To Kill A Mockingbird as a child and loved it, and who could not love the movie? But to me, at least. To Kill A Mockingbird is now such an icon that the idea of Harper Lee writing <another> novel just seemed weird. I figured I would read it eventually, but I was not frothing at the mouth.

Then all of the spoilers and reviews started coming out, and overwhelmingly the news seemed bad. The resounding cry seemed to be, “How could she do that to Atticus?” I tried to avoid the spoilers and read these things through the spaces in my fingers that were covering my eyes. I decided I had better speed things up and read the book myself so I could formulate my own opinion and then see what all of the hubub was about.

Generally, there seem to be two sticky wickets about the book, as it turns out. The first is the provenance of the book. Did Lee really write this before To Kill A Mockingbird? As a New Yorker article pointed out, that doesn’t make much sense unless she had a really really good idea of how she was going to present Atticus. I read the book assuming that it was meant to be a sequel, and approaching it that way, it worked very well. But I suppose if you re in the publishing business, you want to know how an author and publisher created such a splash when the basic facts, like when the book was written, are quite hazy.

The other issue is, of course, the presentation of Atticus, perhaps one of the most beloved male characters of the 20th century. When you watch Gregory Peck play Atticus, you have that sensation that you wish this guy could be your dad and the dad to all of your friends. He is a hero, warm and strong, smart and funny, imposing and gentle. For American readers, one might argue that the character of Atticus Finch is a bit on the sacred side.

I don’t want to spoil the book for you but let’s just say that Lee brings Atticus down to earth in Go Set A Watchman as he is seen through the eyes of Scout. It’s uncomfortable because unless you are extremely fortunate, all of us have watched our idols get torn down at one point or another. We all have that person who seems flawless in our eyes, and realizing that they are just another human, just like us, is like realizing that you just built a mansion right over a sinkhole. Everything you have relied on must now be questioned, and indeed, that is what Scout experiences.

I think Lee’s handling of this transition is a bit rough. Lee uses the character of Uncle Jack to explain the psychological ramifications of what Scout has gone through, and to me it seemed a bit clumsy. However, the power of the tale remained strong.

Reading Go Set A Watchman this summer against the backdrop of all of the racial tensions that has reared its ugly head was an interesting experience. Nowhere in the book does Lee mention the Confederate flag, and yet the bigotry that we have been dealing with in the US appears against the quaint background of a fairly isolated and charming Southern town. People who you thought were just normal (whatever that means) good people turn out to have views about race that are ignorant, antiquated, racist, bigoted, and otherwise ugly. But you know what? That is how life is.

I have heard a lot of stories lately about people saying things to African American friends of mine that you would not believe, including virtually hedging on using the phrase “You people.” These people seem decent, otherwise, but these little nibbles at their laminated exterior reveal an underbelly of race hatred that most people haven’t begun to accept within themselves yet.

As for the reading experience itself, it is hard to separate the writing from Lee’s gestalt. You give her a lot of leeway because you know she is an amazing writer. After all, she wrote To Kill A Mockingbird. However, if try to separate the book from the legend, as it were, I find that it was not a book that would really stick with me. The character maneuverings are interesting because we all know Scout and Atticus (which is another point the New Yorker review made). But in and of itself, I thought it was rather clunky. The flashbacks seemed like a “hammer into the head” way of contrasting the new present with the nostalgically held past. I wanted to say, “I get it. She’s nostalgic but is facing a new and darker reality now.”

I also found the ending rather abrupt and unsatisfactory. I won’t spoil it for you, but if you’ve read it, or once you’ve read it, let me know what you think.

Overall, I guess I would recommend reading this book if you are into literature and are curious what all of the noise is about like I was. But as a book itself, I did not find it as wonderful as I had hoped.

Let’s hear from you now.

 

 

 

 

It occurs to me that while I have been tweeting and Facebooking about this book for about a month now, the only place I’ve ever really explained why I liked it so much is on Amazon, as a review. This is a bit of a chicken and the egg conundrum. If you aren’t drawn to Amazon in the first place you won’t see my review and the several other extremely positive reviews that are there. So, I thought I would go into a bit more detail here about why I have been recommending this book all over the place.

 

Immediate Transportation

I don’t know about you, but some of my favorite books are the ones where as soon as I started reading, I felt like I was immersed in the world I had just entered. For example, the opening pages of Lord of the Rings pull you in immediately with the description of hobbits. What are these hobbits now? What do they have to do with this ring thing? Before you know it you’ve read 500 pages and can’t stop. The Peacemakers had this impact on me. The description of the setting is one thing, but then you also meet this fellow named Harbert, who kind of seems like a weenie to begin with. He’s nervous, he’s seasick, he’s sort of intimidated by everything, it seems like. Is this guy going to be a main character? Who are these other characters he’s interfacing with? Pretty soon you are Harbert’s travel companion, not an onlooker.

Characters you want to reach out and touch

Part of this feeling of transportation is that all of the characters in The Peacemakers are three-dimensional. You very much feel, very quickly, that you are reading about real people who are just over the horizon. If you could travel right now, you could shake their hands (or give them hugs, which you find yourself wanting to do quite often). Although the characters are deep, they are not fantastical. In fact, the great strength of the characters in Olivier’s writing is that they seem entirely real, so everything they go through (which is quite a lot, let me say) seems more like it could happen to you. You find yourself thinking, “Man, if that happened to me I’d probably…” and then you find the characters doing just that, or perhaps the entire opposite. You will find that even the most seemingly minor characters are taken care of with love in this book. In fact, one of my favorite characters only appears for a few pages (unfortunately). He makes such an impression, however, that I wish there was a whole book just about him, and in fact, I could picture just such a book being written about this one fellow.

No one genre

Some authors are very insistent on sticky to one specific genre or style. Although the writing style remains consistent and even (and rich like fudge), fans of many different kinds of genres will find joy with this book. It’s versatile and flexible in that way. I am a 100% diagnosed history buff, so I had a field day with the book. Fans of the Steampunk genre will love this book. Fans of romance and adventure have things to look forward to. Fans of sci-fi have something here to enjoy. Although overall the most probable best classification for The Peacemakers is Steampunk, I would definitely hesitate to limit it just that one genre.

That writing

Speaking of the writing that is rich like fudge, the writing is rich like fudge. If you are a fan of Fitzgerald, for example, you will really appreciate the gift for language that is displayed here. That’s not to say that the book gets entangled in trying to find just the right word – sometimes you can feel the tension as the author strives to place everything just so. In this book the language seems natural, just not the way we usually speak in our every-day lives.

You won’t want to put it down

Finally, if you are a fan of books that you actually can’t put down except maybe when you need to eat or sleep, this is the perfect book for you. If you have a long plane ride scheduled this book will help the time fly by (pardon the pun). Part of the problem is that Olivier, much like John Irving, knows how to sneak in those foreshadowing clues for added suspense. But even without those, you become so enmeshed in what has already happened to the characters and what might happen next that you just can’t help yourself. This makes waiting for part two of the trilogy acutely painful, by the way.

Right now, you can get instant gratification. You can go to Amazon (not an affiliate link) and download this masterpiece to your Kindle right now. As I write this it’s a Saturday, a rather good day to start an awesome reading experience.

In case you hadn’t noticed – I highly recommend you proceed doing just that 🙂