Great new goodies for Empowered readers

by Josh Bernoff

Maybe you've noticed that our Web site has become Empowered. This is in preparation for our book launch on September 14, and it means a lot more than little lightning bolts in the graphic design. We have a few new tools for you to play with now. You can think of this as a tour of the new site (go ahead, poke around) or a bunch of new goodies intended to help out companies and highly empowered and resourceful operatives -- HEROes -- within them.

Some highlights:

• A new tool to help you evaluate your projects. We've taken the effort-value evaluation (EVE) from the book and turned it into a widget. If you're about to start a technology-involved project -- a new community, a Facebook page, a mobile application, or the like -- answer a few questions and we'll tell you just what level of challenge you're in for. The tool emails you the results, so you can forward them to people you're trying to collaborate with or get approval from.

• Chapter 1 of Empowered for your review. Register with us to get access to Chapter 1 -- including cool stories from Maytag and Best Buy and the main thesis of the book. If you're already registered with Forrester, or if you're a client, you can just log in and download it.

• Case studies. It's the stories of HEROes that (I think) make Empowered compelling. That's a big part of what people told me they loved about Groundswell, and we've gone deeper here into what it actually takes to be a HERO in a big company. We've listed them to give you a peek into the folks, stories, and companies featured in Empowered.

• Follow our travels. Where Ted and I are speaking and you can meet us.

We'd love your feedback, especially on the EVE Widget.

Should you buy into "Open Leadership"?

by Josh Bernoff

Charlene Li, my coauthor on Groundswell, former Forrester analyst, and founder of Altimeter Group, has written a new book, Open Leadership. You should read it.

As much as I hate to start any post or book review with a disclaimer, the backstory on what you are about to read in this post is so complicated that I must. So: no one reading this should be under any illusions as to this being an "unbiased" review. From our very close work together, I know Charlene's mind and ways of thinking extremely well. Now, of course, we compete for the attention of clients thinking about social strategy, which complicates our relationship. Plus, I am the coauthor of Empowered, coming out in September, a book that bears on many of the same topics as Open Leadership.

Anyone reading this should know, first, what you are reading is my personal opinion, not the position of Forrester Research. And second, if you need data, research, or consulting on strategy or tactics for social applications of any kind, I fervently believe you should come to us.

So, what is there to recommend Open Leadership? Charlene starts out with this thesis: 

Open leadership is having the confidence and humility to give up the need to be in control while inspiring commitment from people to accomplish goals.

This is not just a paean to openness. First of all, Charlene makes the case that social technology gives customers and employees access to all sorts of power and information now, and more openness is the only response. And second, the book includes tools to help you, for example, assess your own level of openness and what your organization can tolerate.

I found some parts of the book a lot more useful or interesting than others. Here are three good parts.

1. Sandbox covenants. These are the rules organizations set up to determine what sorts of limits and conventions there are on openness. The book includes a link to social media policies of a bunch of corporations, not yet live, but I am looking forward to seeing that. This discussion, in Chapter 5, goes a long way to helping bridge the gap between social media backers within companies and corporate policymakers.
2. Organizational models for openness. Charlene describes three types of organization: organic, centralized, and coordinated, and shows when each one makes sense. Given all the questions I get these days about organization for social, this is quite relevant.
3. Leadership mindsets and traits. Chapter 7 classifies leaders according to whether they are optimistic or pessimistic, and whether they are independent or collaborative. Anyone who has ever had a boss will find this instructive. This is a fascinating way to look at leadership.

I did not love everything about this book. The biggest question in my mind is, who is the audience? CEOs can benefit, and there are leaders throughout organizations, but the challenge is for the millions of workers in the trenches in management, customer service, and elsewhere in companies. Transforming an organization to become more open is a huge task, and there is a lot here about what companies should do, but not enough about how to get there and how ordinary employees can participate.

I also experienced some confusion around the central idea of the book. If you are a social technology strategist or participant, this will read a lot like a book on social technology -- a sequel to Groundswell. At a recent event, I asked Charlene about how social relates to open, and she clarified that social creates the need to be open. But the book slips back and forth between the two concepts of social and openness without enough explicit attention to this difference. 

If you are a social media wiz (that is, if you've already read Groundswell), you'll find the four objectives described here awfully similar to the the five objectives in Groundswell, and the concept of "socialgraphics" highly parallel to our Social Technographics. There are new cases studies in the sections on social technology, but some will seem very familiar to people who've been paying attention to the social world in the last two years.

In person and in this book, Charlene is one of the most upbeat and optimistic people I know. This is quite a contrast to the dark and sardonic side that I personally have, and the dynamic between those two poles made Groundswell better. Open Leadership is a relentlessly optimistic book for the most part. Even so, my favorite part was the chapter on failure, and how to embrace it and learn from it. Stories about failure inspire me. These were the best case studies in the book.

As for how Open Leadership relates to Empowered: Open Leadership is more about the high-level philosophy of leadership in a social world. Empowered, first of all, will address more than just social technology, looking also at video, cloud, and mobile technology. And Empowered is designed to deliver practical strategy advice to people at all levels and departments of an organization, including marketing, customer service, IT, and senior leadership.

I wish you could buy both books right now. But get your copy of Open Leadership later this month, and hang on for our book a few months later. If social technology has got you thinking harder about how your organization runs, the ideas about to be on offer from its creators will, I hope, advance your thinking.

You need to read Seth Godin's Linchpin. Or be a cog in the machine. Your choice.

by Josh Bernoff

Seth Godin's Linchpin is a remarkable book. You should buy a copy. (It's available on January 26.) Unless, of course, you're enjoying that rut you're in.

First of all, let's acknowledge that Seth is a polarizing figure. He is the god of small business, and his books like Permission Marketing have transformed the way people think about marketing. But his books are written to persuade and inspire, and rarely have the kind of the gritty proof and statistics that hard-edged businesspeople demand. This leads many leading business thinkers to write him off.

The kind of impassioned plea that Seth writes doesn't work if you don't buy the original premise. As a result some recent efforts, like Meatball Sundae and Tribes, haven't really hit the mark. But Linchpin does, in my opinion. I think Seth has discovered a fundamental truth about work.

Seth's premise is that today's organizational structure is a throwback to the days of factories, with interchangeable parts and interchangeable workers. Basically, this means that if you do your job as you're told, then you're easy to replace. Seth wants you to "become indispensable" instead. There are several elements to this. First, you need to make a choice -- wake up and stop being a sheep. Second, you need to do your work as a gift -- as art -- because it makes you happier, not just to please your boss. Third, you need to triumph over your lizard brain -- the part that wants you to conform and avoid dangerous actions that might make you stand out. Fourth, what you start or imagine doesn't matter -- a real linchpin ships products, completes the task.

Notice how banal this sounds as I write it out. But this is a radical message, and Seth is the most talented business writer there is. Here are some excerpts from the two dozen pages I dogeared (these paragraphs are from all over the book):

The Boss's Lie:"What I want is someone who will do what I tell them to." "What I want is someone who works cheap." "What I want is someone who shows up on time and doesn't give me a hard time." So if this is what the boss really wants, how come the stars in the company don't follow these three rules?

[On work as art] "Art [in this context] is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another. . . . I think it's art when a great customer service person uses a conversation to convert an angry person into a raving fan. And it's art when Craig Newmark invents a new business model that uses the Internet to revolutionize classifieds."

Nobody Cares How Hard You Worked. It's not an effort contest, it's an art contest. As customers, we care about ourselves, about how we feel, about whether a product or service or play or interaction changed us for the better.

The future of your organization depends on motivated human beings selflessly contributing unasked-for gifts of emotional labor. And worse yet, the harder you work to quantify and manipulate this process, the more poorly it will work.

[On the beginnings and ends of projects.] Get scared early, not late. Be brave early, not late. Thrash now, not later. It's too expensive to thrash later.

The resistance [also known as complacency] would like you to curl up in a corner, avoid all threats, take no risks, and hide. It feels safe, after all. The paradox is that the more you hide, the riskier it is.

In my mind, one of the most valuable things in this book is a chart on page 181. There are two axes. The x-axis goes from passive to passionate. The y-axis goes from attachment (that is, inflexible dedication to your own world view) to discernment (knowing what to live with and what to seek change in). I would call that y-axis "wisdom". Seth wants you to aim for the upper right, high passion plus high wisdom, the realm of the linchpin.

From my years of experience working with people, passion is a trait most visible in the young. Wisdom is a trait that is more visible in people who are more experienced. This is why there are so few wise and passionate linchpins. Seth would never be so crass as to typecast people by age, but I know there are plenty of experienced and wise but passive people (he calls them bureaucrats, you know the type) and plenty of young, passionate, and inflexible people (he calls them fundamentalist zealots.) This is why the wise, passionate person stands out.

The real reason I like this book is that after nearly 30 years of work I have arrived in a place Seth would describe as a linchpin and I am loving it. I have always been as passionate and creative as I can, just to amuse myself, why work if it's boring. This is a childish quality but I retain it at age 51. On the other hand, I have learned some discernment that I sure didn't have in 1982. Every quarter, my boss (and I have had many) sets goals with me related to what the company needs. At the end of the quarter, often, what I accomplish is very different from what we thought would be useful. But typically, that boss looks at what I did and says "that was what we needed" and rewards me anyway. I cannot be a cog, and fortunately, they have recognized that a cog is not what they need. In the long term, all of my success so far has come from this sort of thinking.

I thought of some of my younger colleagues as I read this book, working so hard to live up to what their bosses have told them they should be doing. Some of them do exactly as they are told. That's pretty dull. Some of them try to work longer hours to accomplish all the grunt work they have on their plates. They're frustrated. Some of them identify ways to contribute that nobody ever thought of, generate new ideas, and stand out for their creativity. The best do that even as they get the regular work done. I am drawn to them. They learn fast, and often, go far. Because being a linchpin is a blast.

What Will Be In GROUNDSWELL HEROES

by Josh Bernoff

For several months now we've been researching "Harnessing the GroundswellGroundswell HEROes", the followup book to Groundswell. The focus is on both empowered customers (think "United Breaks Guitars") and empowered employees. In both cases, the empowerment comes from the pervasive social, mobile, video-enabled, cloud-propelled technology available to them.

A funny thing happened during the research, though. We found that all the employee examples were in marketing, sales, and customer support. Why? Because those customer-facing departments have both the budgets and the desire to connect with customers using the new technologies. And they are moving forward, in most cases without much involvement from their own IT departments.

In fact, it's the urgency created by empowered customers that's driving the employees to build their own solutions. So we came to this principle:

If you want to succeed with empowered customers, you must empower your employees to solve their problems.

Whether it's Zappos, Best Buy, or Intuit, staff are building solutions to help their customers, and not just in customer service. THAT is what the new book is about. (It's a relief to have figured this out, believe me.)

Based on this, here's a revised table of contents. Look for the book next year from Harvard Business Press.

HARNESSING THE GROUNDSWELL: Empower your employees to solve customer problems

GROUNDSWELL HEROES: Harnessing the Power Shift in your Workplace and Marketplace

by Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler

PART I: THE TREND

Chapter 1. Empowered people and what to do about them. How customers got so much power. Four forces: mobile, video, cloud, social. Empowering staff to solve customer problems.

PART II: YOUR CUSTOMERS

Chapter 2. Customer heroes. A new metric on the value of your customers. Customer word of mouth and media.

Chapter 3. Reimagining customer service. Customer voice. Service is now marketing. Social CRM.

Chapter 4. The mobile imperative. Pervasive information empowers customers. Using mobile information to create loyalty.

Chapter 5. Mobilizing fans. Amplifying promoters and blunting detractors. Efficient ways to enable fan voices.

PART III: YOUR PEOPLE

Chapter 6. Employee heroes. What empowered staff can do. Technology projects -- matching effort to results.

Chapter 7. Is your organization ready? Measuring employee empowerment. Do your staff feel they have permission? Are they ready to solve customer problems?

Chapter 8. Helping people work together. Collaboration and innovation tools. Social technology for the enterprise.

Chapter 9. Leadership for constant innovation. What management can do to encourage innovation and empower employees.

PART IV: YOUR TECHNOLOGY

Chapter 10. How IT can empower your people. How to say yes. Select, scale, and socialize.

Chapter 11. Empowering people safely. When to say no. Empowering people while managing risk.

PART V: YOUR FUTURE

Chapter 12. The future of the groundswell.

***

Now all we have to do is write it. Look for case studies and lots of data in the coming posts.

Note (12/21): We changed the title around the concept of HEROes (highly empowered and resourceful operatives).

Twitterville: A (Twittered) interview with Shel Israel

Shel Israel has written a great book, Twitterville, that really shows how businesses large and small can use Twitter as a communications tool. I loved it because of the richness of the stories. Worth your time.

We conducted an experiment -- we did an interview via Twitter earlier today. As one of our spectators, rrupinski, commented: "Interesting experiment - but like watching conversation by telegraph." I found the content interesting, but the delay between when tweets are entered and when they appear made this challenging. Twitter has the reputation of being real-time, and it is a very immediate medium, but measured in minutes, not in seconds. Anyway, as a Groundswell blog reader you get to see the results neatly packaged up for your reading pleasure, below. (This is basically a transcript, but I've made edits to assemble sentences together, fixed spelling, and removed irrelevant comments. But you can still see the abbreviated Twitter style showing through.) My questions are in bold.

jbernoff: Good morning and good afternoon. Welcome to our Twinterview with @shelisrael, the author of Twitterville. http://bit.ly/2qVoc If you want to follow the conversation, I recommend this search on Twitter: http://bit.ly/3XTob3

jbernoff Let's get started. First Q: There are already lots and lots of books on social media. Why write another?

shelisrael: The stories of the business & people who have thrived in the community. Hopefully it will give readers some ideas. 

jbernoff I found the stories in the book great and insightful. But is Twitter, one tool, worth a whole book? Why?

Great question Josh. Last I checked there were 24 books on Twitter at AMZN. I regret to say that most of them are damned good. What makes mine different from the other 23 is I try to tell you the stories mostly of business folk who have succeeded on twitter. What make my book unique is the story-telling approach

jbernoff: So, sum it up for us. What would you say are the three to five biggest takeaways from the book?

shelisrael: 1. Twitter more closely emulates real life behavior online than anything that preceded it. 2. It's a tool of communications not marketing 3. It works best in many cases w/other SM [social media] tools. 4. It's as diverse in application as the telephone or email. 5. In a few years a biz without twitter will be like a biz without phone.

jbernoff: Interesting what you say about Twitter being a comm tool. Is Twitter really best for marketing, or for customer service?

shelisrael: Comcast shows a killer app for support. CarlsJr feels it is succeeding with marketing to young males with attitude. Narrowing Twitterville to just 1 biz function is like the blind men describing an elephant.

jbernoff: As writers, you and I know that big thoughts need concentration. But Twitter is conversational. What would you say to the argument that online conversation is destroying our ability to concentrate?

shelisrael: I think those studies should be taken with a grain of salt. Through history "experts" have produced studies about cars, cellphones, email, the web. Last week a study said SM is like cigarettes. All have some truth to them; none are THE truth. All innovation carries unfortunate consequences; not enough to stop progress.

jbernoff: My next book is on the power that technology gives individuals, both employees and customers. How do you think Twitter contributes to empowering individuals? What changes will this cause?

shelisrael: Great book idea Josh. I see the power of the individual in SM enhanced by the network. We are all network nodes. It's a human application of Metcalfe's Law. We are all exponentially empowered as individuals.

jbernoff: What happens with Twitter when employers don’t trust their employees?

shelisrael: Compaies that have not learned to hire & maintain employees they CAN trust are likely to lose best to wiser employers in better economic times.

jbernoff: What’s the #socialnetiquette of using Twitter both professionally and personally? It can be confusing.

shelisrael: I think netiquette & ethics remain constant regardless of the venue. Rudeness at a social gathering looks the same in SM.

jbernoff: I agree in general about #socialnetiquette. But professionals are talking about personal stuff. Can get a bit dicey.

jbernoff: Twitter makes you egotistical. Twitter makes you humble. Which is it?

shelisrael: I don't think Twitter makes you anything that you aren't already. You just have more witnesses for better or worse.

jbernoff: My short review: Read Twitterville. This little book will change the way you think about 140 characters, marketing, and yourself.

Seth Godin, Blogger: An Interview

Let’s face it. Seth Godin’s blog is a wondrous thing. It’s consistently No. 1 or No. 2 on the Ad Age Power 150. More importantly, it’s pure insight. At least once a day, every day, there’s a little homily on marketing, or brands, or quality, or on something else that makes you say “hmmm” or “that’s right” or even “that’s wrong” – but something that’s worth your time.

Do you have any idea how hard this is? Nobody else does this.

When I contacted Seth to interview him about his blog, he was bemused. “I don’t know how to bottle what I do,” he wrote. “I just do it.” OK, let’s admit you cannot imitate Seth – you don’t have what he’s got under that bald head of his. But I am hoping you can learn by observing some of what he does. So here goes: an email interview with Seth Godin about blogging:

The clarity of your posts tells me that you have a clear idea of your audience and what they will get out of it. On the other hand, from reading you for years now, it seems you’ll write on just about any topic. When you write a blog post, who do you imagine writing for?

There are things we do with words in mind. For example, it's easy to say, "I wonder what my cousin would like for her birthday, let's see, she's twelve..." and then go find something. There are other things we do without vocalizing. Tying your shoes, say, or picking out a bouquet of flowers. 

I don’t sit down and say, “I wonder what Josh needs?” Instead, I’ve carefully curated a voice in my head that blogs in a way that appears to resonate with people. I’m guessing (though I have no talent) it’s a lot like curating a sound on the saxophone. Training helps, listening to records helps, but mostly you blow a lot until you resonate and then repeat, prune, experiment, prune, repeat, prune until a groove occurs.

One reason I encourage people to blog is that the act of doing it stretches your available vocabulary and hones a new voice. You won’t get it for a while, but you’ll get it. To one person who wrote in and said he didn’t think he had anything interesting to say, I asked him whether he was boring in person too? Boring at breakfast? Boring on a date? That boring?! Probably not.

Every blogger needs grist for the mill. In looking at your posts, they’re sometimes based on current events or other people’s blog posts (like your post on Malcolm Gladwell’s review of Chris Anderson’s book Free) but more often than not, they are just some freestanding insight. Where does this stuff come from? I can’t imagine that you sit down and it just comes pouring out. What do you read/follow/think about that stimulates this stream of insights?

How come some people can visit a place like New York and see a thousand amazing things, take hundreds of great photos (like Thomas Hawk) or even write a novel... and other people visit, eat at Applebee’s and send home a John Lennon postcard?

It's not where you go, it’s what you look for.

An insight a day is an incredible pace to keep up, but you never seem to miss. Do you write ’em in bunches and dole them out daily, or do you always have a pile that you’re working on, or do you really just write one every day?

I write at least one a day. I queue up the extras, and replace ones I don’t love with a new one. This discipline does two things... first, it treats each post as a precious opportunity (which it is) and second, it cajoles me into overcoming whatever little voice in the back of my head says, “nahhhh.”

Your blog doesn’t sell ads, and you’ve resisted becoming TechCrunch or ReadWriteWeb and turning it a sort of blog/destination with multiple writers. But the blog must reward you in some way beyond the pleasure of writing. What does your blog do for you and your business?

I have a problem with the second part of the question. Two problems, actually.

First, why is it that once business gets involved, it’s assumed it’s okay to do things that aren’t fun or rewarding or kind or generous, but only things that make money?

And second, why is it assumed that people can’t do business-like activities without getting paid?

Those guys at AIG getting the big bonuses? I don’t understand the mindset that says the millions they’ve got aren’t enough, that they shouldn’t skip a quarter or two, that the work is so horrible and grinding and deadening that they couldn’t possibly consider doing it just because they’re great at it and love it...

Sorry for the rant, but the only reason I blog is because I love it. I love being able to create something that feels like a gift, giving an idea that spreads, that may improve something for someone. I’m certain (just speaking for myself) that if I figured out a way to profit from it, I’d probably be starting down the road to wondering how to maximize that profit, and if I tried to do that, I’d fail.

For example, I don’t mention Squidoo.com (a company I started) on my blog now and then because it would make me money (the mentions have so little impact as to be less than the cost of hosting), I mention it because I genuinely want to share what I’ve got, or give people a tool they will benefit from.

I think there’s plenty of room for blogs that exist to pay the blogger, or blogs that exist to turn a profit. That’s just not the kind of blog I’m writing, and I’m not the kind of blogger that could do that.

Your blog accepts trackbacks but no comments. You respond to emails but Twitter only links to each post. I sense a carefully considered set of decisions here. Can you help us to understand why it works that way?

What works for me of course won’t work for everyone. But for me, the issues are distraction, time management, the little voice of self-doubt and the desire to push through the Dip of mattering. Comments and Twitter are like a Fresnel lens. You can use them to focus attention if you’re very disciplined and very good, or, if you’re like me, you’ll end up finding your energy and attention diffused into a maelstrom, lost to the winds of inanity, anger or trivia. It’s in my DNA. I can’t do it, just as I can’t read in the car.

For those that are succeeding (and I have to confess, the number I see isn’t as big as you’d think given all the hoopla) I say mazel tov. To those that are using it as a defense mechanism, an opportunity to stay busy while not actually doing anything, I wonder if that’s a good choice.

Like Guy Kawasaki, whose blog is also full of delightful little nuggets, you could edit and reorganize your blog into a very nice book. Ever considered it?

Where, exactly, do you think Guy got the idea, Josh?

http://www.smallis.com

If I wasn’t the first bestselling author to do this, I was close. I even won a fancy audiobook award for it. It inspired Scott Adams’ book too, which is better than mine.

I have another collection coming out along these lines, but in a different format that I hope to announce soon...

I said before that people couldn’t imitate you, because they don’t have your software between their ears. But I bet there is something you’ve learned from blogging that the rest of us might be better off if we did it, too. Which of your habits should we imitate?

Oh, I think imitating my habits is a great idea. Habits like blogging often and regularly, writing down the way you think, being clear about what you think are effective tactics, ignoring the burbling crowd and not eating bacon. All of these are useful habits.

Thanks for the questions, Josh. This was fun.

 

Writing another bible

by Josh Bernoff

Many have said that Groundswell is a bible for companies using social technology. (Yes, I know there is a book that came out after ours called The Social Media Bible but indulge me for a moment here.) With apologies to my more religious readers (it's a metaphor, people), here are some qualities of the bible that I hope Groundswell shares.

• It helps a lot of people, so it sells a lot. (We're about 6 billion copies behind the other bible.)
• It’s full of useful advice (e.g. “Thou shalt not kill.” "Listen first before engaging the groundswell.")
• People get inspired by it and tell others to read it.
• It attempts to be the definitive authority on the topic.
• It uses stories to communicate messages.
• While it's useful by itself, it also creates an opportunity for people (priests, analysts) to spread and interpret the word further.

If you ever wanted to know what I'm doing next, here it is: I'd like to write another bible. We're looking at possible topics right now inside Forrester. They will be important, groundbreaking ideas for business; they won't necessarily be about social technology (since that bible's already written).

Assume any bible I write has the qualities I describe here. Keeping in mind that any future bible won't be out until spring 2010, what sort of bible would you like to read? Think big.

Photo from Robotlab, 2007, www.robotlab.de/bios/bible.htm , via Gastev

"Marketing in the Groundswell" -- a new way to reach marketers

We created a new spinoff of Groundswell just for marketers. This new edition includes only chapters 5 (Listening), 6 (Talking), and 7 (Energizing) from the original version. There is also a new introduction that talks about how valuable the groundswell is for marketing in a recession.

Groundswell continues to sell really well, often within Amazon's top 500 books, but we wanted to create this new version for a few reasons.

First, to make it cheaper and easier for marketers to get the book. The book lists for only $18, and is available on Amazon for just $12.24.

Second, this new edition is allowing us to get into new distribution channels like some airport displays, and to reach more people that way.

If you've already bought Groundswell or want the full version, don't bother with this. You already have this content. (Unless you have a fetish for green and yellow books, of course.)

However, if you know a marketer with a short attention span -- or maybe a department of a few hundred of them -- this is the quick way to get them up to speed.

An author's perspective on the surge in Kindle sales (35% of units)

by Josh Bernoff

In the midst of Jeff Bezos' announcement of the new large-format (newspaper-ready) Kindle was an amazing number.

Amazon says that for books available in both formats (275,000 titles including nearly all the bestseller) Kindle units account for 35% of unit sales.

Kindle is good for the books that people like you, the readers of this blog, like. Right now Groundswell is ranked #475 on the Kindle store while the print edition is #612 on Amazon. The bestseller list on Kindle looks a lot like the print bestsellers, but there are anomalies. For example, Jeff Jarvis' "What Would Google Do" is at #896 on Kindle, and #1352 in Amazon print. David Meerman Scott's "The New Rules of Marketing & PR" is #305 on Kindle; the print paperback is #373.

How do Amazon's numbers look to an author? There was a big spike in March when Kindle 2 shipped. Year to date for 2009, we have sold almost as many copies on Kindle as we did in all of 2008 -- sales are accelerating on Kindle when they have slowed in print. But for 2009, Kindle accounts for only 7% of our unit sales at Amazon, a lot less than the 35% they are quoting (see the chart at TechCrunch). Even in the peak month of March, when Kindle 2 shipped, Groundswell on Kindle was only 12% of total Amazon sales. I can only assume things are picking up rapidly in the Kindle store, and that new titles account for a lot of that volume.

Due to the lower list prices I make a lot less money for each Kindle unit sold. But the price-volume equation on Kindle can be far more elastic due to the fact that my publisher doesn't have to pay for printing, shipping, and taking inventory. And people with Kindles buy an awful lot of books -- probably more since they're cheaper. Since we (my Forrester colleagues and I) estimate that there are 800,000 Kindles out there and rapidly growing, I like this market. When my next book comes out, I bet that Kindle will be a big part of igniting the sales.

The future of the Social Web, according to Forrester

by Josh Bernoff

Today we published our report about the future of the Social Web. Jeremiah Owyang did the research here, I was the editor (which means it was my job to make him think harder). As usual, the abstract is free, the report is available to clients. And see Jeremiah's post on the new report.

If you're preparing to participate in the Social Web, you need these ideas your mind. First, that with a common ID developing, the social experience is about to get a lot more frictionless. And second, that not just social networks, but every brand site will become social -- whether you include these features, or visitors bring them along.

So what should you do to prepare? First, get started with you social applications now, or you will be completely overmatched as social technology gets woven into the fabric of the Internet. And beyond that, focus more on finding your fans, since they and their friends and friends of friends will be your most important asset in this new world.

Additional Note: Facebook announced today it is further opening up its interface to outside developers. This reinforces the ideas in the report about how the social networks are becoming more deeply embedded into the total Web experience.