I met Geoff Livingston, author of the new-ish book Now is Gone, at BlogOrlando back in September. He was a great guy, very passionate about his work, so I was excited to read his new book. Here’s the Amazon synopsis:
Now Is Gone seeks to help businesses embrace Social Media intelligently. Readers can learn if their organization is ready, how to begin, the predominant participation is marketing approach that other businesses are using, social media marketing strategies, and general social media insights. In addition to best practices, the book is laced with case studies that demonstrate corporate successes. This primer provides the quickest way for executives and entrepreneurs to figure out social media marketing.
The key word there is “quick”. This book is a fast, easy read; something most business books don’t tend to be. I’m generally a slower reader than most, so the idea of reading a business book cover to cover typically makes my brain hurt. When I started reading this book, however, I was surprised how fast I was making it through. For a book meant to help people understand the basics, this is an admirable trait.
Each chapter in the book is broken up into nice chunks, each with it’s own header. This really helps quicker reading, as well as “in and out access” (being able to pick it up, read a few pages between meeting, and put it down again… rinse, repeat). The last 50 pages or so is a collection of interviews with industry interviews that Geoff recycled from his blog. These interviews add a huge amount of credibility and reality to the content you’ve just read in the rest of the book.
The only real issue I have with this book is that it feels a bit rough in its writing (style and editing). Not so much that it’s hard to read, but enough that it might be a hit to credibility to some readers. It’s not surprising that this issue exists, considering that the time-to-market of this book was tiny…which means that the content is also extremely fresh and relevant. All in all, I’d far rather see a fresh book than a perfect book.
If you’re looking to put a book in front of a client/colleague/executive that helps them understand what this social media space is all about and why they need to pay attention to it, this is a fantastic place to start. Great work, Geoff!
