Competition...

Sorry for not posting much over the past few weeks. Something about holidays got in the way. Well, that, and we're chewing on what we want this book to say and stand for.

One way to get started is to analyze the competition. If you were opening a shoe store in a mall, you'd want to know how yours would fit in. How it'd be different. How you'd get people to stop in your store. How you'd get people to talk about you instead of every other store in the mall and how to get people to buy, right?

I remember hearing about then Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée work the counter at Fry's Electronics before starting his compay, Be, Inc. (A customer at the camera store told me he had seen Jean-Louis working the counter. I later asked Jean-Louis if that were true when he bought a camera from me, and he told me it was).

Why did he do that? Well, for one, he wanted to get an intimate look at what the competition was from a customer's point of view.

So, over the Christmas break Shel and I have spent a bunch of time inside book stores talking to customers and looking over the books.

Some trends:

1) There are very few books on blogging on the shelf today. Here are the few we've found:

• Dan Gillmor's "We the Media." Amazon ranking: 4.5 (out of 5).
• Rebecca Blood's "We've Got Blog: How Weblogs Are Changing Our Culture." Amazon ranking: 3.5.
• Rebecca Blood's "The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog." Amazon ranking: 4.
• Paul Bausch's "Weblog: Publishing Online with Weblog." Amazon ranking: 5.
• Cory Doctorow's "Essential Blogging." Amazon ranking: N/A.
• Biz Stone's "Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content." Amazon ranking: 3.
• Hugh Hewitt's "Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World." Amazon ranking: N/A.
• Susannah Gardner's "Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies." Amazon ranking: N/A.

2) There are no books that are currently on the shelf that talk about corporate blogging and how doing a blog can help your business get adoption, build markets, get customers, or even just get a better Google ranking. Are we missing any?

3) There are no books that talk about how companies are using blogs, but there are a few that we know about coming. Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba, for instance, are working on one, and their latest book, "Testify" gives several stories of how "remarkable organizations are creating customer evangelists." Hans Henrik is doing a corporate blogging book open source style on a Wiki. Jeremy Wright is working on a blogging book. Are we missing any?

4) Our favorite authors, Seth Godin, Tom Peters, Guy Kawasaki, McConnell and Huba, Chris Anderson, Jeffrey Fox, and Malcolm Gladwell have books that will compete on the business shelf for your attention.

5) We haven't seen a book yet that explains how simple relationships built through the blog can get you on stage at major trade shows, get you hired, get you into magazines like Fast Company and Fortune Magazine, or how blogs can be used to influence people and build friendships that'll make a difference to your business.

What books are we looking forward to seeing that we know about?

1) The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson.
2) Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell

What business books are we reading now?

1) Art of the Start, by Guy Kawasaki
2) The Naked Corporation, by Don Tapscott, and David Ticoll
3) The Marketing Playbook, by John Zagula and Richard Tong

Resources on blog books? Neville Hobson linked to the ones he knew about. Jeremy Wright has another list here (more complete). 800-CEO-READ has great info about business books.

Not quite on topic, but David Allen's "Getting Things Done" book is one we also are reading.

Which business books are you looking forward to seeing? Are we missing any books about corporate weblogging?

Update: John Moore recommends "The Wisdom of Crowds." Biz Stone has a new book out: "Who Let the Blogs Out? A Hyperconnected Peek at the World of Blogs." Paul McFedries has "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creating a Web Page and Blog." B.L. Ochman has "What Could Your Company Do With a Blog? How Smart Companies Use Blogs for Marketing and PR Success and How You Can Too."

Comments

[Jozef Imrich]

Might be of interest ...

Webloggers Darren Barefoot and Jeremy Wright launch corporate blog consultancy, InsideBlogging...

http://i-newswire.com/pr772.html

[johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)]

"The Wisdom of Crowds" should be on your reading list.

[Biz Stone]

St Martin's Press has just published my new book, Who Let the Blogs Out? A Hyperconnected Peek at the World of Blogs -- it deals with some history and people but also talks about business blogging, networking for a new job, and how the blogosphere works.

[Shannon Clark]

A from somewhat left field question - Is your book really about blogging?

I personally prefer "The Red Couch" to "Blog or Die" - in part because I also think it is arguable whether or not what you are writing is actually "about" blogging.

Rather, I think it is (or perhaps better stated "should be") about marketing and interactions between customers and companies in the 21st century. Blogging being the medium - but in many ways being the tip of the iceberg in terms of being the newest wrinkle on the flattening of communications that started last century with the adoption of email.

Blogs, in large part, are even more effective than email these days in providing a forum via which messages can quickly be diseminated back and forth - inside and outside of the corporation as well as within the corporation. But the process means more, I would agrue, than the tools.

Thus I would argue for a title that is more timeless than "blog or die" and an aknowledgement that while the focus is specifically on blogging - the message is about something a step removed from the tools - about new attitudes, about new ways of interacting, about adhoc communities as well as long duration but non-geographic communities - about rapid exchanges, back and forth communications, about lifting up of the curtain. Metaphors from the Wizard of Oz come to mind - looking behind the screen to see how the magic happens etc.

In terms of upcoming/recently released books - I too am looking forward to Blink. I'm also at the moment currently reading an older book "Why things bite back" by Edward Tenner. Dated in some respects, but important timeless perspective on the challenges technology (and change in general) face - worth a read. Also Critical Mass is another book I am currently working on finishing.

Shannon

[Todd]

Thanks for the nod, Robert.

In books to look forward to, I would add A Whole New Mind by Dan Pink. I got a copy of the manuscript and read it over the holidays. It is outstanding. It has a March release. We'll be talking about it as it draws closer. We think others will too.

[Hans Henrik]

Hi Robert and Shel

Thanks for the trackback and reference. Much Appreciated.

Happy New Year to both of you....

Best Regards
Hans Henrik

[Angela Booth]

I'd love to see a blogging book that's laid out the way Tom Peters' Re-Imagine! is, with its emphasis on motivation and ideas.

Re-Imagine! is amazing. The book is gorgeous, published by DK. You can dip into it anywhere, and find something to inspire you for the day.

"Re-Imagine! for bloggers"? Works for me. :-)