What should I write my next book about?
I'd like to learn what my buddies on LinkedIn think I should cover in my next book. All ideas considered, but I don't want to write about the venture capital business. The real test is, "What book would a vp of marketing or sales of a consumer brand read and then want to hire me as a keynote speaker?" "Guy's Guide to Venture Capital" obviously fails this test.
Answers (88)
Reid H
Partner at Greylock
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A consumer brand VP mktg/sales would love to see the following books:
(One)
How the internet is transforming branding, whether you are paying attention or not.
- Standard Brand Creation/Maintenance
- How the Internet blows that up
- How to measure how the internet is already affecting your brand, your competitor’s brand
- Why the standard “control the brand on the internet” advice is silly
- User-generated content: given that users will generate content
- What to do with “leverage the blogosphere” advice
- Why corporate blogs don’t work
- Why pay-per-post is a terrible idea
- Why ‘influencers’ are only partial
- What are the strategies that utilize the internet media but transcend particular technologies
- What are the right and wrong ways to think about the current generation of tools (TypePad blogs, Technorati, Digg, Wikia, etc.)
- What risks can you avoid; what risks must you take
(Two)
The New Evangelism – Angelizens (or some better term)
- Old school evangelism: how it used to work
- The new game: key ways the game works
- Angelizens: the distributed community
- Why every marketer needs them
- How to reach
- Care, feeding, and motivation
There are probably others – these are just off the top of my head.
Hi, Guy!
Since it sounds like you'd prefer to target more of a corporate audience, I think a book about fostering entrepreneurship within a multi-billion dollar corporation would be appealing to Human Resource and Product Development executives. I gave up the life of an employee for the risk/reward opportunity of being self-employed. Having salary and variable pay caps was too limiting to me so I went out on my own. HR is always struggling with equity in compensation and holding costs down so they must rely on other intangibles to attract and retain employees. But the structure that is put in place can be stifling at times.
If an entrepreneur was provided the right incentives and opportunities, a large and established organization could be an incredible place filled with tremendous resources. The support organization is already in place and the financial resources should be more readily available for new and innovative ideas.
I also believe that the internet has made it possible for the smaller guys to compete effectively with the big guys and in order for the large corporations to continue succeeding, they must be able to move at a more nible, faster pace. Fostering enterpeneurship internally could play a key role but the right risk/rewards must be put in place to capture the top talent.
All the best,
Chad
How to make a career out of being a pundit. :-)
Recognizing entrepreneurs, inside and outside the business. "Hubs" (gatekeepers, hubs and pulse-takers) in the organization often hold that position of confidence due to their ability (or professed ability) to innovate. That entrepreneurship sometimes is recognized and rewarded, but sometimes disregarded - or hijacked to the benefit of others. An accountability through identification without the political association of ownership could result in a value-creation for the organization to make smart, inherent, investments and capitalize on their untapped intellectual value.
- Shane
You should write a book about working class Joes like me who later in life want something better in their lives and don't know how to start. How can a person with poor education and no contacts in some crap town make something of their life?
Furqan N
President & CEO at Viridus, Inc.
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There is a real paucity of material on startups launching "two sided markets." A recently article in HBR (see link below) touched on a few of the issues, but a "how to" manual on launching a two sided market would be great. It's a classic chicken-and-egg problem that almost every "web 2.0" company is confronting. Do you go after the chicken first? The egg? Both? How does this affect business plans and hiring? It'd be great to hear from the Guru himself on this topic.
Links:
How about a book entitled, "How to suck up to bloggers and other marketing lessons you didn't learn in kindergarten". This would be a practical guide for marketers wanting to understand how to build programs around new media. You could discuss whether online marketing campaigns are worthwhile, how to do them, how they should mix with traditional pr/marketing, whether companies should have corporate blogs, how to build online evangelists, how to measure the effectiveness of these efforts, etc. I know I could certainly use some guidance here. :)
Links:
David B
Digital Media and Online Marketing Strategist, Speaker, Columnist, Marketer, Blogger - 360i
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"The 7 Good to Great Tipping Points of Highly Effective Rich Dads' and Poor Dads's Parachutes that are Good to Great and Built to Last in the Tipping Point of a Cheese-Moving Flat World"
Links:
First Write an Ebook - do it on start-ups looking for VC money, like a beginners guide to working with a VC
Hi Guy, I met you several times out here at CTEK in Boulder via Lu. Why not your early days at Apple? Apple as we all know is riding a huge wave right now. Woz's book just came out recently and it gives more of a technical revolution insight. You could complement it by giving the marketing/sales perspective. I would call Woz and see if he could assist in your efforts. Just my .0001.
Stephen "Duper" Dupree
Hi Guy
how about a guide on how to make the customer your evangelist.
Some with a title like "How to cut your Marketing budget by 95%. Unleashing the power of your customer."
Jerry
Burton L
Snr financial/technical/policy advisor - startups, VC/PE funds, S&T agencies, govts; Space Angels; Stanford Engineering
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the untapped power of social networks...for marketing, for careers, for aligning personal priorities with corporate (read vp marketing) priorities...for market research, for...we are just beginning to understand what is possible with social/professional networks...many more applications to come...
I'm no expert, but something I'm just fascinated by is the relationship between the personality of the company's leadership, the personality of the company as employees see it, and the personality of the company as vendors and customers see it.
How they grow, how they harmonize or don't, how those personalities are expressed, the competitive aspects and the effect it has on the company are all things I would want to know more about.
I'd definitely like to hear your practical advice and stories related to that subject. I know it's kind of a wide-ranging subject, so maybe just one or a few aspects of it.
Murthy M
High tech professional in research & analysis through strategic planning and program management
Best Answers in: Compensation and Benefits (1)
Hi Guy, I think the Valley is sorely at a loss for real data-intensive, research-based studies on fundamental technology trends and effect of those fundamental trends on the evolution of markets. As an example, how many people in 1998 were actually tracking the rapid reduction in cost of storage, cost of bandwidth, cost of CPU power, and could have anticipated a new delivery mechanism for software as a service? Its very cute when people write books about chasms and such, but its hard to find a book that quantitatively tracks the cost, quality, and performance evolution of various technologies that has created the ecosystem we have today and could even potentially be modestly predictive of future ecosystems.
Based on what you seem to excel at personally and also picking an essential human reality I think is ripe for an extensive treatment, I think you should write a book entitled something like "Contagious Passion" or "Magnetic Passion" The thesis is that the very most successful consumer brands and products are fundamentally personal and passion based -- things that are ego expressive rather than simply useful. And the most successful sales and marketing campaigns are those that communicate an emotional passion already shared by the marketer and the consumer before the message is conveyed. The sales and marketing activity simply amplifies a universal truth that the right target customer already believes religiously. The magic is in communicating passion for the product or brand powerfully and magnetically enough to attract the segment of humanity that is already sold on the product. (This is very different from the traditional notions of pitching benefits and using logic to win customers; in other words, the magic is finding existing resonance rather than changing people's desires or "selling" them on something). And as you've pointed out in other places, the same is true in hiring startup talent, etc.
One obvious extension of the thesis is that as a marketing or sales exec, you should follow your passion (rather than logic or random opportunity presented by your network of contacts) in picking where to work since you'll always be more successful selling to people who share your passion.
To me, that's the book you're uniquely qualified to write.
Selling at your edge. Unconventional paths into the hearts and minds of the customer.
Peter S
CEO at Hermit Village
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Since reading time is always at a premium, why not make a "Who moved my cheese" kind of book. 50 pages tops. Illustrated by a kids illustrator,and still reasonably priced (From the authors perspective, of course :).
Guy,
The majority of the people here are all chasing that one unique service/product to really make a difference in te market. However, the reality is that we all end up in a market where multiple companies offer the same products and services. (market without competitions is no market). So I would suggest that you write a book about building a business based on "a not so big idea". Since this is the reality the most of us live in...:-). How can you do the same as your competition and still win. How can you differentiate when you have noting to differentiate on. These are the problems every entrepreneur is struggling with. I guarantee a best seller!
Kind regards,
Emile Bakker
How about Lessons from the Technology Market for the Masses? Having spent my career in technology, I'm comfortable with the advent of new technologies and their impact on even the most mundane businesses. What about the millions of SMBs that just don't get it (yet)?
Aimee E
Freelance Marketing Strategist
Best Answers in: Public Relations (2), Events Marketing (1), Internet Marketing (1), Telecommunications (1)
I'm not a VP (yet!) but here's my take... With all due respect to the previous respondants, I think there are going to be scads of books on Web 2.0 marketing -- all of which will be quickly outdated since the industry is evolving so quickly.
What I would love to see is an evergreen book on using online (and offline) tactics to position your brand for an ever-lasting love affair with the American public. Of course, this would be inclusive of Web 2.0 tactics...but I'd love to find that guide that shows you how to be a Target rather than a Wal-Mart, a Coke rather than an RC, or a Levis rather than a Wrangler. What's that key, magic ingredient to building a truly cool brand to which the public remains loyal?
BTW, I also love Chad's suggestion about fostering entrepreneurship. That would make a terrific book.
Corporate responsibility and brand value. The commoditisation of technology has robbed brands of much of their relevance especially in the consumer space. With just about everyone's products being made by the same Chinese factories how do innovative companies garner loyalty and how do they price it?
HI Guy --
I'd love to see you take HOW TO DRIVE YOUR COMPETITION CRAZY to the next level -- updated for the 21st century, yadda yadda yadda.
It's still one of my favorite business books -- and I tend to re-read it every two years or so.
All the best,
T
How about choosing what kind of new product to develop? The big firms would like to know how to leverage their assets, and us little devs would like to know how to leverage themselves.
We all know every dev's got a couple directories filled with half-completed software projects, stopped mostly due to lack of interest. Giving someone some confidence in what to develop can really make a difference.
Guy - A book on internet marketing, but not something that is the same as what is out there. Combine the process of developing internet based marketing strategies with the mechanics of managing the execution. I have seen material that is very theoretical and material that is very detail oriented, but nothing that is in the middle - more practical.
btw - you need to try lacrosse!
Great post on a great blog. Thanks
Bob Sargent
SpecialtyInsurance.typepad.com
Guy,
Here's the book. Two words... Attention Span.
Tell VPs of Marketing how to compete in a world where attention span has been utterly lost.
Alan
Storytelling. Basic narrative goes back to Gilgamesh, but very few people actually know how to tell a decent story. As someone who has pitched, and listens to pitches, I have a feeling you would have a special insight into the subject. The impact of a real narrative changes everything, and gets people intuitively sympathizing with the hero. And then you can unloick passion. So write a book about how to tell a story.
Make it fun (for your readers AND you) by incorporating something you love, but that will also provide value and insight.
Why not an analysis or case study on the decrease in national (U.S.) interest in the NHL. What has the league done wrong (I'm sure there are a lot of factors, including talent, gameplay, etc., but marketing has to be near the top of the list), what it should do to become relevant again (there's got to be something about evangelism in there!) and how corporate marketers can avoid/fix the same mistakes.
I am the CMO of an online consumer brand called BumpQ.com, and hence very much your target market. Of the answers posted so far, I would probably find the following most informative:
* Furqan Nazeeri - two-sided markets
* Jerry Frear - customer evangelism
* Burton Lee - the untapped power of social networks
* Brian Hansen - contagious passion
* Reid Hoffman - internet branding, the new evangelism
If you were to combine them all, it would be some sort of book about leveraging social networks to turn customers into evangelists. "Contagious Passion" is an interesting idea for a theme, since it could refer to both your need to be passionate about the product/brand, as well as the need to inspire that "contagious passion" in your customer base.
User-generated content, obviously.
Michael B
Former CEO of search start-up w/2mm consumer customers. Currently Program Manager for Global 500. Certified Scrum Master
How to articulate yourself without profanity.
Your stuff is great. The best.
Too bad can't share it with kids.
