750 words on Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith
14 September 2009 | blog,Book Reviews | Comments Off
This last week the CEO of the company I work for walked up to my desk, handed me a copy of Trust Agents, gave me a fist bump and walked out without saying a word to me. I think it’s pretty awesome that he is aware of the new books coming out regarding social media. It’s shocking to me that anyone of his stature would go out and buy a copy, hand it to me and provide no instruction on what I’m supposed to do with it. Anyway, let’s get into the 750 words or less on the book:
Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) and Julien Smith (@julien) are well known to anyone who’s been in the social media space for any serious amount of time. I had the opportunity at SXSW 2009 to sit in on one of Chris’ panels and can’t begin to tell you how much he lives what he preaches in this book and still have enough words to do a review justice.
Where last week’s read, Socialnomics, was a series of case studies on how businesses can and have used social media to hang some wins up on the board, this reads much more as a 25,000 foot high tactical overview on how to build a community around a brand so that larger events and flash points can really grab hold. If you’re looking for a step-by-step outline on what to do and how to do it so your company will succeed in using social media, this book isn’t for you. This reads much more like a manifesto which initiates the reader into “the community” and points out the way (including the massive amount of work and caring required) to become someone worth knowing.
The first and last chapters read incredibly similarly which normally I find pretty annoying but the way that the guys do it in this book didn’t break the flow. It definitely helped that they added enough new information in the final chapter to make it worth reading. The chapters in-between tackle each of the critical areas for someone to act in a way that is consistent with the principles of a Trust Agent. Any and everyone can be a Trust Agent and I could make a case that everyone should strive to become one.
There are some very pronounced areas of similarity with other books that have been written about social media (Chapters 1 and 3 with Tara Hunt’s The Whuffie Factor, Chapter 4 with the first two chapters of Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, Chapter 5 reflects portions of Emmanuel Rosen’s The Anatomy of Buzz, etc). That stated, these two authors have a very interesting and alternative way of communicating these same points as they introduce perspective and the underlying motive which these other texts omit. To be completely honest, the tone that Brogan and Smith takes resonates more with me. These other books provide a much more analytical tone which allows for the dissection of tactics to understand what has worked. I suspect that once someone looking to learn about this space has the perspective and understands the core principles presented in Trust Agents, the reader could approach these more analytical texts as exercises which allow them to think critically about why some tactics were successful while others aren’t.
There was a very clear point in the book (specifically on pages 184-185) which describes why the internet is different than other content mediums created over the last century. In all my reading, I’ve never come across such a clear description of why the internet has substantially broken the business models that worked so well in the last 60 years. This point alone is worth picking up the book in my mind. Obviously I’m not going to tell you what that point is since it’s really one of the great gems in the book.
Baring a couple of typos and two sentences that I have no clue what happened to since they seemed to stop in the middle of a thought, this book is brilliantly written. The interesting part to me is that I wouldn’t hand this book to someone who’s wanting to understand the “social media” landscape or how to win in it. This is a much more nuanced text that I think works much better once someone understands how the primary platforms work. When they have a little bit of experience this book can be a great read before putting the tools to work in a business sense, even if it’s to build their own brand. More importantly, once there is a base level of understanding the philosophy presented the reader will naturally create strategies that will be portable to any new platform that becomes fashionable.
Congrats Chris and Julien for providing a great 201-level philosophy textbook on how to operate in the early 21st century business world. I look forward to the next book that you’ve both said you’re currently outlining.