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| Vol.
8, No. 8, Oct 2009 |
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Book Review By Shel
Israel Book review by Katie Delahaye Paine If you are one of those people who think the word "Twitter" is silly and the entire concept a fad, you should read Twitterville. If you have signed up for Twitter, but aren't quite sure what the fuss is all about, you should read Twitterville. If you've been told to "get onto Twitter" and aren't sure why, you should read Twitterville. If you've been on Twitter for years, and spend more than an hour a day exchanging 140-character anecdotes with your friends, you should read Twitterville. In other words, everyone needs to read this book! Whether you're a newbie or an expert, an individual practitioner, or a big corporate executive. You need to know what's between its covers. In the interest of transparency, I've known the author Shel Israel for more than two decades and consider him a dear friend. The book is dedicated to my former editor Charlie O'Brien. So I'm hardly impartial. But that having been said, this is a really important book that is coming along at the perfect time.
You see, Twitter isn't just another form of social media, it's a new way of communicating. Kind of like texting, but public. Kind of like blogging, but easier. Kind of like talking on the telephone, but more efficient. People have wondered what's Twitter's ROI, and Shel's response (and now mine) is, "What's the ROI of putting on your pants?" At some point, back in the 1920s, someone was probably asking, "What's the ROI of this new-fangled thing called a 'telephone?'" And, somewhere along the line, they stopped asking. If you have been asking about the ROI of Twitter, then read Twitterville. And you'll stop asking. Shel is first and foremost a storyteller. And in 300 pages he can tell a lot of stories. He tells the story of Twitter, how it was founded, and how it grew. But he also tells wonderful stories of the almost miraculous way that Twitter has changed lives, corporations, and how people do business. He organizes it much the way we think of communications. There's public communications, organizational communications, personal communications, etc., and he has a story or two to tell you in each category. He doesn't preach, but rather tells his stories and leaves the conclusions up to you. He offers advice in much the same way my favorite uncle, writer and humorist Phil Paine, would offer me advice: A pearl of wisdom, cloaked in good writing and much humor, that I could accept graciously or reject. Either way, the wisdom remains with you. Twitterville is
an easy read, but it goes deep enough into the
material so by the end you totally understand what the fuss is all
about. |
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