This is a repost of my Amazon Review of the book:
The Human Brand
by Chris Malone and Susan T. Fiske
This is a great book about relationship management, marketing and business in today’s new multi-channel, multi-media world. But its so much more than that. As with most quality business books, you will pick up terms and tactics that just make sense. You will walk away finding yourself quoting the book in many of your subsequent conversations such as using the terms “warmth and competence” or “worthy intentions” when offering advice to a friend or customer about balance and customer impressions. But…
You will also find yourself having much deeper conversations with the people you work with, your friends, even your family – the authors provoke you to think differently about the next hundred years as they point out how different things are from the last hundred years or as the authors call it “The Middle Ages of Marketing.” Mass production led to mass marketing. That’s a big concept – the world really did change with the industrial revolution, brands became the be all and end all to how we think about companies; but today that’s just not the case! It has changed again with social media, the internet, and the information revolution. Whatever you call it – the new age or “Relationship Renaissance” is not one where you can hide from or manipulate an impression; and, big data isn’t the answer (in my opinion). Well, maybe it is, but as this technology maven has seen – most companies just don’t get it when it comes to using that data. So this book is a must read for them. As I concluded from the book, its not about creepy advertisements or suggestions that seem to know what you are doing or thinking – its about the real interaction and moments of truth that we all experience with the companies we do business with. In these pages you will learn how to do just that, measure results, thrive as a company and have better outcomes as a business person. The authors show how moving forward executives have to consider their companies human beings just as the tradesmen and local merchants served us for most of human existence before “The Middle Ages of Marketing.” In short, embracing “The Relationship Renaissance.”
When was the last time a book about business made you think that deeply about, well, business!?
Buy The Human Brand on Amazon.com
Jim