Managing Online Forums: Everything You Need to Know to Create and Run Successful Community Discussion Boards Review

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Managing Online Forums: Everything You Need to Know to Create and Run Successful Community Discussion Boards ReviewI had the opportunity to read through this book over the last week, and I'm just floored by how much good information it's got in it. This book is years of Patrick's experiences running successful forums (22 forums now, I believe!) and all the tips, tricks and wisdom he's picked up during those years. I ran a moderately successful forum years ago, and would have saved myself months of headache and heartache had I the information in this book at my fingertips back then.
The book is definitely opinionated - these are Patrick's recommendations based on his experiences, and it shows. His voice is natural, and the wording is down to earth. This isn't some theoretical treatise, but a 'from the trenches' view of what works, what doesn't, and why.
The book includes many sample forms which have example language to use for welcoming members to your forum, working with moderators, dealing with abusive or disruptive visitors, and much more. They're all available on the book's website too, so you don't need to retype it all in, but can quickly customize them to fit your own needs .
The one thing lacking in this book is that it doesn't go in to much detail about the major forum packages out there, so the reader who is just starting out will have to do some more research as to what packages have which features discussed in the book. Having said that, this keeps the focus of the book more on the human/people side of internet forums, and doesn't devolve in to a technical manual. I would have preferred a small feature comparison of the big forum systems out there, but I'm more of a technically-inclined person to begin with. If you're not technically inclined, you likely won't even notice the information not there.
Bottom line: if you're thinking of starting a web-based community, or have one and aren't sure how to manage it, this book is a must-have. It will save you weeks, if not months, of getting up to speed and being as effective as possible with your forums.
Managing Online Forums: Everything You Need to Know to Create and Run Successful Community Discussion Boards OverviewEvery day, millions of users log on to their favorite online forums and interact with others to get advice and discuss everything from the latest news and trends to their hobbies, professions, and whatever else strikes their fancy. Admin­istrators have to lead these communities, deal with difficult users, and choose moderators. Legal constraints, spammers, and technical issues can turn the excitement of running an online community into chaos. With the right guidance, however, running forums can be a pleasure. Patrick O'Keefe has spent years developing and managing online communities. Now, he shows readers how to make the right decisions about every aspect of their forums, including:' choosing a name and domain name' picking the right software' deciding on user options like avatars and private messaging' setting guidelines and dealing with violators' ensuring that posts stay on topic' settling online disputes among users' involving users and keeping the site interestingManaging Online Forums is the one book that shows site owners and administrators how to create a safe and entertaining community that users will return to again and again.

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Crowdsourcing: High-impact Strategies - What You Need to Know: Definitions, Adoptions, Impact, Benefits, Maturity, Vendors Review

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Crowdsourcing: High-impact Strategies - What You Need to Know: Definitions, Adoptions, Impact, Benefits, Maturity, Vendors ReviewPURCHASE NOT RECOMMENDED.
You might of heard the term - regifting. Regifting refers to the action of giving a gift one has received to someone else. There is an ongoing debate about the appropriateness of regifting and you even might disagree with the practice. That's until you remember your participation and relief in relaying your great Aunt's dreaded fruit cake during the holiday season to someone else.
The publishing industry has their own version of regifting. It's known as republishing. Republishing is when a book's content is slightly modified then released with a different title, cover and/or author. From casual observation to the consumer it appears to be a "new" book. In reality, except for a few minor cosmetic tweaks the content remains the same.
Unknowingly paying to purchase a republished book is not a welcome surprise.
The book being reviewed is entitled:
Crowdsourcing: High-impact Strategies - What You Need to Know: Definitions, Adoptions, Impact, Benefits, Maturity, Vendors
by Kevin Roebuck
Publisher: Tebbo
ISBN-10: 1743046421
The book is a republished version of:
The Crowdsourcing Handbook - Everything you need to know about Crowdsourcing
by Jason Brand
Publisher: Tebbo
ISBN-10: 1743040954
Except for a few minor tweaks - title change, cover change, different author name - it's EXACTLY the same book.
It must be stated that it's the same poor quality book with the same recommendation - PURCHASE NOT RECOMMENDED.
Which brings to mind the saying - Even if you put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig.
Adding [financial] insult to injury ...
The original book entitled - "The Crowdsourcing Handbook - Everything you need to know about Crowdsourcing" - purchase price is $19.95.
This new republished book with EXACTLY the same contents - purchase price is $48.66.

On with my republished review of this republished book ...
Let's start with the face page disclaimer:
The content within this book was generated collaboratively by volunteers. Please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by people with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information. Some information in this book may be misleading or simply wrong.
How can the book be "...your ultimate resource for Crowdsourcing" when no checking has been done of the validity or reliability of the information contained within it?
Enough said on that.
It starts with an anemic six page introduction to crowdsourcing of which two pages are citation notes/references.
....and continues to go down hill from there.
The book lists about 80 "articles" in the table of contents contained in 209 pages. Which means content on each article averages a little over two pages in length. A number of articles are a single page.
The majority of the topics are crowdsourcing vendors (Amazon Mechanical Turk, CloudCrowd, CloudFlower, InnoCentive), crowdsourcing contests ( DARPA Grand Challenge, Netflix Prize), and miscellaneous topics (Ricky McCormick's encrypted notes).
The book is NOT a how-to manual, tutorial or reference guide on crowdsourcing.
The book is a scattered compilation of crowdsourcing topics with a very brief synopsis written on each.
...and the book doesn't have an index or glossary.Crowdsourcing: High-impact Strategies - What You Need to Know: Definitions, Adoptions, Impact, Benefits, Maturity, Vendors OverviewCrowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to an undefined, large group of people or community (a "crowd"), through an open call.
This book is your ultimate resource for Crowdsourcing. Here you will find the most up-to-date information, analysis, background and everything you need to know.
In easy to read chapters, with extensive references and links to get you to know all there is to know about Crowdsourcing right away, covering: Crowdsourcing, CloudCrowd, Servio, Collaborative translation, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Article One Partners, BlooSee, BlueServo, Bossa (computing), Citizen Weather Observer Program, Closed innovation, Steve Coast, CrowdFlower, Darpa Grand Challenge, Darpa Network Challenge, Dell IdeaStorm, Digital sweatshop, Distributed Proofreaders, Distributed thinking, Experience Project, FamilySearch Indexing, Funding4Learning, Genius Crowds, Giveo, Google Lunar X Prize, I-Cube Systems, Ideawicket, Indiegogo, InnoCentive, Innovation Exchange, Istockphoto, Kickstarter, Know-How Trading, Learning to love you more, Lectorium, LibriVox, List of crowdsourcing projects, Longitude prize, Maneno, Mass collaboration, Memrise, Microtask, Mygengo, MyStock, Netflix Prize, NineSigma, NotchUp, Open innovation, Open innovation intermediary, OpenSeaMap, OpenStreetMap, PageRank, Pea galaxy, Peerbackers, Phylo (video game), Pitching engine, Pledgemusic, Quirky, ReCaptcha, Ricky McCormick's encrypted notes, RocketHub, SeeClickFix, Spigit, Spot.us, TurKit, Ubiquitous Human Computing, Urtak, Ushahidi, Utest, Wbew, Wikimedia Foundation, The Wisdom of Crowds, Wisdom of the crowd, World Water Monitoring Day, Wreckamovie, Yet2.com, YouComm News, YouCut, Zooppa.
This book explains in-depth the real drivers and workings of Crowdsourcing.

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Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation Review

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Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation ReviewAnne is a technical writer who has done a considerable amount of work with FLOSS Manuals in documenting the OLPC laptop, and is obviously well-versed in both open-source documentation and social media. The book is designed to give technical writers and other information developers an overview of the tools and techniques available now for documenting products and communicating with end-users through social media and other non-traditional methods.
As a technical writer and community manager, I am exactly the target market for this book, so it is no wonder that I think it is an excellent resource that is long overdue. What surprised me was the depth with which she covered her subjects, the extensive yet highly selective quality of references in the book, and the sheer number of strategies that I hadn't yet encountered even as a professional in this area.
The most important point Anne makes in the book is that documentation as we know it is changing dramatically. Practically all of the basic tenets of technical documentation are in question. Users depend far more often on advice from random strangers via mailing lists, community forums, and search engines than they do on the technical documentation that comes with the product. I have seen this to be true even for highly technical concepts and tools. This is not news to anyone who has ever used Google to find the answer to a technical question rather than looking in the docs, but it was fascinating to see that phenomenon addressed in such a way that my opinions of it were actually changed. Like many technical writers, I have a lingering fear that I will someday be obsolete and that my job of communicating technical issues to users of technology will be taken over by amateurs in ad-hoc communities. Anne gently reminds us that it is the quantity of information that is skyrocketing, not the quality, and that our jobs as technical communicators are more important than ever in making that information "findable", even if that means abandoning what we traditionally think of as documentation. What I took away from this aspect of the book was the overwhelming necessity to make human connections, even in technical documentation, an idea that resonates strongly with my own role as a community builder. Chapter 3 spells it out best as "Defining a Writer's Role with the Social Web".
The book catalogs the available tools and strategies from several different viewpoints based on documentation strategy---in other words, use cases---rather than simply providing an annotated list. Anne specifically points to references and in-the-trenches stories that underscore her points in a very effective way. The subject that brought me the most "aha!" moments was that of wikis. I use wikis on a daily basis, but there were certain aspects of them that I had overlooked. There were so many interesting references in all sections that I felt compelled to stop reading the book and follow them, which is not a criticism of the writing but rather of the sheer amount of information out there. The consistent, confident, professional tone kept me riveted to the book, but I am now going back over every page and following links.
I highly recommend this book to both technical communicators and those involved in social media and community. My copy is going straight to my boss' desk.Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation OverviewConversation and Community: The Social Web for Technical Documentation, industry expert Anne Gentle's new book, brings the tools of the Social Web to technical documentation. She looks at the most important Web 2.0 tools, including blogs, wikis, micro-blogging, and syndication, and shows how they can be used to foster conversations and a community with your customers.Through examples and her own hard-won experience with these technologies, Gentle provides practical guidance for technical communicators, marketers, and anyone who wants to use the Social Web to interact with customers.

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The Lobbying Strategy Handbook: 10 Steps to Advancing Any Cause Effectively Review

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The Lobbying Strategy Handbook: 10 Steps to Advancing Any Cause Effectively ReviewI don't usually review books on lobbying, but that has more to do with the fact that there are few good books written on this important act of advocacy. I have been a lobbyist for a trade association for over 25 years and I would have loved to have been given a resource like Pat Libby's book when I started out in the business. Don't get me wrong, there is considerable material out there on the political process, it is just that it is not very usable to the average person interested in promoting a legislative cause or agenda.
What I like about The Lobbying Strategy Handbook is that it gives a fairly sound foundation in the basics of law making, the governmental budgeting process and lobbying. The most important part follows with a clear, "how to", ten-step advocacy campaign procedure, with some real life case studies.
The author created and directs a university institute for non-profit education in California and previously ran several non-profits, lobbying for their key issues. She clearly knows what she is writing about from first hand experiences. The reader might not qualify for a degree reading this book, but they will certainly know how to develop and promote a legislative strategy.
Lobbying is not just for the "high rollers" working the corridors of power in Washington. Pat makes this whole advocacy procedure accessible to everyone, especially on the local level. And isn't that what our democratic process is really all about - giving every citizen the abilities to make changes in the way our government works.
The Lobbying Strategy Handbook: 10 Steps to Advancing Any Cause Effectively OverviewThe Lobbying Strategy Handbook shows how students with passion for a cause can learn to successfully influence lawmaking in the United States. The centerpiece of this book is a 10-step framework that walks the reader through the essential elements of conducting a lobbying campaign. The framework is illustrated by three separate case studies that show how groups of people have successfully used the model. Undergraduate, graduate students, and anyone interested in making a difference, can use the book to guide them in creating and conducting a grassroots campaign from start to finish.

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The Ad-Free Brand: Secrets to Building Successful Brands in a Digital World (Que Biz-Tech) Review

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The Ad-Free Brand: Secrets to Building Successful Brands in a Digital World (Que Biz-Tech) ReviewComing from the advertising world I must say I like everything about "The Ad-Free brand" by Chris Grams, except perhaps the title! This entertaining and revealing work acts as a virtual textbook for how to build powerful communities around brands large and small, and is relevant for both new and traditional business sectors. As well as providing practical direction for using a basket of digital tools and social-media, The Ad-Free brand is also revealing in terms of how to ignite the passion of your brand advocates. This book is an essential read for anyone looking for a compass to navigate the continuously evolving digital landscapeThe Ad-Free Brand: Secrets to Building Successful Brands in a Digital World (Que Biz-Tech) OverviewToday you can build powerful, enduring brands at amazingly low cost – without expensive ad campaigns, huge marketing budgets, self-interested outside agencies, or deep specialized expertise. All you need are passion for your brand, low-cost digital tools, and The Ad-Free Brand.Drawing on his experience helping build Red Hat's billion-dollar global brand, Chris Grams integrates classic brand positioning concepts with 21st century digital strategies, tools, and practices. Grams presents great new ways to collaboratively uncover, communicate, and evolve your ideal brand position, embed it in organizational culture, and work with your brand community to make it come to life. This step-by-step guide will lead you through the entire brand positioning process, while providing all you need to build a winning brand on a tight budget!"The Ad-Free Brand is a field guide for how to tell a story and how to engage with your community. That is what branding is truly about. His stories are the great strength of the book. He tells countless stories from both his own experience at Red Hat and from others (including our Wikimedia strategy process) that reinforce his central premise: Building an ad-free brand is ultimately about engaging with your community."- Eugene Eric Kim, Co-founder of Groupaya"Chris knows that people appreciate a step-by-step guide as a starting point and so clearly lays out the process. His background? 10 years helping Red Hat become a $1B brand. Chris Grams gets it. From both my experience in a team he led and this book, he understands how to bring people together to work."- Terri Griffith, Professor of Management, Santa Clara University and Author of The Plugged In Manager

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The Wisdom of Crowds Review

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The Wisdom of Crowds ReviewThe Wisdom of Crowds : Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business,Economies, Societies and Nations by James Surowiecki is, essentially, a thoroughly accessible and readable tome on applied behavioral economics and game theory.
I know that doesn't sound too exciting, but this actually is a fascinating book that is something of a page turner if you have even the most vestigial interest in the topic.
The premise isn't new-those who are denizens of Wall Street and know Robert Prechter's oft cited work with Elliott Wave Theory will know something of the underlying premises of the book. However, Surowiecki takes this notion and moves well beyond the confined world if inventing (though he covers that as well) to apply the principles he delineates to life in general-behavior in traffic, tracking and responding to disease, navigating the internet and so on.
The strength of the boom is Surowiecki's ability to render the underpinnings of his theoretical paradigm in easily understandable terms and examples. Additionally, the book features an excellent opening that provides a wonderful foundation as regards applied behavioral economics and game theory in general.
On the other hand, Surowiecki tends to play both sides of the street. He uses his "expert" position on the subject to configure his arguments and analysis to tilt the weight of evidence behind his theory in many cases. In other words, his familiarity with where he wants this to go influences his choices of examples. Moreover, he relies on too few examples in too many cases. For example, the world of wall Street should have provided a wealth of examples as to the validity-and the errors-inherent in his theory. His choices seem to be crafted to provide maximum support while eliminating any element of contraindication whatsoever.
So, in the end, despite the fact that Surowiecki has written a wonderfully readable book, and posited some fascinating theoretical axioms, the book feels a bit to tilted to be thoroughly honest with the subject matter in an applied arena. Surowiecki gives us much food for thought but also leaves us with reasons to doubt somewhat his objectivity and intellectual honesty. That fact detracts frm the value of the book, and that's a shame.The Wisdom of Crowds Overview

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Building a Professional Learning Community at Work: A Guide to the First Year Review

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Building a Professional Learning Community at Work: A Guide to the First Year ReviewBefore I read this book, I have to admit I wasn't quite sure what a "professional learning community" was. I must confess that, even though I'm a fan of co-author Bill Ferriter's blog, I generally skipped over his posts about this topic.
Through his book, I've learned that it's basically about strategically and intentionally developing a "community of learners" among school staff. Bill and his co-author Parry Graham have put together a very accessible step-by-step guide on how to go about creating this kind of culture, including ways to trouble-shoot potential challenges. The questions that it encourages readers to ask themselves and their colleagues might be the most important parts of the book.
In many ways, the process is similar to doing good community organizing (I spent nineteen years as an organizer prior to becoming a teacher) -- identifying potential leaders, beginning with a vision and having others adapt it to make it their own, focusing on conversations and relationships. This book makes it all applicable and usable in a school situation. In fact, I think it would be a useful book for anyone who is trying to create a collegial learning culture in any type of organization or business.
I have taught in two schools. The school where I've been for the past six years has been lucky enough to have a principal who has worked with teachers to use these methods -- almost to a "tee" -- and develop a culture of collegiality and professionalism that has truly transformed our school.
The one where I taught for my first year had none of these elements, and I believe that it contributed to its being permanently closed-down.
As its epilogue says:
While the challenges of reculturing schools into professional learning communities are great, the rewards -- successful, empowered practitioners and students who are learning regardless of circumstance -- are worth the effort!Building a Professional Learning Community at Work: A Guide to the First Year OverviewBuilding a Professional Learning Community at WorkTM: A Guide to the First Year addresses the real-world critical questions that arise when schools begin their work to become professional learning communities. How can administrators and teachers take the promise of a PLC and turn it into reality? How can school leaders transform theories of collaboration into highly effective nuts-and-bolts practices? This book is set in the context of one year in the life of a PLC. It chronicles the efforts of a building principal, Steve, and his teachers to build a true PLC at Central Middle School by focusing on the successes and challenges inherent in the process. Each chapter includes four elements. An opening story highlights an important event in the growth of a learning community. Lessons From the Front Line spotlights the successful decisions and common mistakes made by the characters in the opening story. The Relevant Theory and Research section introduces the theories of experts and connects them to the work of PLCs to provide readers with an approachable framework for understanding and a language for describing the complex, yet predictable, changes that are inevitable when schools restructure as PLCs. The Recommendations section offers a collection of suggestions from which to draw while working through change in a building. The lessons in Building a Professional Learning Community at Work are drawn from the authors own experiences working as teachers, building administrators, consultants, and coaches at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. It emphasizes that powerful collaboration can happen anywhere, but it requires hard work, purposeful steps, and a deep understanding of the PLC model. The tools in this book have been tested time and again by real teachers and teams.

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No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing Review

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No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing ReviewNo B**S Social Media, a Recommended Book (Four Stars)
No B**S Social Media, Review No B**S? Really! No B**S Social Media at least has a catchy title. It certainly got my attention and hope that this would be one of the better books on Social Media Marketing. I teach Social Media Marketing in San Francisco and online (just Google `Jason McDonald' or click on my profile to find me), and so I am always on the look out for new insights into the emerging world of SMM.
Bottom line: four stars
I recommend the book as a good, fresh intro to Social Media Marketing.
The book's strength: a detailed, high level overview to WHY Social Media matters.
The book's weakness: lack of how-to-, step-by-step detail.
No B**S Social Media is 90% a conceptual book, and only 10% a practical how-to guide. The discussions of ROI / Metrics, review marketing, and how to organize your social media team in a larger company are all quite good. If you have an established product, more than ten employees, and are looking for a good airplane read on social media, this is a good book for you. If you are a start up, a single employee company, or are looking for a detailed practical manual on Social Media Marketing, you are better served by Social Media for Dummies.
Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid of Social Media
Not surprisingly, given its brash title, the book's tone is no nonsense. One major theme in the book is: Be afraid, be very afraid! Be afraid, first of all, that the Social Media Revolution is here, and be afraid that you - Mr. or Ms. Marketing - do not understand it. Your company will be doomed as will you - so you had better start paying attention! Do I agree with this statement? Absolutely. Do I agree with the tone: not at all.
Should you be afraid of Social Media? If you are a large company like Nestle or United Airlines, there is certainly reason to fear the viral attack campaign of your Facebook page, or the viral video "United Breaks Guitars." For most businesses, however, the worst that happens is a) the unhappy customer review on Yelp or Google Places, or b) a complete lack of interest by your customers in your products.
Very few of us will experience a viral video assault like "United Breaks Guitars," but many of us will experience the "b" option - difficulty getting our customers to truly be excited about our brand, our products, and our news. Fear is the wrong metaphor, in my view.
Attitude is everything I believe, so despite what No B**S says, I encourage you to be open minded about Social Media rather than fearful. Expect some direct insights from your customers, good or bad, but see this revolution for what it is: an amazing, fun marketing opportunity to get to know your customers regardless of the limits of time or space. Experiment. Be innovative. For many small businesses, Social Media will start and end with Google Places and Yelp. That's OK. It all depends on what YOU make what works for YOUR BUSINESS.
My take, therefore, is 1) don't be afraid you will be left behind, there is still plenty of time to get started in Social Media Marketing. But certainly take the plunge now and start educating yourself and your company, and 2) don't worry too much about the high-visibility attacks such as those against Nestle or United Airlines. Unless you are a major brand, those viral social media messages are very rare indeed, and 3) look for focused opportunities rather than trying to do everything at once. Nigerian proverb: man who goes after two mice, catches none. So, focus, focus, focus on just the best social media opportunities, unique to your business.
Social Media Opportunities - Reviews and Review-based SMM
For many businesses the strongest Social Media Opportunity is in the review space. Fortunately this is the best part of the book - its discussion of reviews and eWOM (electronic word-of mouth). Nowadays, many customers may base their decision to engage with you on reviews posted about your company or products on sites such as ePinions.com, Amazon.com, Yelp.com, and other platforms. Small businesses like roofing companies or attorneys, in particular, are being reviewed heavily on Yelp and Google Places.
Do reviews matter to your business?
If so, what is your strategy to encourage them?
If so, what is your strategy to monitor and respond to them - good, bad, and ugly?
With respect to reviews, the authors make the obvious but necessary point that people often do NOT believe advertising but they WILL believe the reviews of total strangers. Looking for a new Bar-be-que restaurant in Dallas? Turn to Yelp or Google Places, read reviews, go to restaurant. Ready to buy a new book on Amazon? Read the reviews, like the reviewer, buy the book. Review marketing is big, and getting bigger. Reviews matter. Do you lack a review strategy? Then be afraid, be very afraid.
Here, however, is where the book falls down. We are given no easy Web index of sites that have reviews, tools or tips to encourage reviews - so we know that reviews are important, but we aren't really taught how to cultivate them, at either the conceptual or practical level. Like so many books in this sector, the book reads too much like a novel and not enough like a workbook. As someone who teaches Social Media Marketing, I know from my students that what they want are practical, step-by-step directions on issues like how to encourage reviews. In this regard, No B**S Social Media disappoints. It even lacks an appendix of great websites, or power tools for Social Media - items that in this Internet age should certainly be part of any book on the topic.
Conclusion
There's theory and then there's practice. A truly excellent Social Media Marketing book would have booth - a discussion of why reviews matter, and also a step-by-step guide to how to encourage reviews. No B**S Social Media is more theory than practice, but it's still a good book. Buying it, reading it, and most of all - beginning to embrace Social Media - is a start. That's no B**S.No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing OverviewThe In-Your-Face, Results-Focused, No-"Kumbaya" Guide to Social Media for Business!Detailed techniques for increasing sales, profits, market share, and efficiency

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