Reviewing other people’s books when you have one coming out in a very similar area - and for what it’s worth Penny Power’s effort outsold mine by a very considerable margin in pre-publication sales and I’m expecting very much the same thing when mine is actually released - can look dodgy. The temptation is to try, subtly, to undermine your competitor’s work.

It gets even worse as a pastime when you have to admit that your competitor has done rather a good job. Penny Power is of course the founder of eCademy, one of the earlier social networking sites and one which predates the ‘social networking’ name. As such the book she’s written is about a personal journey as well as doing business. She looks not only at how to create value online and how to engage with people (and let’s be honest, social media books that tell you how to do that are many at the moment) but also how we got there, the thinking that has made this new way of doing business possible and how she built her own company in this new environment.

It’s a very different approach from any I could have taken - only a handful of individuals could have written a book like this and I’m glad Penny Power has done so. It’s as much about cultural history as a business book and all the better for it. If you’re only going to buy one book on social media then, er, mine please! But if you’re going to buy two, this is definitely the other one you should get.

DISCLAIMER: The above link to the book goes through my Amazon Associates account. This has in no way biased my review.

Tags: social media