A Special Thank You to @Tom_Peters who reminds us to thank the people around us – daily.
The Thanksgiving holiday is now behind us, and here at Blue Focus Marketing, we’ve certainly had a lot for which to be thankful. And the truth is, sometimes during our busy lives, it’s easy to lose sight of the things we are most thankful for, and what the little things can mean in the big scheme of things.
If you follow business guru Tom Peters (@Tom_Peters) on Twitter (and if you don’t, you should!), you’ll see that lately his feed has been filled with little reminders to be grateful for all the wonderful people around you. The community response has been a lot of fun to watch, and it serves as a good example of how such a little, simple idea can pack such powerful meaning.
Why we’re thankful
This post is written in part to share our own gratitude. Tom Peters has surprised me time and again over the past month with his public ambassadorship of our book, The Social Employee (@SocialEmployee). His constant shout-outs on Twitter and Facebook have populated our Media Buzz page with content. And when an in-demand thought leader like Peters speaks, the business world listens. That’s why, when I saw this tweet a few weeks ago, I had to do a little celebration dance in the office:
Cheating/2 tweets/my social biz favorite books #1: The Social Employee, Social Business Excellence, The Social Organization.
— Tom Peters (@tom_peters) November 12, 2013
So thank you, Tom. We are beyond humbled by your kind words, and we will do what we can to pay your praise forward with our continued advocacy of social employee cultures as the world enters a new era for business.
Social advocacy in action
Peters’ advocacy of our book The Social Employee over the past month has also served as an intriguing case study of some of the ideas we discuss in the book itself. In fact, it’s a veritable how-to on engaging others, celebrating their accomplishments, and leveraging one’s own communities to amplify their message. So with that in mind, I thought it would be fun to break down Peters’ process to show how easy—and helpful—social advocacy really can be, and powerful the community response can echo afterward.
Started in late October
It all started in late October with our announcement that Peters had been named as one of our 2013 #Nifty50 Men. After tweeting to him that he had won, he quickly replied with the following:
@ckburgess Well, I celebrated by downloading The Social Employee on my iPad AND ordering it from Amazon for next-day delivery! — Tom Peters (@tom_peters) October 29, 2013
In reality, that was enough for me. Just knowing that an influencer like Peters had picked up our book was good news in itself. But in the next couple days, Peters took to his social channels to give almost real-time updates on his thoughts while reading the book. First, we learned he was taking it with him on his trip to Milan:
And then a couple days later, he began to share his thoughts on the book in a series of posts:
The Social Employee: Create study group (social!) around IBM chapter, p 53-76. IBM enormous, but virtually all applies to smallish orgs..
— Tom Peters (@tom_peters) November 3, 2013
In these few posts, Peters uses both specific examples (IBM, Adobe) to support the book, and then offers a more general recommendation for it as a whole. The strategy was enough to demonstrate his commitment to exposing the book to his community, but also to demonstrate his good tact in not bombarding people with the same message on repeat.
Again, this was all very humbling. But the real fun began the next day. First, there was this delightful surprise:
@ckburgess @johnlkennedy @ethanmcc @lauriefriedman @casievogel Cheryl: Stayed up late mining yr book for PowerPoint slides (w/attribution).
— Tom Peters (@tom_peters) November 4, 2013
And then another advocate of The Social Employee, Jill Rowley, whose own work in social business we profile here, jumped in to help amplify the message:
Cheryl has over 200 slides covering @SocialEmployee – LOVE!! @tom_peters @ckburgess @johnlkennedy @ethanmcc @lauriefriedman @casievogel — Jill Rowley (@jill_rowley) November 4, 2013
An interesting thing had taken place. On Peters’ trip to the World Business Forum in Milan, he read our book. After reading our book, he quickly decided to incorporate some of our arguments into his slides at the last minute—even taking the time to tell us about it! In the process, IBM’s Ethan McCarty (@EthanMCC), who was so kind to share his concept of the bag of marbles with us for The Social Employee, got in contact with Peters as well in order to help flesh out the idea even more. Everything came together in such a quick, organic way, and we were in awe watching it all unfold.
You can view Peters’ slideshow by visiting his website, or through this direct link.
Celebrate the idea, not the product
These exchanges represent the clearest examples of community celebration of a cause those of us involved all felt passionate about. Although much of the discussion centered around The Social Employee, it wasn’t so much a matter of celebrating the book, but rather the ideas contained within.
The ideas catalyzing social employee cultures across the globe are larger than Blue Focus Marketing, Tom Peters (@Tom_Peters), Jill Rowley (@Jill_Rowley), Ethan McCarty (@ethanmcc), and other evangelists like David Aaker (@DavidAaker), David C. Edelman (@DavidEdelman), and Kevin Randall (@kevinbrandall). We had the privilege of getting an inside view of how social employees work within cutting-edge companies, but these ideas are not ours to own, but to share and pay forward.
And for that, and to everyone who is spreading the social employee message on a daily basis, we are very thankful indeed.
For more of Tom Peters’s comments on The Social Employee, please visit the “Media Buzz” page.
In The Social Employee, we go behind the scenes with several leading brands—such as IBM, AT&T, Dell, Adobe, Southwest Airlines, Cisco, Acxiom, and Domo—pulling the lid off the inspiring social business success stories that have propelled these companies into the 21st century. These cutting-edge brands have all come to the same realization: the path to social business lies through empowering the social employee.
See what others are saying about The Social Employee.
“Great brands have always started on the inside, but why are companies taking so long to leverage the great opportunities offered by internal social media? . . . The Social Employee lifts the lid on this potential and provides guidance for businesses everywhere.” —JEZ FRAMPTON, Global Chairman and CEO, Interbrand
The Social Employee offers an unparalleled behind-the-scenes look at the social business success stories of some of the biggest brand names in the business world, including IBM, AT&T, Dell, Adobe, Southwest Airlines, Cisco, Acxiom, and Domo. These cutting-edge brands have all come to the same realization: the path to social business lies through empowering the social employee.
The brands that leverage their employee base in order to engage customers and prospects through social media are the ones destined to win the marketing wars. This book not only details the astronomical rise of the social employee, but also outlines the innovative methods that leading companies have employed to foster cultures of enthusiastic and engaged workers.
FOREWORD by David C. Edelman, Global Co-Leader, Digital Marketing & Sales Practice, McKinsey & Company
AFTERWORD by Kevin Randall, Vice President of Brand Strategy & Research at
Movéo Integrated Branding, and a columnist for Fast Company
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