This week’s edition of Weekend Reads focuses image management, work styles and marketing to the puzzling millennial generation. Snarky commenters on social media, computers taking over our professions, and the most influential generation of consumers ever.
Sometime overnight, your world exploded. Everything was fine when you left work yesterday. But while you were sleeping, some snarky comments were posted on social media, and it went viral. Can your business survive this sudden scandal? Author Eric Dezenhall says yes, but you need to proceed with caution. In his new book “Glass Jaw,” he explains that it’s very easy for someone to hurt what you’ve built – and if, as they say in pugilistic circles, you can’t take a punch, then you have a glass jaw. Dezenhall calls it the “Fiasco Vortex,” in which the rumor or scandal whirls and circles like a cyclone until it’s uncontrollably “spread beyond the reach of available treatments.” And by “treatments,” he doesn’t mean you should hire a spin-doctor or PR team to make the problem go away; those “experts may not be experts at all,” says Dezenhall, and employing them can backfire spectacularly. Above all, “Realism is the main ingredient in a survival cocktail. Getting knocked down can be healthy, provided that the experience frightens but doesn’t destroy.” Available for purchase here.
There are hundreds of activities you do without thinking: driving, riding a bike, buttering your toast, reading this review. Psychologists call that tacit knowledge; they’re things you had to learn, but now do automatically. For these type of activities, if you could describe step-by-step directions to complete these acts, that’s called explicit knowledge. Author Nicholas Carr states in “The Glass Cage,” that computers are starting to complete daily mundane human acts that have become automatic to us. However, more and more professionals are relying on to much on the accuracy of these devices and that could lead to “automation complacency… when a computer lulls us into a false sense of security.” Available for purchase here.
Born between 1977 and 1995, America ’s so-named “Millennials” have become a force to be reckoned with. Over 80-million strong, they account for around one-quarter of the population – which is some serious spending power. In the new book “Marketing to Millennials” by Jeff Fromm and Christie Garton, you’ll find out how to take a long view of millennial customers and the six basic “segmentation models’ that categorize this generation. Available for purchase here.
For AZTB’s past Weekend Reads click here
Contributions from Terri Schlichenmeyer | The Bookworm SEZ, LLC
