Empowered:
Unleash
Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business
Two vice presidents at Forrester Research (Bernoff is also the coauthor of
Groundswell) offer a rare thing: a book about using new technologies that actually goes
beyond jargon and offers practical solutions.
In addition to providing examples of how today's consumers have empowered
themselves through social software, the authors suggest that the best way to deal with
such customers is to train and support empowered workers (or HEROes, "highly
empowered and resource operatives").
The most valuable part of the book is its second half, which describes how HERO
employees, management, and IT staff can and must collaborate to make the system work. The
focus on the whole organization makes this a good read for employees and managers alike.
Josh
Bernoff is the coauthor of the Business Week bestseller Groundswell, the "best
book ever written on marketing and media" (Advertising Age). He is senior vice
president, idea development, at Forrester Research.
Ted Schadler is a vice president and
principal analyst in Forrester's IT Research Group. His work over thirteen years at
Forrester has focused on disruptive technologies and how senior decision-makers should
harness them.
Table of Contents
part one: HEROes
1 why your business needs HEROes 3
part two: what HEROes do
2 employee HEROes and their projects 21
3 peer influence analysis 37
4 delivering groundswell customer service 57
5 empowering customers with mobile applications 75
6 amplifying your fans 93
part three: the HERO-powered business
7 do-it-yourself technology fuels the HERO Compact
113
8 is your company ready for HEROes? 131
9 leading and managing HEROes 145
10 helping HEROes innovate 155
11 helping HEROes collaborate 163
12 keeping HEROes safe 177
13 supporting HEROes with technology innovation
191
14 becoming HERO-powered 205
notes 215
acknowledgments 229
case indexes 231
index 237
about the authors 251
272 pages, Hardcover