Synopses & Reviews
What can business leaders learn from Barack Obama's improbable victory? A great deal, says this brief, readable book, which spells out the lessons of the Obama campaign and goes on to illustrate them, citing companies that have used similar techniques to succeed. Obama ran a nearly flawless campaign that stayed on message, attracted tens of thousands of dedicated volunteers, and collected a record flood of dollars from donors large and small. But his triumph was also to use social networking to create a vast online community that has changed politics forever. And that's precisely what businesses need to do. In a soundbyte, Obama's threefold approach was (1) to keep his cool, (2) to apply to politics the social technologies of the Internet, including blogs, texting, and viral videos, and (3) to embody in himself the change that he meant to bring to the country. None of these goals are as simple as they sound. Barack, Inc., not only spells them out clearly but offers actionable lessons that businesspeople can apply, beginning tomorrow. "Change" has become a tired political cliché, but Obama gave it new life by persuading a solid majority of voters that he could lead them to a whole new kind of politics and government, transcending the petty partisanship of recent years. And he himself embodied that change. "We are the ones we've been waiting for," he told his rallies. "We are the change we seek. . . . Let's go change the world." Just so, says this important book, business leaders must embrace change and become the change they offer. Only then will their constituencies -- shareholders, employees, suppliers, customers -- follow them to achieve it. But having done that, their companies will have become communities -- and the authors tell us that community, in addition to products and profits, is what business is about in the Web 2.0 world of the 21st century.
Review
As featured on ABC News Now and Marketwatch Radio Network. Also featured in
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Synopsis
Praise for Barack, Inc.
"From social networking on the Web to stunning message discipline, the campaign holds lessons for every leader, from the world of soap powder to the practice of accounting. Barack, Inc. does a fine job of capturing these universally applicable and immediately implementable precepts.”
Tom Peters, best selling author, Re-Imagine! and In Search of Excellence
“Obama is the first president of the Internet age. His application of social media and his understanding of the Net generation brought him to power. Every business leader should follow his lead and read this great book.”
Don Tapscott, best selling author, Wikinomics and Grown Up Digital
“Barack Obama is a man of rare abilities. Leaders of all stripes in all sorts of organizations--public and private--have much to learn from his extraordinary campaign. It’s all right here, ready for you to put to work.”
Captain D. Michael Abrashoff, best selling author, It’s Your Ship
“For years, the American people have wanted government to run more like a business. The surprising truth: most businesses could stand to learn a great deal from Barack Obama, and from this insightful, whip-smart, and hugely useful book.”
Daniel Coyle, best selling author, Lance Armstrong’s War
Visit www.barackinc.com to put the winning lessons of the Obama campaign into action within your organization.
Synopsis
Barack Obama's campaign didn't just make history: it teaches lessons that every business can profit from. The Obama campaign was brilliantly planned, strategized, and executed, and built to drive home a powerful, consistent core value proposition: the proposition of change. Moreover, it had an extraordinary understanding of innovation, manifested by its extraordinary use of technology to achieve specific, quantifiable goals. In Barack, Inc., Barry Libert and Rick Faulk present the Obama campaign as a business, identifying lessons any business leader can use to maximize performance. Libert and Faulk cover issues ranging from marketing to leadership, strategy to execution. They reveal how Obama's team identified and honed a powerful core message, and applied it flexibly in response to changing circumstances without ever compromising core brand values. You'll discover how Obama built a focused, "no-drama" organization that empowered local decision-makers without sacrificing nationwide consistency or discipline. Finally, the authors, executives at the world's leading provider of business social networking services, show how Obama leveraged social networking at a scale unprecedented in the history of either politics or business. From start to finish, Barack, Inc. is actionable: packed with ready-to-use strategies and tactics that can help you succeed with any goal, in any marketplace.
About the Author
Barry Libert is chairman and Rick Faulk CEO of Mzinga, a leading enterprise social technology and services provider. The company manages over 14,000 online communities, which draw more than 60 million total online visitors every month.
Libert is a recognized authority on entrepreneurial leadership strategies and a pioneer in the business use of social technologies. He recently co-authored We Are Smarter than Me, a critically acclaimed book created in collaboration with Wharton Publishing and more than 4,000 community participants that illustrates how businesses can profit from the wisdom of crowds. A one-time McKinsey and Company consultant, Libert has also co-authored two other highly regarded books about the business value of information and relationships entitled Cracking the Value Code and Value RX. He is also a regularly featured keynote speaker who has delivered speeches to audiences of 20,000+ globally.
Faulk is currently the CEO of Mzinga, and has more than 21 years of executive leadership and marketing experience at some of the world’s most notable high-tech companies, among them Cisco, WebEx, Intranets.com, PictureTel, Shiva Corporation, and Lotus. Early in his career, he also founded First Software, which grew to sales of more than $175 million in less than four years and was ranked on one of Inc. magazine's lists of fastest-growing companies in the United States.
Table of Contents
Introduction 2
Chapter 1 SUCCESS YOU CAN BELIEVE IN--AND EMULATE 6
Getting down to business may be passé.
Getting up to politics could be the wave of our future.
Chapter 2 BE COOL 16
The indispensable quality of a leader whose decisions
and actions can change people's lives is his cool--his calm rationality,
steadiness under pressure, and ability to stay on message and
control strong emotions.
Chapter 3 BE SOCIAL 58
Business--like politics--is extremely personal.
Chapter 4 BE THE CHANGE 104
Impermanence rules the universe.
Those who resist change resist reality and life itself.
Epilogue 144
Sources 148
Index 156