Book Reviews
Digital and Strategic Communication Book Reviews are compiled from student discussions of digital media, strategic communication, and information design texts.
-
Naked Conversations (Scoble & Israel, 2006)
Naked Conversations: How blogs are changing the way businesses talk with customers (Scoble & Israel, 2006) “We wished we read this at the beginning of this class,” say Amy Martin and Shannon Hames about Naked Conversations: How blogs are changing the way businesses talk with customers. But, says Martin, there remains a big split between people…
-
Emotional Design (Norman, 2004)
Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things (Donald Norman, 2004) Three basic processes (visceral, emotional, and reflective) guide our interactions with the everyday things in our lives. The visceral reaction is our gut reaction; the behavioral reaction is based upon our ability to use a product; and the reflective process is the cognitive…
-
Social Media Marketing Strategies (Evans, 2010)
Social Media Marketing Strategies for Engaging in Facebook. Twitter & Other Social Media (Evans, 2010) “You should be engaging in social media because it is free.” This is the first myth shredded by Liana Evans. Evans takes a strategic look at social media marketing strategies. Having a Facebook page or a blog or Twitter is not…
-
What’s Mine is Yours (Botsman & Rogers, 2010) Part II
What’s Mine is Yours: The rise of collaborative consumption by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers (2010) Part II Tonight, we revisited this book in a second conversation. Our previous conversation took us through the process of developing a community. Katina Watkins offered more discussion surrounding the need for corporate response once the connections have been…
-
What Would Google Do? (Jarvis,2009) Part II
What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis (2009) Part II Democratization of information on the Internet has implications for other businesses. Google’s model could have far reaching implications. The news might best be created by community curators who share relevant information for local audiences. The local restaurant has a similar opportunity to be “Google-y” by…
-
Space in the Margins
When I teach Layout and Design, we spend a great deal of time talking about margins. Margins organize space in a design by allowing “white space” to offset the area containing the content on a page. For example, on this website, you’ll see a margin to the left containing, well, nothing, and a margin to…
-
What Would Google Do? (Jarvis, 2009)
What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis (2009) Bill Gary summarizes the discussion this way: “Rather than being a solution for your customers, be a platform and allow the public to build on your platform.” The focus is to help your customers use your products they way they need to. Google’s business model is not…
-
The Laws of Simplicity (Maeda, 2006)
The Laws of Simplicity: Design, technology, business, life by John Maeda (2006) “Simplicity is sanity,” says Patti Palmer, quoting John Maeda. “Maeda is trying to get us to examine ourselves and simplify our lives.” It’s not an attempt to have us root out our craziness, but rather to articulate balance in our lives. One of…
-
What’s Mine is Yours (Botsman & Rogers, 2010)
What’s Mine is Yours: The rise of collaborative consumption by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers (2010) “Unbeknownst to me, this was a book I was meant to read,” says Amy Martin. The need and market for trading, sharing, and reusing stuff is growing. Landfill space and space for storage is outpacing our growth as a…
-
Putting the Public Back in Public Relations (Solis & Breakenridge, 2009)
Putting the Public Back in Public Relations by Brian Solis and Dierdre Breakenridge (2009) “I’ve always been curious about the use of social media in public relations,” says Valarie Udeh. “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations is about putting the relationship, the conversation, back into the old-school public relations model.” Solis and Breakenridge discuss…
J.A.McArthur 