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1-Page Summary of Humanize

Overview

Everyone in marketing knows they have to figure out how to use social media. However, most people are just using it without realizing why it’s so powerful and what lessons can be learned from its impact on the business world. This is a shame because we can learn everything we need about doing business today by looking at social media and the way it has changed our culture.

Business has changed from what it used to be. It’s no longer a giant machine that produces products, but rather more like us humans—fallible and curious.

This book examines how some of the best companies have succeeded in making their businesses more human. They do this by looking at key points that are important to marketers, as well as anyone who wants their business to reach a broader audience.

Best practices are no longer effective. Good companies are courageous, and grocery stores make all their salaries public knowledge.

Big Idea #1: Social media has revolutionized the way we do business.

Social media has become a big part of our lives, and it’s changed the way we interact with each other. It’s also had an effect on business in several ways. Social media makes it harder for companies to control their brand images because they can’t rely on PR spokespeople anymore. Before social media, businesses would develop a marketing strategy based on market research, but now things are different since people can share information immediately via social media networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Today, companies have to deal with word-of-mouth marketing. Anyone can broadcast their opinions about a brand on Facebook and Twitter.

As a result of new communication platforms, businesses no longer have as much control over their brands. They also don’t need to go through traditional media channels like newspapers and magazines to get their message out. Communication is now done in real time on social media sites like Twitter, which can report news faster than traditional media outlets.

Social media has had a huge impact on the business world. In addition to helping people communicate, it’s also changed how industries are structured.

Organizations used to offer networking, education and advocacy as benefits for members. Now people can network online for free, so the influence of those organizations has lessened and they have lost their power.

Social media has changed the world. Businesses must find new ways to connect with customers, but have they been doing so? You’ll learn more about this later in this article.

Big Idea #2: Entrenched, conventional practices discourage companies from developing more innovative approaches.

Many businesses haven’t been able to keep up with the times. Even amidst the social media revolution, plenty of companies continue to rely on old techniques that were developed over many years and reinforced through benchmarking.

Although best practices can be useful, they tend to oversimplify the complexities of cause and effect. For example, strategic planning is an example of a best practice that’s still used by many businesses today. However, these plans are often abandoned because reality unfolds in complicated ways — especially in the social media age.

Best practices also have some drawbacks. For example, they can lead to the compartmentalization of an organization into discrete parts — making it hard for businesses to see how all those parts interact and work together.

Let’s consider human resource management, which is a process in many organizations. It involves hiring employees into specific departments and having them fulfill certain job descriptions. The problem with this approach is that it can create unnecessary barriers between departments and prevent information sharing across the whole company. That leads to another point: best practices are detrimental because they rigidly formalize business processes, discouraging open-ended thinking.