Books on a Shelf: Citizen Marketers - When People are the Message

At the most recent WOMMA board meeting, customer evangelism evangelista (and fellow WOMMA board member) Jackie Huba gave me a copy of her latest book written in partnership with co-evangelista Ben McConnell entitled, drumrull please....Citizen Marketer: When People Are the Message.  While I'm a wee bit bit skeptical about the reapplicability or re-appplication potential of some of the book examples (scaling "passion" is easier said than done), and early this year I didn't net out in the exact same place as Huba and McConnell on their well-blogged observations and take-aways re: big-buzz-low-box Snakes on A Plane, the book's an excellent, engaging, provocative and case-study rich read.  It also validates and reinforces so many dimensions of CGM.  Moreover, I hardly need cash from PayPerPost to say or blog, enthusiastically and with nary a hint of reservation, that Jackie and Ben are among the most thoughtful, articulate, and customer-centered thinkers in marketing land today.  Then again, am I truly enough of an evangelist to write more than a couple hundred words at 4 AM this morning when BrandWeek magazine just published an excerpt of their book that better telegraphs the book's broader content than my own blog blather: I think not.  Again, here's the link to the BrandWeek article.  Important to note that well beyond the case studies, the book is loaded with compelling frameworks to help us distill, categorize, interpret and understand what's really taking place behind citizen marketer viral bursts or threads, including this construct regarding so-called "memes" (help me, I still struggle with that term).  "One reason why citizen-created memes spread," the authors note, " is that they often follow the four stages of successful meme replication:

• "Assimilation. The meme is noticed, understood and accepted by someone, who becomes a host of the meme.
• "Retention. It's embedded in memory. The longer it's stored there, the better.
• "Expression. The idea can take some form, such as language, text, pictures, or even in unconscious behavior, such as the way someone walks.
• "Transmission. The host passes the meme on to one or more people.

All in all, a smart book by smart people...and quite timely.  Jackie will be speaking (and signing books, I presume) at the upcoming WOMMA conference in Wash DC next week in case you happen to be there.