The chapter that really resonated with me was "Chapter Six: Forget Company-Centricty-- Think Human-Centricity." Those of you who are regular readers know that I've touted the "it's not the techology it's the people" mantra for years and years. Well, the rest of the world is catching up. Actually, they were there first...as this books demonstrates.

The goal is to soar - to challenge your perceptions and open your mind to innovation and creativity.

Chapter Six begins, "Peter Drucker once said that the single most important thing to remember about any enterprise is that there are no results inside its walls - the result of business is a satisfied customer."

Throughout this chapter, Francois and Ed cite examples of good and bad human-centricity. The good  examples show that executives listened to their community members - they didn't proceed rashly with their great ideas until the ideas were vetted within the community. They understood the purpose of the community- it's not about them, the executives, it's always about the people who are members.

Poorly supported communities had executives that did not listen. Poorly supported communities' executives turned a deaf ear to clamorings of, "Why did you do that???" Guess what happened to them.

As with every chapter in this book, the authors show the reader how to achieve the goals they set forth. In becoming more human-centric, there are four bulleted paragraphs describing how a company becomes more human-centric. The one that resonated the most with me was bullet point #2; I will quote from it:

"Brands- Most brands are product-or company-centric. They need to become customer-centrtic. Do companies really think that most customers are highly concerned with how accurate their luxury watch is, especially when they can buy a perfect timekeeper dirt cheap? The real question is, how do people feel about themselves in the context of your brand? Do they look cool, smart, or informed? That is what really counts, and it is what they are probably interested in doing as they interact on luxury watch online forums."

To me - that paragraph speaks volumes about brands and about customer-think. As a customer of many, many brands, I can attest to the concept of personalization, of being addressed as "Yvonne" where the person addressing me knows me (not just plugs my name into a field on an email blast), and to being listened to. When I make a complaint and receive a generic, "We've received your note and will address it as soon as possible," followed by, "We are sorry you had a difficult time with our website. We believe our site is the best it can be," I'm pretty sure my business is not important to that brand.

When I tweet a complaint to a brand on Twitter, and receive silence in response, I know that brand is not only NOT listening, they don't care. Not about me. They're putting up a front. Not good.

This book gets it right - and shares the insight brands need to be more customer-centric (human-centric) with concrete advice and success stories we can all learn from. Regardless of how big or small your company is, you need to read this book. Read it and learn. That's what it's for. It's not a throw-away, feel-good book. It's a... dare I say it, 'bible' for businesses in the social media, digital, customer-centric world we live in today. 

Hop over and enjoy this great interview of Francois - and, watch for one here, on Lip-sticking.