In case you’ve been living in a cave, Jay Baer and Amber Naslund have teamed up and published The NOW Revolution – 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter, and More Social (affiliate link).

Their new book has been receiving rave reviews and I received a copy with the understanding that I would share my thoughts after reading it…

There is a high probability that this book will frustrate you.

Yes… frustrate you, but follow me here. Jay and Amber have decided to tackle the challenge businesses are facing to adjust to being social and not just doing social. For those of us in or around the “social” industry, we completely grasp this concept.

The NOW Revolution is organized into seven sections – the 7 shifts mentioned in the title. Each shift walks us through the process of becoming social, scalable and sustainable. There are action items, questions, summaries and plenty of additional documents linked via Microsoft Tag technology.

But, you’re wondering why this book may frustrate you.

Most companies are not social.

Even the companies that do social.

Most companies have processes and organizational hierarchies that inhibit being social.

If you have a finger on the pulse of where you work… there is a good chance that reading an actionable guide of what you should or can do to infuse social into your business will lead you to the conclusion How the *$&^ am I going to make this happen?

Being a social company is not a fluffy thing. It isn’t a trendy thing. It isn’t creating cool content that is sharable. It is changing the entire culture of your organization and embracing the fact that there are TONS of things out of your control.

If this was an easy thing to do, we wouldn’t need a book, guide, agency or consultant to help.

What will you get out of The NOW Revolution?

• Lots of ideas for things to do within the workplace
• A better understanding of scaling social
• What to look for and cultivate in employees to become more social
• How to handle real-time crises
• A more in-depth knowledge of what listening and monitoring really means
• Potentially frustrated, depressed or overwhelmed trying to make this happen

Again, I’d like to reinforce the fact that if this was easy… every company would be social. This book when read, understood and placed in the correct hands can be a catalyst to help you start the process of becoming social.

Who should read this?

• Ambitious, social savvy folks that don’t mind overcoming adversity
• Executives who don’t want to be years behind the curve (hint: you’re already a few behind)
• Agencies and consultants that are tasked with improving or creating social strategies and business units

This book isn’t a get rich quick scheme. It isn’t a guide to monetize your blog. It isn’t a direct aide to your personal brand. It isn’t something one person can read and do themselves. However, this book is one that can be passed around to a few key folks and used as a guide to restructure, revamp, create or destroy business practices and processes.

The NOW Revolution is one of the better books I’ve seen to tackle the business and organizational challenges of social media and give you a roadmap to improve things.

What one thing is missing?

Jay and Amber are both extremely smart, engaging and funny folks. I never quite heard their voice in this book. This is something nitpicky and probably comes from the fact that I enjoy talking to each of them, but I wish there was a little more of their personalities here. Granted, the goal of this book isn’t entertainment… it is about empowering you to change your business and teaching you how to do that. But, I would have liked a little of the sarcasm and humor I know and love about each of them. 🙂

Ready to get your copy and start changing your business?

I have three copies of The NOW Revolution to give away to folks who need and want one.

Here is how to win a copy:

• Tell me why you want this book and what you plan to do with it.
• 1 Entry: Leave your explanation in the comments section.
• 3 Entries: Write a blog post telling me why you want this book and what you plan to do with it and link to this blog post. Notify me and link to your post in the comments.
• One book will go to the best answer and the other two will be randomly chosen (which means you have a 3x better chance to win by writing a blog post).
• I’ll announce the three winners February 25, 2011!

Disclaimer: All four books were received free of charge with the understanding I would write a review (good, bad, or ugly) and give away the extra books. 🙂

PS. Jay and Amber are coming to Raleigh in May for a Triangle AMA luncheon. Stay tuned for more details!