Power Friending: A Quick Review

Amber Mac, Power Friending Last week I fin­ished Amber Mac’s (that’s Amber MacArthur, or @ambermac; also on Wikipedia) book, Power Friend­ing: Demys­ti­fy­ing Social Media to Grow Your Busi­ness [Kin­dle Edi­tion]. I admit to being hes­i­tant because of the title, which I didn’t really like, but I do appre­ci­ate Amber’s take on all things social media, so I over­came my appre­hen­sion. And the title can’t be hurt­ing sales — at least not more than is made up for by Amber’s smil­ing face on the cover. And the book just hit one of the Globe & Mail’s Top Ten book lists, prob­a­bly because Amber knows her stuff and presents it well.

Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior

Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior Ori Brafman has previously co-written The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations along with Rod Beckstrom. I've previously mentioned the book a couple of times, and was looking forward to delving into Ori's new book, Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, written with his brother, Rom Brafman.  I was pleased when it arrived by FedEx, and I devoured it pretty quickly.

Comparing well with Blink and The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, Sway, like Starfish, is well-written and entertaining as the Brafmans explain how people's judgment is swayed in various contexts.  Recognizing the types of context in which one's judgment is likely to be swayed can help avert poor decision-making.  As the old saying goes, "forewarned is forearmed."