There are few better ways to spend a hot summer day than lying on the beach with a good book. While many prefer their summer reading on the lighter side, there are plenty of good reads that will sharpen your PR skills without leaving you passed out and burning in the sun halfway through the book. Here’s my short list.
Start with Why, Simon Sinek
I immediately purchased this book after watching Simon Sinek’s TED talk How Great Leaders Inspire Action. Before you even finish reading this blog post, watch his video – it’s that good.
The basic summary of Start With Why is this: “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”
It sounds simple enough but looking back at all of the client projects I’ve had over the years, the Why is a very basic question that is often overlooked. It’s very easy to communicate the What – you build a product, you provide a service, you’re an art gallery, you’re a candidate for public office. Unfortunately, explaining what you do doesn’t give people a reason to care.
What Sinek very eloquently spells out is that when you first communicate with Why and build from there, you are able to reach people on a much deeper level.
Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge
Published back in 2009, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations is nearly ancient is social media years. Fortunately, it’s the authors’ approach to public relations, rather than the sites and tools listed, that is the real value of this book.
I attended a workshop hosted by Brian Solis a couple years ago and his take on public relations – Public Relations 2.0, as he calls it – has become the standard for integrating social media into public relations practices.
The central theme of the book is that public relations must increasingly focus on building relationships rather than broadcasting a message. It can be a time consuming, long-tail approach but Solis and Breakenridge show how it can pay dividends in the end.
Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Malcolm Gladwell
The theory behind Tipping Point is that ideas spread similar to viruses. Every public relations practitioner wants their message to spread like wild fire or their client’s YouTube video to go viral. In Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell very clearly identifies the key types of people that need to be reached for an idea to spread. Gladwell divides these groups of people into three categories: Connectors, Mavens and Salespeople. Find out how to reach them and you’ll make your job much easier.
Walden, Henry David Thoreau
CNBC reported that public relations is ranked as the second most stressful job in the country, which is why my annual trip to Canada’s Georgian Bay is a must. I love my job and find the work to be extremely rewarding, but for me Walden serves as a great reminder that living in a hyper connected world chasing after the American Dream is a choice. There are few things better than enjoying a long weekend by the camp fire in the middle of nowhere reading about Thoreau’s call for “simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!” The stark contrast between that and the tight deadlines, back-to-back conference calls and last-minute news conferences of a PR pro’s life is pretty amazing.
