This is a review (my first) for The Marketing Society Book Club and aimed at you, busy marketers, and my advice is that if you only have limited time to read something on managing the impact that the digital, connected world is having on your brand - then read something else.
If you’re interested in reading something on managing the impact of the digital, connected world is having on your life - then this might be the book for you.
To be fair, Randi Zuckerberg didn’t set out to write 'Dot Complicated' as a marketing book, and certainly not as a textbook. Her mission as she puts it herself is 'untangling our wired, wonderful lives.' It’s not without merit as a marketing book and there are lots of insights in it, but in the way that there are consumer insights in the Sun newspaper or a Malcolm Gladwell book.
Dot Complicated reads very well. It’s a bit like a well-informed American Mumsnet book on managing your 'tech-life' balance, part auto-biography and part-self-help book. Some of that advice is pretty good though, and the style is very accessible.
She does introduce some good concepts like the afore-mentioned 'tech-life balance'; a new take on work-life balance and 'dog-fooding' – people who work at tech companies who ‘eat their own dog food’ by using their own products.
There are some observations that will ring true not just for Randi but for many people: 'I reached a point when rather than owning a computer, a phone, and a tablet, those devices were owning me... I had forgotten how to just unplug and enjoy the company of those around me. I had forgotten how to be present in the moment.' Indeed there is some evidence from the latest research that this recognition of the need to live in the present is impacting on people’s behaviour.
There some quotable sound-bites like: 'Giving everyone a megaphone tends to create a society that favors the loud and self-absorbed. Just because a lot of people are talking all at once doesn't mean anything valuable is being said.'
'The New York Times motto is ‘All the news that's fit to print’. If the Internet had a motto it might be ‘F*** it. Write whatever you want.’
However while the advice on managing your digital love life in the chapter on DOT Love may be very apt, it is more agony aunt than marketing analysis.
Giles Lury is the author of The Prisoner and the Penguin. Read more from him in our Clubhouse.
Join our Book Club. If you're a member of The Marketing Society we'd love you to write a 300-word review for our Clubhouse. Or if you're an author get in touch. We've got lots of members keen to review your book. Contact Michael Piggott to find out more.
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