Groundswell

Library is a sacred place for many Russians as it was for me. I spent a lot of time of my school and university life in libraries believing that it is the most important source of knowledge. Sometimes I was waiting for two weeks to take a certain valuable book because there was a queue for it. Sounds unbelievable, doesn’t it? Now days paper books become less and less usable especially among youngsters. You can consider me as an old-fashioned lady but my books are my treasure. They are kinds of pets. I buy what I am interested in, what I love and then read them carefully. It doesn’t mean I don’t read anything from Internet  but what I read is articles, reviews or expert opinions but not books(except our course books of course). I could never imagine that  Groundswell would be of my interest. But what I learnt from this book made me think about changing world of technology. You accept it or it will work against you. “It is like a flood that can’t be stopped….And while you can’t stop it, you can understand it. You can not only live with it; you can thrive in it. That’s the point of this book.” The fact that everything is free is promising and frightening at the same time. On one hand, customers have a chance to share their opinions about goods or services of the companies, but on the other hand, many companies can go bankrupt because there will be no need of them. It is good for me since I am a customer, my life is becoming easier from many points of view. I am becoming a follower in whose hands there is a certain part of power. Li and Bernoff state: ”Your brand is whatever your customers say it is” It is a very good motto for the companies which trust themselves more than their clients. It will make them wake up and think about their strategies and approaches more carefully.