FIR Book Reviews

In their last book, "The Age of Context," Robert Scoble and Shel Israel explored the future of the smartphone and how it would be used once we reach the convergence of mobile devices, social media, big data, sensors, location technology. Even though we haven't come close to realizing the vision set forth in this book, Scoble and Israel project even further in their new book, "The Fourth Transformation: How Augmented Reality & Artificial intelligence Will Change Everything." In this FIR Book Review, digital media thought leader Richard Binhammer joins FIR host Shel Holtz to review and discuss the book and its themes.Continue Reading → The post FIR Book Review: The Fourth Transformation by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Blockchain technology -- developed as the foundation of Bitcoin -- will have an impact on business and society that we are only beginning to understand. While financial services will be the first industry to experience some foundational changes as a result of blockchain, the technology could ultimately change the nature of how work gets done, how organizations are structured, and how the world works. In this FIR Book Review, FIR host Shel Holtz reviews "Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin is Changing Money, Business, and the World" by Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott.Continue Reading → The post FIR Book Review: Blockchain Revolution by Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Author Shel Israel calls his latest book -- Lethal Generosity: Contextual Technology & The Competitive Edge -- a sequel to Age of Context, the book he co-authored with Robert Scoble. In this FIR Book Review, Richard Binhammer joins Shel Holtz for a conversation about the book and its relevance to the communications industry.Continue Reading → The post Book Review: Lethal Generosity by Shel Israel appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

As a strategic communicator, David Axelrod has seen it all. The communications brains behind Barack Obama's presidential election victories in 2008 and 2012, Axelrod has navigated significant communications crises and developed strategic messaging that moved millions. He shared these stories and lessons in a terrific book, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics. In an FIR Book Review, Kevin Anselmo and Chip Griffin talk about what they learned from the book and what it means for communicators across various industries.Continue Reading → The post Book Review: Lessons for Communicators from David Axelrod’s “Believer” appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Robert Phillips stunned the PR agency world when he walked away from his prestigious position as CEO of Edelman EMEA. Phillips explains his decision in Trust Me, PR is Dead, in which he calls for an end to the PR industry and advocates instead for a new model of public leadership (as the replacement for PR) and public value (the role of corporations which, Phillips believes, need to adopt a reinvented kind of capitalism that focuses as much on contributing to society as to their bottom lines).  In this FIR Book Review, FIR co-host Shel Holtz offers his perspective on Phillips' controversial book.Continue Reading → The post Book Review: Trust Me, PR Is Dead by Robert Phillips appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Geeks Bearing Gifts: Imagining New Futures for News is CUNY journalism professor Jeff Jarvis's latest book, exploring the pressures on current news models and the directions news organizations need to go in order to thrive in the digital world. FIR co-host Shel Holtz reviews the book, which has implications for organizational communicators, particularly in imagining the role of media relations in the future Jarvis imagines.Continue Reading → The post Geeks Bearing Gifts by Jeff Jarvis appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The Mobile Mind Shift: Engineer Your Business to Win in the Mobile Moment provides the first comprehensive overview of what it takes to develop mobile resources that accommodate the growing expectations of users who increasingly turn first to mobile devices.Continue Reading → The post The Mobile Mind Shift, by Ted Schadler, Josh Bernoff, and Julie Ask appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.