Toolsof Engagement: Presenting and Training in a World of Social Media,by Tom Bunzel, is a textbook. There is an Instructor’s Manualonline at www.wiley.com/college/bunzel. (Link to Instructor Materials at upper right of page. Registration with publisher required to access the Instructor materials.)
Thisis not a book about instructional design, but rather it is aboutusing social media in ways that better engage the audience orlearners when making presentations or delivering training. TomBunzel, who is himself a teacher, a presenter, and the author of anumber of “how-to” technology publications, has compiled anextensive overview of the basic use of these new channels ofcommunication for influencing people, for marketing, and for otherpurposes not necessarily including what we think of as instruction.
Who should read this book?
Toolsof Engagementprimarily addresses the needs of managers, executives, sales andmarketing organizations, and customer service and public relationsorganizations. However, Human Resource (HR) managers and traditionaleducators and trainers who are not familiar with today’s Internettools and Web technologies may also find it of value. But mainly, itis a text for use within a formal course on presentations, marketing,and corporate communications.
Because Tools of Engagement is a textbook, written with the expectation that it will be supported through instruction and discussion, I don’t recommend it as a “do-it-yourself” book for the audiencesI have just named. However, if you are planning a course on marketingcommunications, presentations, or mass communication within thecontext of higher education, a corporate university, or an executivedevelopment program, you should consider Toolsof Engagement as apossible text.
What’s in the book?
Thisis a rather fully packed book, and in this review I am going to lookat it in a little more detail than normal. It’s important tounderstand how it differs from other recent books on social media,particularly JaneBozarth’s, so that anyone who buys it after reading my reviewwill be making a purchase that meets their needs – for use as atextbook, not for their own personal learning or as a guide to usingsocial media in instruction.
A good start, followed by a difficult transition
Bunzelopens with a short but useful summary of the reasons why social mediashould and must be integrated into an organization’s learninginitiatives. These reasons include not only the additionalfunctionality of social media, but also its impact on profitabilityand on critical communication (sales, marketing, executiveleadership, and training and development).
Afterthe first chapter, however, things slow way down. As you might expectin a textbook, Bunzel spends considerable time laying the groundworkfor understanding what social media are and how they work. Forsomeone who is very new to the idea, this is possibly a good thing.Bunzel helpfully provides examples and citations from other books,introduces various social media sites by name (although without theirURLs – this seems a little strange to me, although he does providethese later, in Chapter Four), and offers examples and scenarios tohelp the reader understand the various categories and uses of socialmedia. I didn’t notice many references to actual online resourcesand examples (Weblogs, wikis, etc.) that would be very helpful as examples or as ongoing sources of advice to guide learners in developing effective use of social media.
Eachof the chapters ends with a section called “Questions to Ponder”and it is here that it is most obvious that Tom’s audience consistsof those new to the whole idea of online collaboration. Examples fromChapter Two, titled “How the Presentation World Has Changed,”include:
“How do you feel about sharing the spotlight as a communicator? Do you see yourself as an authority figure who is above challenges from an audience?”
“How will you address the issue of the back channel? Is your audience likely to be online during messages that you deliver? Can you become comfortable accepting their input and interacting with them?”
Theseare important questions, of course, but readers already well adjustedto the omnipresence of social media may find themselves getting alittle impatient.
On to the good stuff in the middle of the book
Inthe third chapter, “Engaging with Social Media,” Bunzel continuesto explain how the nature of presentations has changed from beingone-time events with a single purpose, to being integrated parts ofan ongoing conversation. Presentations today must include interactionand dialogue with a community of interest. He provides a helpful listof six important strategies, which he calls “the new rules ofengagement,” and I hoped he would build the rest of the chapteraround these and expand on them, but he did not. Instead, he providesmore scenarios, a discussion of who should participate in socialmedia and how, a discussion of crowdsourcing (which seemed to me tobe mainly directed to its potential as a marketing or businessdevelopment tool, rather than for learning), and a discussion ofsocial media as “a woman’s world.” The chapter goes on toaddress ROI as “return on influence” and to explain how toimprove and monitor your influence and standing in the social world.
ChapterFour attempts to summarize the new tools of engagement. Bunzel beginswith an extended discussion of Weblogs. Much of this deals with theuse of Weblogs for marketing and influence building. He includes ashort discussion of HTML that seems to me more likely to confuseexecutives and speakers than to enable them to better use theirWeblog. The text moves on to a sparse two-paragraph summary of wikisbefore starting a four-page discussion of LinkedIn. His discussion ofLinkedIn would help someone get started there, but that service ischanging so quickly that I worry the screenshots may soon requireupdating. Bunzel then moves on to discuss the use of bookmarks andpersonal bookmarking services, specifically Delicious.com. Afterthis, the chapter moves on to a discussion of Facebook, withinformation about Twitter, TechCrunch, and Mashable as sources ofcontent for a Facebook page mixed in, in ways that may (again)confuse learners who are completely new to social media. Scenariosprovide support, one of which introduces SnagIt, Photobucket, Flickr,Posterous, and TwitPic, along with Ning, plus a discussion of postingresource material online and of RSS. Bunzel finishes the chapter witheight pages on mashability, sharing Blog content, and using customwidgets. If you are designing a course around this book, I wouldadvise planning your approach to this chapter carefully, or you maylose executives who are more at home with the big picture than withthe details of putting together a presentation using these resources.
InChapter Five, Bunzel narrows the scope of his discussion to Twitterand Ning. This chapter is very well written and should pose noproblems to either the instructional designer incorporating the textinto a course, or to the person teaching that course. Ning haschanged a bit in character since Bunzel wrote this part, so youshould approach the chapter with caution. Chapter Six addresses thechallenges of crafting a visual message, using video within socialmedia, as well as PowerPoint. This discussion stays at what should bea comfortable level for most of the intended audience (managers andexecutives), even while introducing advanced ideas such as displayingthe Twitter backchannel in PowerPoint and converting PowerPointslideshows into video files – with Camtasia as the suggested methodfor the latter. Chapter Six closes with a good discussion ofstorytelling as a tool for assessment, coaching, and facilitation.Chapters Five and Six are both well supported by very helpfulscenarios that walk the student through the development processesinvolved and through some of the technical details.
ChapterSeven takes up the topic of Web conferencing, and the use of socialmedia to promote and complement successful Web events. The longscenarios in this chapter provide good working examples of bestpractices, and should be extremely useful in teaching this content.Bunzel even suggests using Microsoft OneNote as a means thatpresenters can use to organize their content. I would have liked adiscussion of Evernote at this point, but if you are building acourse around Tools ofEngagement, it wouldbe easy enough to add this (if you are, like me, a fan of Evernote).
Some issues with the last chapter
ChapterEight closes the book with the obligatory look at “What Lies Aheadin Global Communication.” In this chapter, Bunzel begins with adiscussion of presenting from mobile devices. This is fine, as far asit goes. But then he also suggests Twine.com as an example of Web 3.0or the Semantic Web. This surprised me because Paul Allen boughtTwine.com in March of this year and closed it. The Twine URL nowtakes you to Allen’s Evri.com, which is a totally different conceptand site, although it uses some of the Twine technology. The bookfollows this with a discussion of Google Wave – soon to bediscontinued – and of Second Life, which is undergoing its ownsignificant evolution. These changes will make it difficult to useChapter Eight as written. The last pages of the chapter drift offinto a discussion of nanotechnology, brain research, new technologiesin general, and the Internet as a planetary nervous system. I have towonder how useful this will be.
Recommendations
AlthoughI thought the first half of Toolsof Engagement was a bit unevenboth in organization and depth, and the last chapter already in need of updating,this is still a book that I recommend as a possible text foruse in an “academic” course for managers, executives, publicspeakers, and professionals in the marketing and corporatecommunications worlds. There is enough content that an instructionaldesigner can pretty much find a path through it to whateverobjectives there are for a course or a curriculum. As with any printpublication that deals with the Web, the Internet, and Social Media,much of the specific content is liable to become obsolete ratherquickly. This means that designers and instructors who use the bookwill need to keep up-to-date on changes in the online world.
Bibliographic information
Bunzel,Tom. (September, 2010) Toolsof Engagement: Presenting and Training in a World of Social Media.San Francisco: Pfeiffer.
