33 Million People in the Room: How to Create, Influence, and Run a Successful Business with Social Networking

I highly recommend this book to anybody trying to get their head around the concepts of social networking and why it may be relevant to you. This book really clarified in my mind, why it is so important to put yourself out there and make growing your network part of your daily ritual along with eating a healthy breakfast and exercise. In all three cases, the benefits may not immediately felt, but over time the payback is indisputable! Each chapter contains important lessons of how to leverage the tools that now exist so that you can establish and grow your brand online. The story of how Gary Vernechuck, a 22 year old, transformed his parent's wine business from $2 million a year to $45 million a year and became a mini-celebrity in the process is a lesson that can be applied by both individuals and corporations. In today's down economy, creating a rich network of people that you can tap into is more important than ever before. Need a job? Need a recipe? Need advice on where to stay in the south of France? The more people who know you directly relates to the more people who can help you achieve your goals whatever they may be. It worked for Obama (he tapped into the social networking to raise huge amounts of campaign funds), it can work for you too. The tools that Juliette gives you in this book can easily be applied by anyone regardless of your field. These are the ingredients you need to know in order to become a 'mini-celebrity'. The book is both a practical guide for anyone looking to carve out a niche online and get their brand noticed.

Wanted to review this soon as I finished, but I was so chock full of ideas that I just had to start implementing them as soon as possible. Safe to say that I'm a newbie to all this but her stories certainly served as an inspiration! The book helped stimulate me, and gave me ideas about how to proceed on promoting my small biz on Facebook. It also taught me how not to be overwhelmed. It gave me a sense of freedom. I now have fun with Facebook and look forward to seeing where this journey will take me - and my biz!

This book is a masterful assemblage of new and edifying ideas to inspire ambitious entrepreneurs eager to expand their existing business and social networks in an era where cyber communication and networking are fundamentally crucial to business success. Having worked with Juliette for 15+ years, reading 33 Million In A Room was much like reading her personal diary of codes and concepts that she has shared with me throughout the years. Prior to it's release, I had the privilege of regularly reading drafts for the book throughout Juliette's writing process. Juliette has learned the concepts and patterns behind building social and cultural capital by working with visionaries such as Wikipedia founder Jimi Wales (who wrote the forward), Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte, MuchMusic / City TV founder Moses Znaimer and Global Business Network co-founder Napier Collyns. The value of 33 Million In A Room lies within the lived and learned nature of its content as outlined by the author's own life and career experiences. If wisdom is knowing how little we know, we owe much thanks to Juliette for bestowing us with her insightful and enlightening ideas.

As humans we have evolved an elaborate dance of connecting with each other to do collectively tasks that none of us could do individually. Over history numerous social mechanisms have been created to aid these interactions. Some work better than others, but the distance between the right people has been critically important. Some people are more adroit at using these fundamental social tools but you usually had to travel to places with high densities of the "right" people. Historically this has been tricky, expensive and not always inclusive. Groups like the Royal Society, "Skull and Bones", the Homebrew Computer Club, the Summer School for Theoretical Physics at Aspen ... thousands of groups that reduced the mean free path between minds to a short enough distance that people could collaborate. These organizations changed the world. But there is something new. First with real mail delivery, then moving to the telegraph and now to an Internet where we can inexpensively reach huge numbers of people. Many forms of communication have been tried, many have failed and a few have succeeded. The hottest area involves small linkages, but from all over the planet and among groups that you may have been unaware of. As in all forms of social communications there are subtleties that are not obvious to all and this is where Juliette shines. If you have been lucky enough to have met her, you realize she is a deep connector. She understands how to connect with a variety of types and how to spread connections amongst them. She creates groups from nothing and is a weaver of minds. . She knows how to do this dynamically. She knows how to do this online. And she knows how to explain what she is doing. Reading her book will not insure success, but will probably give you the insights and the sense of adventure and play required to work out how to do this yourself. I'm not fond of most of the Web 2.0 books and even the term "Web 2.0". There is something very old and deep going on here that many of them miss. Juliette is a master of connections and understands permanence, the ephemeral, and what lies between. This is *really* important stuff. Buy the book.

I greatly enjoyed this book and read it from start to finish in one day. The author know her topic and the Chapter about how the Obama Campaign utilized the Web to leapfrog over the competition is worth the price alone. Great book for those just getting started in Wb 2.0 and for seasoned veterans that want a great read by an author that knows her stuff.