Pioneers of Digital

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Pioneers of Digital showcases the stories behind key people who have fundamentally influenced the way advertising, marketing, search and social media have evolved during the internet era.

Springer and Carson have tracked down and documented behind-the-scenes insight, decisions and opinions that inspired digital phenomena such as Virtual Reality, Dove's "Real Beauty" campaign, Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, celebrity take-up of Twitter and Artists Without a Label, a free digital music distribution service for independent artists.

The 20 digital entrepreneurs profiled span the globe; some performed their ground-breaking work in environments like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Victors & Spoils, OgilvyOne, R/GA, AKQA, Sapient Nitro and Apple, while others performed digital miracles all on their own. Together these stories expose the secrets of success from pioneers that everyone can learn from. Packed full of unique insight, Pioneers of Digital provides advice and inspiration for readers interested in twenty-first century commercial online thinking. More at www.PioneersOfDigital.com

The pioneers:
Thomas Gensemer MyBO and Obama's 2008 Presidential Campaign
June Cohen Hotwired and TED.com
Denzyl Feigelson iTunes Advisor and Artists Without A Label
Vanessa Fox Google and Nine By Blue
Gurbaksh Chahal ClickAgents and BlueLithium
Jaron Lanier Virtual reality and Microsoft Research
Angel Chen OgilvyOne China
John Winsor Victors & Spoils
Danny Sullivan Search Engine Land
Alex Bogusky, Bob Cianfrone Burger King's Subservient Chicken
Avinash Kaushik Digital marketing evangelist, Google
Carolyn Everson MTV Networks and Facebook
Malcolm Poynton Dove Campaign for Real Beauty
Qi Lu Yahoo!, Microsoft and Bing
Ajaz Ahmed AKQA
Martha Lane Fox Lastminute.com and the UK government's digital champion
Kyle MacDonald One Red Paperclip
Jess Greenwood Contagious Magazine and R/GA
Zhang Minhui Sohu.com.cn
Stephen Fry

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Acknowledgements (p. vii)
• Introduction (p. 1)
• 01 MyBO and Obama's 2008 Presidential Campaign (p. 5)
• 02 Hotwired and TED.com (p. 13)
• 03 iTunes Advisor and Artists Without A Label (p. 21)
• 04 Google and Nine By Blue (p. 29)
• 05 ClickAgents and BlueLithium (p. 39)
• 06 Virtual reality and Microsoft Research (p. 49)
• 07 OgilvyOne China (p. 57)
• 08 Victors & Spoils (p. 67)
• 09 Search Engine Land (p. 77)
• 10 Burger King's Subservient Chicken (p. 85)
• 11 Digital marketing evangelist, Google (p. 93)
• 12 MTV Networks and Facebook (p. 103)
• 13 Dove Campaign for Real Beauty (p. 111)
• 14 Yahoo!, Microsoft and Bing (p. 119)
• 15 AKQA (p. 129)
• 16 Lastminute.com and the UK government's digital champion (p. 139)
• 17 One Red Paperclip (p. 147)
• 18 Contagious Magazine and R/GA (p. 157)
• 19 Sohu.com.cn (p. 167)
• 20 Stephen Fry (p. 175)
• 21 Pioneering places (p. 183)
• China (p. 184)
• India (p. 188)
• Middle East (p. 191)
• 22 Lessons from pioneers (p. 195)
• Not being original (p. 195)
• Pioneering commercial models (p. 197)
• Repositioning creativity (p. 199)
• Skills convergence (p. 200)
• All platforms and no content (p. 202)
• Running in real time (not being ahead of the game) (p. 205)
• Create something useful and never assume (p. 206)
• Enjoy what you do! (p. 206)
• Ten steps to becoming a digital pioneer, from the people who got there (p. 207)
• Jargon buster (p. 209)
• Bibliography (p. 215)
• Index (p. 217)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

If you embrace new media and the spell it has cast over advertising and the world in general, this may be your lucky day. Digital media expert Springer (Ads to Icons) and Carson, a digital marketing executive at Microsoft, present a compilation of 20 brief yet thorough, and sometimes fascinating, sketches of digital pioneers. June Cohen joined the digital revolution in 1991, when she was at Stanford and one could "breathe in technology along with the air," and went on to work with HotWired and the TED Conference, bringing TEDTalks public. Danny Sullivan, a technical journalist, was writing about SEO years before the birth of Google. Malcolm Poynton's Dove Campaign for Real Beauty was the "first full Web-based advertising campaign," reaching 200 million women. Qi Lu, at Microsoft, had the temerity and enthusiasm to take on Google with Bing and earned almost "mythical reputation for leading and inspiring." These concise profiles makes for quick reading, with useful "sound bytes" at the end of each chapter, though the concluding "Lessons for Pioneers" is less compelling. Readers will feel like kids in a digital candy shop. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

CHOICE Review

Pioneers of Digital profiles 20 innovators who created connections using the new digital mediums. Those profiled are not household names, but most readers would be familiar with their work, such as June Cohen, the creator of TED.com, and Malcolm Poynton, the executive creative director for Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty. The book is concise and engaging, providing a narrative of these individuals and the process and results of their work. The penultimate chapter discusses pioneering places, such as India, China, and the Middle East, because of their growth. Of particular value is the final chapter, which highlights the major lessons that can be gleaned from the pioneers. The glossary, or as the authors term it, the "jargon buster," explains business concepts that may be unfamiliar to readers. The authors, a UK academic and an online media expert respectively, go out of their way to make the lessons from the pioneers easily digestible and understandable. Profiling multiple pioneers elucidates the trials and tribulations of innovation while also providing an enjoyable reading experience. Summing Up: Recommended. All collections and readership levels. S. Schwartz Worcester Polytechnic Institute