Personality Not Included - Book Review

Personality Not Included (PNI), a new book by Rohit Bhargava, SVP of Digital Strategy at Ogilvy, is about why companies lose their authenticity and how they can get it back by injecting, what he calls, personality. Through examples from companies with and without personality Rohit lays out the foundation for this new macro trend that encapsulates many of the best ideas in business today; authenticity, word of mouth and social media.

The Audience
This book will appeal to readers that have loved books by Seth Godin and Chris Anderson; it is part call to action and part practical guide. People interested in the current trends in business today from social media to word of mouth will find a fascinating macro trend that will add a new dimension to the current business environment. Unfortunately I think the people that most need to read this book; companies in desperate need of personality; will miss this book since it doesn’t fit into their business-as-usual world. Buy this and send it to the next faceless company CEO that treats you, the customer, as a nobody hiding behind corporate platitudes.

The Details
PNI is about the end of the faceless corporation. In this age of social media, long tails and word of mouth the consumer wants products and services from companies with “personality”. No longer is it acceptable to focus on metrics, efficiency and scalability if it’s at the expense of customers.
PNI doesn’t just highlight the problem but walks through a set of tools to imbue personality into organizations; not to say that if you are making a crappy product you can add personality and make it a best-seller.
This is one of the most unique business books I have read in a long time and contrary to its title has a lot of personality included! Rohit takes much of his own advice and has created a business book with a difference. The book lays out the ground-work behind the idea of ‘personality’ walking through real-world examples that illustrate the key points, but then spends the last third of the book, not just driving the point home with case study after case study, but providing techniques, guides and tools that are immediately implement-able. The uniqueness of the book doesn’t stop there, you can tell that Rohit has put a lot of thought into this book and the personality jumps out throughout the book; there are easter eggs hidden throughout the book (checkout the ISBN page of the book for an alternate introduction --- which is very cool!). Instead of the standard format of most business books, Rohit decided to take a slightly different tack on the examples; they are all based on 2 research techniques that he outlines in the book: 1) Conversing – the stories are based on direct conversations with the people involved, 2) Consuming – all the products and services in the book have been consumed or experienced. These 2 elements make for a truly down-to-earth and authentic book. Every part of this book including his research and writing are made completely transparent which is what he preaches to corporations. Don’t hide behind the policies and business-as-usual techniques; what your customers want is to see a real human being behind the products and services.

The Recommendation
I can’t recommend this book enough! Here are some reasons to read this book:
- Personality is a macro trend – the 3 hottest topics in business today are; social media, word of mouth marketing and authenticity. Personality is the underlying theme behind all of these elements.
- Real world experience – Rohit is an expert in branding and marketing and as part of his job working for one of the largest marketing agencies in the world, he gets to put into action his advice. He is not a business theorist, but someone that practices what he preaches in business today
- Real-world stories – the book is chock full of real-world stories explaining the concepts and highlighting good and bad examples.
- Theory to Practice – the book’s overall format is designed to take someone from theory to action through the most expedient path. You will feel compelled to take action after reading this book and you will have the tools to do it.
- Lost-In-Thought (LIT) – this is what I classify as a ‘Lost In Thought’ book. You can’t just passively read this book. While reading this book, you find yourself lost in thought, thinking about the ideas you have just read. Keep a pen, highlighter and post-its handy while reading this book, you don’t want to lose any of the ideas that this book will stimulate.
- Fun – it’s not often you can say a business book is fun to read, but this really is! I felt as if I was interacting with the book, not only the ideas as mentioned above but also the examples I had to go look up on the internet and the easter eggs.

This book goes up there with some of my favorite marketing and business books. If you liked books by Seth Godin, Chris Anderson and Malcolm Gladwell then you will enjoy this book.

I loved this book so much that, as part of a promotion, I am giving away free copies of this book with the Innovation tool I invented. Check it out at:
http://metamemes.typepad.com/beyond_brainstorming/2008/04/free-stuff-for.html