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Ryan Caligiuri, a fellow Winnipeg-based marketer and columnist for the Globe and Mail left an insightful comment on my review of the NOW Revolution regarding social causes and how they attach to social media. Because of that, I chose him to receive my second copy of the book.

Ryan is the new Director of Marketing for Imaginet, a Winnipeg-based application life cycle management firm specializing in Microsoft-enabled web solutions for businesses. I asked him for some insight about how the media and marketing landscape has changed in the last few years – check out the video below for details.

Can’t see the video? Watch on YouTube – The NOW Revolution Book Giveaway Winner – Ryan Caligiuri

Update: The Modern Earth Blog has also featured this video, with a bit more background about Ryan and the work he does.

Viewing this on a feed, or having trouble seeing the video? See the original article, or watch the video on YouTube.

The NOW Revolution is one of those books that’s approachable by a broad audience, applicable in a wide variety of situations, and instantly appealing from page one. These three qualities alone make it worth buying.

There’s a lot about this book I liked. However, there was one thing that stuck out as a little weird. Throughout the book, there are an array of Microsoft Tags – proprietary QR codes – which direct the reader to further meta-data about the book. While I think this is perfectly appropriate for the book’s subject, it’s a choice made on behalf of the audience; to get everything the book has to offer, you’ve not only got to be savvy enough to understand how, when, and why the Tags are there (they are explained in the beginning), but also be willing to install an app on your smartphone to read the tags themselves. I delayed doing so, in fact, in order to finish the book quickly and not rabbit-hole in the meta data.

Despite this hiccup, The NOW Revolution picked up the ball where other, more theoretical books left it off.

The book really begins to shine, though, around Shift 3. By the time you’ve built the bedrock of your new business, and found some talent you can trust, you’ll be prepared to organize your new armies to do good in the world.

You should go buy The Now Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business. It’ll help you really dig into setting up the scaffolding you need in order to make the most of the current, super-connected business landscape.

If you’re still struggling with the idea, read Six Pixels of Separation and Trust Agents first, in that order. Once you’re done those, and have the NOW Revolution well studied, read Inbound Marketing.

Disclosure: I got the book through the authors’ blogger review promotion. I was sent two copies of the book, on the proviso that I review the book (good, bad or ugly) and give one copy away in an interesting way.

How you can get my second copy of the NOW Revolution…

I believe in using social tools for social good. So, I want to see how much good can be done by means of social media.

Leave a comment here. I’d like to hear your ideas for how we can make businesses smarter, faster, and more social. In particular, I’d like to know what you think of using social business for social good. Is your business involved in charity of any kind? What do you think of using your wattage as a business to benefit social causes? If you’re in a position to make this kind of action through your business – will you? Or, if not, why?

The winning comment will also have a donation made for the cost of the book, to the charity of their choosing. Now. What can we do with this social media thing?