The Social Age Guidebook Series: Free Action Focussed Resources

Over the last two years i have published six Guidebooks in the Social Age series: they’ve formed a clear attempts to carry work forward from the blog into a more developed, and action focussed, format.

Broadly speaking, each takes an overview of a subject, and includes sections on ‘what you need to know’, ‘questions you should ask’, or ‘what you need to do about it’. They form guided, reflections, not lists of answers.

It’s important to me, as part of #WorkingOutLoud, that these are all free as eBooks (the paperback copies are charged to cover costs), and also iterate rapidly as my own work evolves (hence they are all version numbered as software).

I’m nearing publication of ‘The Socially Dynamic Organisation’, followed by ‘The Social Age Guidebook’, which will form number seven and eight in this series, and have plans for future books around Storytelling and Innovation.

In my own work, these Guidebooks form a useful bridge between the blog, and a full book, and enable me to incorporate research results, and an action focus.

The Community Builder Guidebook is an exploration of ‘Communities’, and the key capabilities of Social Leaders and Community Builders. It offers thoughtful exploration of the topic, along with a practical guide of how to do it. The 9 chapters support you to build new communities as well as help existing ones to thrive and grow.

The Social Learning Guidebook is intended to highlight areas that you should consider when you look at learning transformation. It is not intended to have all the answers, but rather to offer some frameworks and models that you may want to adopt, and includes activities that you can do along the way.

The Trust Guidebook leads you through 12 aspects of the ‘Landscape of Trust’, exploring the best ways to understand it, and to share stories as we go. It’s based around 72 questions you can ask of yourself or your team. Through this we find out how to lead and to engage with Trust. This is an accompanying Guidebook to ‘The Trust Sketchbook’.

To the Moon and Back: Leadership Reflections from Apollo is a little different from the others, building out ideas around Social Leadership. It took 400,000 people to put two men onto the moon, with over six million parts to go wrong: in this Guidebook i share 8 stories from the Apollo programme, and consider what lessons we can take for our leadership today, considering complexity, failure, ambition, and humility.

Finding Your Campfire is a response to the pandemic, and our new ways of working. We have been thrust this context with little time to prepare for the expedition: we are in the wilderness, and must take time to Pause – Refresh – Renew. This Guidebook builds upon the webinar series of the same name, and was written as an emergency Social Age Guidebook: we look at three things: Packing your Backpack; Leading the Expedition; Being Together Apart.

Finally, ‘The New York Dereliction Walk’ is an experimental Guidebook, based upon an exploration of New York through a series of spaces and ideas that have failed, and been reborn through Social Movements. It’s intended as a provocation and exploration piece for individuals and teams who are interested in the evolution of their own Organisation.

I hope you enjoy and find value in these Guidebooks: they will continue to evolve, so ensure to update your copy as it versions up, and feel free to share any requests for future Social Age Guidebook titles.