After the incredible response I received to my proposal to start a Business Book Club, I took the whole list of books that everyone suggested (I confess, I added No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing because I heard of it after my original post about doing this book club), including my list of books and put them all in a spreadsheet, sorted them alphabetically and then used Random.org to select a random number. The number was 5 and corresponded to Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions by Guy Kawasaki!

I'm really excited to dive into this book. Here's a couple of excerpts from the book description:

Enchantment, as defined by bestselling business guru Guy Kawasaki, is not about manipulating people. It transforms situations and relationships. It converts hostility into civility and civility into affinity. It changes the skeptics and cynics into the believers and the undecided into the loyal. Enchantment can happen during a retail transaction, a high-level corporate negotiation, or a Facebook update. And when done right, it's more powerful than traditional persuasion, influence, or marketing techniques.

Kawasaki argues that in business and personal interactions, your goal is not merely to get what you want but to bring about a voluntary, enduring, and delightful change in other people. By enlisting their own goals and desires, by being likable and trustworthy, and by framing a cause that others can embrace, you can change hearts, minds, and actions.

This book explains all the tactics you need to prepare and launch an enchantment campaign; to get the most from both push and pull technologies; and to enchant your customers, your employees, and even your boss. It shows how enchantment can turn difficult decisions your way, at times when intangibles mean more than hard facts. It will help you overcome other people's entrenched habits and defy the not-always-wise "wisdom of the crowd."

As Kawasaki writes, "Want to change the world? Change caterpillars into butterflies? This takes more than run-of-the-mill relationships. You need to convince people to dream the same dream that you do." That's a big goal, but one that's possible for all of us.

I don't know about all of you, but I definitely want to learn how to convince people to dream the same dream I do.

Now, you're probably wondering how this is going to work. There's been a tremendous response to the idea of this book club. So much so that I'm going to start off online only and plan for occasional meetups, but perhaps not to discuss every book we read. For now, we'll try to go one book every two months and see if everyone feels it's a good pace. With the holidays coming up, I think we're going to all like this pace this time at least!

Because two months from today is a holiday, I'm going to be generous and give us all a tad more time. Finish reading the book and write about it - your thoughts, impressions, agree, disagree - anything that that sticks out for you. Come back here on January 3rd, 2012 (whoa, that's coming fast!) and I'll host a link up for your posts so we can all share. By that time, I'll have a special spot for the BBC here on The Media Mesh!

Are you ready to launch your enchantment campaign?