Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions by Guy Kawasaki, Narrated by Guy Kawasaki and Dan John Miller (Read via Audible.com)

This book is a hard one to review. I have had this book really since it came out. I ordered it due to Guy’s great passion and Amber MaCarthur’s interview on the old Net at Night. It is not often you see such a genuinely passionate guy about the things he works on.

Guy defines Enchantment ‘As the process of delighting people with a product, service, organization, or idea. The outcome of enchantment is voluntary and long lasting support that is mutually beneficial’

The way I digested it was he really is diving deep into why people create connections to both ideas and products. For example, I personally own a Mini Cooper S (R56 hatchback), and I like community that surrounds it from the boutique mini cooper parts shop like outmotoring.com to listening to a podcast on the product called White Roof Radio with DB, Todd, Chad, Nathaniel, and Gabe. I think a big reason why these things exist was the amount of effort both the Mini Product people working on their image (I refuse to use the word Brand) and the loyal faithful customers to build a type of experience that a lot of people love. From the Style of their advertising to the way their dealer’s act (aside from some trying to contaminate the customer review process by asking customer to give all 10’s - man thats a pet peeve of mine) all bring in a unique experience that a bunch of other car makers don’t seem to have.

But this brings me back to the book. At its very basics Kawasaki is really pointing out some of the core principals of being passionate about something you believe in. More specially how you can use that core passionate feeling and craft it in a business environment to give your product/service that great touch that customers pick up on. Or as another review puts it - Influence. At Apple Retail Applecare we had something called ‘Polishing the Apple’. Meaning that when I repaired a computer, I also spent a lot of time giving a good cleaning. So when the customer go the machine back, in addition to a fixed computer, they got one back one is as mint conniption i could make it. From the screen being clean to the cleaning of the greasy keyboard keys. This personal touch to each computer really does help with customers. And I saw it. People loved getting back a clean computer.

But with that, this book did take a while for me to actually get through. I am not sure why as its a fairly short book, weighing in at just under 5 hours of tape time. I picked it up, then turned it off quite a few times. Until finally I consumed the entire thing during a walk down to NYC from Westchester.

Two things tweaked me about the book. One was Kawasaki not reading the entire thing for Audible. His passion is just unmistakeable. And as much as I like Dan John Miller as a professional reader, he did not due Guy’s passion justice.

The second thing was how at times I felt the book drifted or the better word is rambled on. Not the the point were I would have to use the cardinal sin of 2X on my iPhone but it got close.

7/10  Defiantly one to pickup