tl;dr: I want a refund.

A friend recommended that I read "Rehumanize Your Business” — a book about using short video clips instead of relying so heavily on email.

Or, I should say, "friend".

I assume that they actually hate me.

I bought this book, for £13.51. (I'm not including a link, lest you should inadvertently click on it and buy the book.)

I could have bought 65 donuts for that price. Or three Raspberry Pi Picos.

But, no. I bought the book.

It is 224 pages and I read it in 10 minutes. If you skip the bits I considered to be fluff, and the bits which are marketing the author's own service, and the bits about maximising surveillance potential with click tracking (urgh), there are a few pages of what, in my opinion, amount to Actually Useful Content.

Honestly, this should have been a blogpost, not a book.

The gist of the book is:

• use video clips of less than 60 seconds, especially with people you have not met yet, to build rapport
• make each video personal to the recipient by using their name or common interest
• use a catchy, short message in the email in which you link to the video, encouraging them to view it, and then reply to you
• smile

That's basically it. So perhaps a tweet, rather than a blogpost.

Will I give it a try? Yes, probably. I'm not sure if it's for me, but I'm happy to try something new, and gauge the reaction.

Did I need to spend £13.51 on the book? Hell no.

goes to check Amazon's returns policy